Best Of My Worst

What Best Of My Worst Actually Is

Best Of My Worst is a compilation album by Weezer that collects their cover songs from various releases, sessions, and collaborations. It came out in 2018 through Geffen Records. The band originally put these tracks in different places over roughly a decade — singles, B-sides, charity albums, movie soundtracks. Someone at the label finally collected them in one package. The tracklist runs about 57 minutes. You get Steely Dan, The Knack, The Clash, Cheap Trick, The Beatles, and a handful of other artists reinterpreted through Rivers Cuomo's songwriting lens. Some versions are full studio recordings, others are live or acoustic. It's not a particularly deep cut collection. Most of these you could find on existing albums if you bothered digging for them.

How to Get Best Of My Worst

You can stream it on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube Music, and any other major platform. If you want to download it, your options are limited. Spotify and Apple Music let you save for offline listening within their apps, but that's DRM-protected, not a file you own. For an actual MP3 or FLAC file, you'd need to purchase it through something like Amazon Music or the iTunes Store. I bought my copy through iTunes back when it was still called the iPad era. Cost me about $12 for the full album. Physical copies exist too. CD is available on Amazon and through the official Weezer store. There's no vinyl pressing of this particular release, which surprised some collectors. The band has pressed vinyl for other projects, so this one slipping by wasn't random — the covers material just didn't generate enough demand for a press run. I keep the CD in my car. Streaming works fine at home, but my car stereo from 2012 doesn't have Apple CarPlay and the Spotify app kept buffering on road trips. Dropped the disc in the glovebox and solved that problem.

Listening Experience and Quality Notes

Audio quality varies across the tracklist because the source material comes from different sessions spanning 2006 to 2018. Earlier recordings like their Steely Dan cover of "Show Don't Tell" were mixed for streaming platforms that compress audio. If you're listening on default Spotify settings, you're getting around 160kbps Ogg Vorbis. That's adequate but not clean. Tidal users with a HiFi subscription get the full lossless treatment on most tracks. I compared the two versions side by side on my desktop monitors — the Tidal version has noticeably tighter low end on the Cheap Trick cover and clearer vocal separation on the Beatles track. The difference isn't massive. You'd have to be actively listening to catch it. Most people won't notice it during casual playback. One issue worth flagging: track sequencing feels arbitrary. The album opens with "My Way" by The Clash, which works as a statement piece, but then immediately drops you into a midtempo Knack cover that saps the energy. The flow never really recovers. I usually skip past track three and go straight to "Across The Universe." The track order seems designed more for chronological completion than listenability.

What's Actually Worth Your Time Here

The standout tracks are the ones where the band leaned into something unfamiliar. Their rendition of Steely Dan's "Show Don't Tell" changes the tempo and arrangement enough that it feels like a genuine reinterpretation rather than a cover-by-numbers exercise. The piano work from session players carries it. The Cheap Trick version of "Surrender" is energetic but not especially distinct from the original — Skip Bayless could tell the difference between those two recordings, and he's not a music person. The Don Henley collaboration on "Mississippi Girl" is the only track that feels genuinely new for the band. It's a songwriting partnership, not a cover, so it sits odd on this compilation. Some fans argue it shouldn't be here at all. It was added to pad the runtime, which is a common label tactic with collection albums. I played this album during a period last year when I had no internet and my streaming queue was empty. Had to pull the CD. Listened to it straight through five times in one weekend. By the end I understood why the band never released this before. It's competent but unremarkable. Good filler. Not essential.

Common Mistakes People Make

First, don't buy this expecting deep cuts or unreleased material. Every track on here has been available somewhere before. The "best of" framing is marketing language. If you already own Green Ryder Club, Maladroit, or the Sing album, you own most of this music already. Second, avoid downloading from sketchy torrent sites. I tried one in 2019 because I forgot my iTunes password. The file was labeled 320kbps MP3. Played back at about 96kbps with visible digital artifacts on the high frequencies. The source was a CD rip someone compressed twice. Not worth the risk. Third, if you're looking for the band's heavier alternative takes, this isn't where they live. The Foo Fighters tribute cover of "My Hero" sounds like every other garage band attempt at that song. Go listen to their live versions from the 2019 tour instead. Those have actual energy.

I still keep this album in my library. Not because it's great. Because occasionally I want background music that requires nothing from me. Best Of My Worst delivers exactly that. It doesn't ask for your attention. That's probably its main selling point, honestly.