10 Perfect Rock Songs That Were Written By Someone Else

Any Weezer album that features professional songwriters is normally a cause for extreme concern for any hardcore fans. Rivers Cuomo has proven himself to be one of the greatest power pop writers of his generation, so seeing him working with extra help in the late '00s felt really unnecessary, especially when they resulted in songs like Can't Stop Partying. You can land on a good collab every now and again, and Trainwrecks had a songwriting doctor at the helm to whip it into shape.

Then again, Desmond Child doesn't really fit the Weezer mold when you see his pedigree as a songwriter behind the scenes, having one foot planted in the pop crossover hits with Bon Jovi and Aerosmith in the '80s and working into the '00s with artists like Katy Perry. That pairing might feel like oil and water at the start, but what he and Rivers created on Trainwrecks is the epitome of what Weezer was all about, talking about characters that have a lot of faults and no hope for success, but are going to try to be happy regardless.

Even if the guitars might have some strange crunch behind them some of the time, this is the kind of song that Rivers can sell much better than Can't Stop Partying, as he keeps pushing forward no matter what's standing in his way. Not every Weezer fan is destined for a song like Beverly Hills, but this is the kind of Springsteen-esque optimism that looks surprisingly well on these nerds.