Nada Surf

The Weight is a Gift

Released 20-September-2005

# 6

During the ‘90s I had barely a clue about music. Not only was I unsure what was “good,” whatever that means, but I couldn’t even figure out what I liked. Daily I struggled with my MTV, my 92.3 K-Rock (the Howard Stern/New York counterpart of the fabled L.A. station), and the inklings of this or that as it came in whispers from my typical New Jersey high school. As the years passed, I puzzled with the many wonders of the ‘90s musical world:

Was MC Hammer “good” or was I just blown away by his showmanship and out of this world dancing?

Was Smells Like Teen Spirit an anthem I could relate to or was it just a fluke by a band that is better now in how we remember them than what we actually remember?

What was the deal with the punk/ska revival? And for that matter, where the heck did the sound come from in the first place?

The Lilith Fair: friend or foe!?

Was U2 really the be-all, end-all band that Achtung Baby and Zooropa led me to believe? Or was War, the album the older people got worked up about, their true pinnacle of creativity, innovation, and message? Or maybe I was wrong on both counts and instead, they were just righteous blowhards so full of being earnest that they had no notion of the pulse of the masses?

And speaking of earnest, whom the hell was Eddie Vedder trying to fool, anyway, with all his agit-prop grandstanding and swearing off MTV just as he was reaping the benefits of their showering him with unadulterated adulation?

Looking back, I smile with fondness as I reminisce about Club MTV morphing into The Grind (more camera movement, less clothing), Howard Stern creating a revolution of vulgarity from a television station in Secaucus (sadly, he hasn’t done anything interesting or creative in 10 years), and memorizing lyrics written by Mr. Gwen Stefani, Gavin Rossdale. Now, as the smoke is finally clear from all that innocence, hype, and just plain bad music of the 1990s, I can stand firm in my opinions that the Seattle music scene was never what it was cracked up to be (although it certainly was a dominant trend), Diddy (formerly Puff Daddy) and his ilk saw the writing on the wall with M.C. Hammer and are still making a mint on the formula (whether they’ll admit it or not), and those two U2 cds that I treasured (Achtung Baby and Zooropa) are as good as anything the band put out previously and head and shoulders above their current work.

These 1990s were a time when what we discovered is popular was also supposedly what was good. But was it?

And that, at long last, leads me to Nada Surf.

Popular is Nada Surf’s only somewhat well known song. It broke out on radio and MTV in the mid-90s as alternative rock and grunge was changing into “post-grunge,” and sounds nothing like any other song they have ever recorded. At the time, I loved it. The song was completely ridiculous and stood for me as a beacon somehow the same but at once directly opposite Smells Like Teen Spirit. The song’s lyrics are supposedly nothing more than lead singer Matthew Caws reciting the words to an old 1950s handbook on proper teen hygiene sandwiched between loud guitars and a catchy chorus. It encompasses, for me, so much about what ‘90s music was all about: “here’s my message, I just don’t know what the hell it’s about!” Nada Surf’s 2005 release, The Weight is a Gift, finally understands that message, but as a product of our new millennium, is too shy to scream it out.

Forever a step or two away from being crappy, diary-entry emo ala Dashboard Confessional, The Weight is a Gift rises above that tag by the maturity of its members. Many of the problems of youth can be found in this album but now the setting has changed. Gone are the clichés of jocks vs. nerds and trying to win over a sweetheart with earnest pleas that haunt Nada Surf’s earliest records. Instead, like Nada Surf’s other wonderful album, 2002’s Let Go, the band is nostalgic as it navigates through a world of responsibility, loss, and dreams. And the biggest, most important difference between Nada Surf 1996 versus Nada Surf 2005: optimism. Wallowing in sadness and despair has been replaced by maturity and the promise only hope can afford.

Songs such as Do It Again, All is a Game, and Concrete Bed, the best tunes on the album, remind us of the circular nature of life, how each time it makes a pass our perspective is different. Themes of struggle, loss, and redemption shine through as Caws reflects: “maybe this weight was a gift like I had to see what I could lift.” It is in these moments that I realize there is more to Nada Surf than tuneful pop, their other hallmark of effectiveness.

Further along in the album, Blankest Year and Your Legs Grow ponder friends coming and going in one’s life and how it all fits together in the progress of life. In the end, Caws concludes, “Ah, fuck it, I’m gonna have a party!” Where nine years ago he might have hid in the closet contemplating his naval as he doodled in his journal, now he’s discovered the feelings of others rather than himself and that it’s time to throw down. This is truly a breath of fresh air in the emo world and further proof that The Weight is a Gift is not your little niece’s, A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar.

Fountains of Wayne were the mid-’90s band that last year finally emerged out of the mothballs to prove power-pop music from that era isn’t quite without a pulse. Their Stacey’s Mom became a mini-phenomenon but sadly, was nothing more than a novelty that had about as much in common with the band as Popular did with Nada Surf. Unfortunately, Fountains didn’t have the muscle to back up their hit. Nada Surf, on the other hand, is now muscle without gimmick, and more relevant than they have ever been. So even if the masses and the critics fail to give Nada Surf a second chance, there will surely be some who will recognize the band’s achievements in rising from their pigeon-holed past. I like to consider myself one of those people.