| Return Of The Rentals | ||||
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| Studio album by The Rentals | ||||
| Released | October 24, 1995 | |||
| Recorded | Poop Alley Studios | |||
| Genre | Alternative rock | |||
| Label | Maverick / Reprise 9 46093-2 |
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| Producer | Tom Grimley, Matt Sharp | |||
| The Rentals chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Return of the Rentals | ||||
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Return of the Rentals is the debut album by post-New Wave band The Rentals, released on October 24, 1995 through Maverick Records, a subsidiary of Reprise Records. The album features Matt Sharp - Weezer's bassist at the time - on vocals and bass, as well as Weezer drummer Patrick Wilson. Other contributors include Tom Grimley (Moog, production), Petra Haden (violin, vocals), Rachel Haden (vocals), Guy Oseary (album artwork), and Stephen Marcussen (mastering), among others.[1]
Return of the Rentals was well received by critics and produced the successful single "Friends of P." which peaked at number 7 on Billboard's Modern Rock Chart and received significant airplay on MTV's 120 Minutes. Despite this, the album never charted.
Contents |
All songs written by Matt Sharp and performed by The Rentals.
"Waiting" is featured in the 1996 film Joe's Apartment.
The explanation behind the "P" in the track "Friends of P." has had multiple theories presented as to its meaning. The actual "p" in the song refers to Paulina Porizkova, the wife of Cars guitarist Ric Ocasek who produced the first Weezer album, known as The Blue Album.[2] Paulina made a claim that no one had ever written a song about her, therefore Matt took on the task. Ric Ocasek noted that he found the subject matter of the song a bit odd. Fictitious theories suggest that the subject deals with psychics or the Psychic Friends Network. Finally, some think the "P" is for Patrick Wilson, drummer on the album and also drummer for Weezer.
"Please Let That Be You" was originally written by Sharp and Rivers Cuomo as a song called "Mrs.Young", a spiritual counterpart to Weezer's song "Jamie". On one demo, Rivers Cuomo helps Sharp, doing extra instrumentation and backup vocals. At one point, Weezer considered recording both "Jamie" with "Mrs.Young"(later written as please let that be you without rivers cuomo but instead with rachel haden) as its B-side for a single, but this never happened.
In 2006, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs covered "The Love I'm Searching For" on an AOL The Interface podcast.[3]
In March 2008, Ash covered "Please Let That Be You" for the album Friends of P. -- Tribute to The Rentals.
Tokyo Police Club did a cover of "Friends of P." that appears on their album Elephant Shell Remixes.
Girl Talk sampled "Friends of P." on his 2006 album Night Ripper.
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Q Magazine | [4] |
| Pitchfork Media | (8.0/10) [5] |
| NME | [6] |
| Allmusic | [7] |
Return of the Rentals received generally favorable reviews from critics.[8] Entertainment Weekly gave the album a "B" and claimed, "Its winsome love songs make for good, clean, disposable fun."[9] Q magazine gave the album 3 stars and compare their work to the early work of the Cars, "The Rentals root themselves in the sound of late-`70s US new wave; the result is in many senses reminiscent of The Cars' earlier material."[10] NME also praised the album giving it a 7 out of 10. They complimented that "despite its pretensions to [be] meaningless electro-pop, it can't help but have depth..."[11] Pitchfork Media's Ryan Schreiber also highly praised the album and enjoyed the band's attempt of bringing back Moog synthesizers.[12] Peter D'Angelo of Allmusic praised the album as well, saying "Return of the Rentals is a real benchmark of carefree pop from the '90s, and shouldn't be forgotten anytime soon."[13]