My Top 100, No. 78: "The Good Life" by Weezer

I feel like Weezer's one of those bands where everyone who was born between 1976 and 1990 has a story about their importance as a band, and all of those stories sound more or less the same.

I've talked about power pop a lot so far, and I'll talk about it more here and again later on in the list, if only because, under pain of perjury, I'd tell you it was my favorite musical genre. And if the most important band in the history of power pop is The Beatles, Weezer's probably No. 2.

Weezer sort of grew up the way teenagers do, from the dorky charm of the Blue Album to the crushing self-doubt of Pinkerton to a hard-edged Green Album to fully-formed adult version that isn't as good as the teenaged version would've liked. This could've been any one of about 15 Weezer songs, and it was very nearly "El Scorcho." There's a bit of a dork shibboleth to which Weezer song is your favorite, and liking "El Scorcho" meant you were much less cool than kids who preferred "Say It Ain't So" or "Buddy Holly." I dunno. Maybe there's another level that judges me for liking "El Scorcho" better than "Crab" or some shit.

Only I've started to get really creeped out by Rivers Cuomo's fetishization of Asian women, to the point where as much as I love the rest of the song, starting it out with "Goddamn you half-Japanese girls / you do it to me every time" makes me cringe all the way at least through the first chorus, to say nothing of "Across the Sea," which would otherwise be my second-favorite song on Pinkerton.

And so we're left with "The Good Life," which I love for one reason, and one reason only. Well, that's not true. It's a good song and tons of fun and totally in line with the quality of Pinkerton overall, but perhaps nowhere in the history of music is the phrase "shakin' booty" sung with as much gusto and relish as in "The Good Life." 

I mean, not only is "shakin' booty" a great thing in and of itself, but when you really get into it, it's a great phrase to say. Lots of varied and intense phonemes to really wrap your lips and tongue around. "Shakin' booty" is just as much fun to say as it is to do.