Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	72/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Blender
Entertainment Weekly	C+
Los Angeles Times
NME	8/10
Pitchfork Media	5.4/10
Q
Rolling Stone
Spin	7/10
The Village Voice	B−

Maladroit is the fourth studio album by American rock band Weezer, released on May 14, 2002, through Geffen Records. Self-produced by the band themselves, the album is the first Weezer album to feature bassist Scott Shriner, following the departure of former bassist Mikey Welsh in 2001. The album features heavy metal riffs, uncommon to Weezer's previous releases.

Maladroit received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. As of December 2007, the album has sold 605,000 copies in the United States, having reached a high of #3 on the US Billboard 200 and quickly going gold. Two singles were released from the album: "Dope Nose" and "Keep Fishin'".

For the band's fourth studio album, Weezer attempted to incorporate an innovative system in which the group would release demos in MP3 format on the band's website every day while in the studio working on Maladroit. This resulted in dozens of different versions of over thirty different songs circulating on the Internet before the album was released.

The idea was to keep solid communication open with the band's fan base on the group's official message board as well as, more crucially, on unofficial message boards such as the Rivers Correspondent Board (which was closed to the public at Cuomo's request, chiefly so that members of the press could not gain access). Yet frontman Rivers Cuomo and the fans strongly disagreed on a number of creative aspects of the album. One thing they did agree on was bringing back the old summer 2000 song "Slob" for use on the album. Cuomo commented, "I never would have thought to put the song 'Slob' on the record if the fans did not request it. Scott Shriner also wanted a hidden track, 'Are You Gonna Be?,' for the album." Regardless of disagreements, Weezer fans are still "specially thanked" in the album's liner notes and the album title itself was suggested by a board member on the Weezer message boards who went by the screen name of Lethe.

...
Wikipedia