Return of the Rentals

Track listing

All songs written by Matt Sharp and performed by The Rentals.

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

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. Paulina 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 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.

"Waiting" is featured in the 1996 film Joe's Apartment.

Reception

Return of the Rentals received generally favorable reviews from critics. Entertainment Weekly gave the album a "B" and claimed, "Its winsome love songs make for good, clean, disposable fun." Q magazine gave the album 3 stars and 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." NME also praised the album, giving it a 7 out of 10 and complimenting that "despite its pretensions to [be] meaningless electro-pop, it can't help but have depth". Pitchfork Media's Ryan Schreiber also highly praised the album and enjoyed the band's attempt to bring back Moog synthesizers. 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."

Cover versions

In 2006, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs covered "The Love I'm Searching For" on an AOL The Interface podcast.

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.", which appears on their album Elephant Shell Remixes.

Girl Talk sampled "Friends of P." on his 2006 album Night Ripper.

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

Performers

Guest performers