Return of the Rentals

Return of the Rentals is the debut studio album by American alternative rock 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).[1]

Return of the Rentals
Studio album by
The Rentals
ReleasedOctober 24, 1995
StudioPoop Alley Studios
Length36:55
LabelMaverick / Reprise
9 46093-2
Producer
The Rentals chronology
Return of the Rentals
(1995)		 Seven More Minutes
(1999)
Singles from Return of the Rentals
  1. "Friends of P."
    Released: November 21, 1995
  2. "Waiting"
    Released: 1996

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 Tracks chart and received significant airplay on MTV's 120 Minutes. Despite this, the album never charted.

Background

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 The Cars guitarist Ric Ocasek, who produced the first Weezer album, known as The Blue Album.[2] Porizkova made a claim that no one had ever written a song about her, and so Sharp took on the task. Ocasek noted that he found the subject matter of the song a bit odd. Fictitious theories suggest that "P" refers to the Psychic Friends Network or Patrick Wilson, who played drums for both The Rentals and 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.

Reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]
Entertainment WeeklyB[4]
NME7/10[5]
Pitchfork8.0/10[6]
Q[7]

Return of the Rentals received generally favorable reviews from critics.[8] Entertainment Weekly claimed, "Its winsome love songs make for good, clean, disposable fun."[4] Q compared the Rentals' 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."[7] NME wrote that "despite its pretensions to [be] meaningless electro-pop, it can't help but have depth".[5] Pitchfork's Ryan Schreiber enjoyed the band's attempt to bring back Moog synthesizers.[6]

In a retrospective review, Peter D'Angelo of AllMusic praised the album, saying, "Return of the Rentals is a real benchmark of carefree pop from the '90s, and shouldn't be forgotten anytime soon."[3]

Legacy

"Waiting" appeared in the 1997 horror anthology film Campfire Tales. The song plays in a character's bedroom during the film's third segment, titled "People Can Lick Too".[9]

In 2006, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs covered "The Love I'm Searching For" on AOL's The Interface podcast.[10] In 2008, Ash covered "Please Let That Be You" for the album Friends of P. -- Tribute to The Rentals. "Friends of P." was covered by Tokyo Police Club on their album Elephant Shell Remixes and sampled by Girl Talk on his 2006 album Night Ripper.

Tera Melos guitarist Nick Reinheart uploaded a cover of the track "These Days" to SoundCloud.[11]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Matt Sharp except "My Summer Girl" by Cherielynn Westrich and Matt Sharp.

No.TitleLength
1."The Love I'm Searching For"3:36
2."Waiting"3:13
3."Friends of P."3:32
4."Move On"4:21
5."Please Let That Be You"3:34
6."My Summer Girl"3:13
7."Brilliant Boy"4:16
8."Naive"2:20
9."These Days"3:00
10."Sweetness and Tenderness"4:22

Personnel

The Rentals

Additional personnel

  • Jim Richards – Moog synthesizer on "Please Let That Be You"
  • Rachel Haden – vocals on "Move On"

References
  1. Return of the Rentals booklet and liner notes
  2. Luerssen D., John. Rivers' Edge: The Weezer Story. ECW Press, 2004, ISBN 1-55022-619-3 p. 163
  3. D'Angelo, Peter J. "Return of the Rentals – The Rentals". AllMusic. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  4. Browne, David (November 3, 1995). "The Amps: Pacer / The Rentals: Return of the Rentals". Entertainment Weekly. p. 64. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  5. "The Rentals: Return of the Rentals". NME. January 20, 1996. p. 42.
  6. Schreiber, Ryan. "The Rentals: Return of..." Pitchfork. Archived from the original on December 19, 2007. Retrieved November 11, 2007.
  7. "The Rentals: Return of the Rentals". Q. No. 102. March 1995. p. 103.
  8. "Return of the Rentals". Tower Records. Retrieved 2007-11-11.
  9. "Campfire Tales (1997) Soundtracks". IMDb. Amazon. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  10. Maher, Dave. "Yeah Yeah Yeahs Cover the Rentals on Podcast". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on January 9, 2008. Retrieved November 11, 2007.
  11. "These Days (The Rentals) by nick reinhart | Free Listening on SoundCloud". Soundcloud.com. Retrieved 2016-03-05.
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