Weezer

Thanks to Weezer's synthesis of naked self-pity and grungy power chords, many credit the group's 1990s output for today's Dashboard Confessionals. In reality, the quartet gave suburban kids sanitized versions of Pavement and Sebadoh, along with a narcissism on par with that of the hair-metal icons that vocalist Rivers Cuomo once idolized.

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More About

• Weezer
• Rivers Cuomo
• Beverly Hills (California)
• Van Halen
• Sebadoh

Perhaps that's why Make Believe, Weezer's first record in three years, has spots of Def Leppardesque brooding and fanfares in the style of Europe's "Final Countdown" -- even as it motors through familiar cloudy-rock fuzz balls and zippy new-wave pop. Nevertheless, Cuomo is still the self-flagellating Reverend Dimmesdale of the cardigan set, a demigod to fumbling nerds who fuck up their love lives. But his innate Van Halen-level ambition still conflicts with his outward Harvard-student geekdom -- or, as he puts it on "Beverly Hills," "I wanna be just like a king/Truth is, I don't stand a chance." The difference now is that instead of being bitter about not being cool, Cuomo is apologetic, hesitantly asking for affection on "Hold Me" and even titling a song "Pardon Me." This humility echoes Weezer's earliest successes and makes Believe charming rather than whiny.