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. 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 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" as its B-side for a single, but this never happened.
Reception
Return of the Rentals received generally favorable reviews from critics. Entertainment Weekly claimed, "Its winsome love songs make for good, clean, disposable fun." 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." NME wrote that "despite its pretensions to meaningless electro-pop, it can't help but have depth". Pitchforks Ryan Schreiber enjoyed the band's attempt to bring back Moog synthesizers. 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."
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". In 2006, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs covered "The Love I'm Searching For" on AOL's The Interface podcast. 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.
Track listing
Personnel
The Rentals
Matt Sharp – vocals, bass, additional Moog synthesizer, additional guitar
