Weezer - Pinkerton
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Music CD Cover
Artist: WeezerEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 1996-09-24
Music Label: Geffen Records
Soundtracks:
- Tired Of Sex
- Getchoo
- No Other One
- Why Bother?
- Across The Sea
- The Good Life
- El Scorcho
- Pink Triangle
- Falling For You
- Butterfly
Free Music Notes for Pinkerton
Free Music Review: Pinkerton
Hit: 5 Stars
Often cited as Weezer's best album, Pinkerton has a strange history. When it was released in 1996, it was loathed, even hated. Critics of the band's poppy "Blue Album" pounced eagerly on the second album as proof that Weezer were a one-hit wonder. Pinkerton's loud, messy, unkempt sound was a complete 180 from that album's sunshiny pop, and in most people's minds, it was something inconsequential. The fans that were built on the Blue Album were immediately appalled. There was nothing on Pinkerton that was remotely accessible, nothing that made you want to fall in love and sing all night long. It was dark and brutal, even angry. And so, shortly after the album's release, the album flopped, and it was quickly forgotten. Weezer went on hiatus, and everyone thought that was the end. It took six years for a small fan base that liked the album to love the album, to tell their friends that it was great, and for the album to rise to a mythic status, a forgotten gem that was left behind in the grunge era. And then there were bands like Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional, who with or without Weezer's help, launched emo to mainstream popularity, and because of its innate greatness and direct influence, took Pinkerton with it. It was inevitable. Pinkerton took more than one listen to accept, maybe more than six listens, but once it got you, oh how it got you, and clutched onto your soul. To those who like Pinkerton, it is more than a great album. It is something personal, something beautiful and emotional, and that is why most Weezer fans will tell you it is their best album. On a song-by-song basis, I would have to say that the title of best album goes to the Blue. Pinkerton might be great as a whole, but the Blue was flawless pop, and every song was a certified gold hit. Nevertheless it is Pinkerton as a whole which is more ingratiating, from the cover art to the dark dismal sound, it is a work of strange tortured genius. It is the realization of the Pixies strange otherwordly pop and Pavement's off-the-cuff slacker rock. It is a strange album in that it stands alone. Weezer never made anything like it again, and noone really made anything like it. And yet even as it stands alone with its solid black background as a sort of black ghost of the past, its influence will always be seen, for better or for worse, in the emo movement. The emotion in these songs is something quite horrifying. Rivers Cuomo was a tortured man. And it's never more evident than in his cracked, childish, mawkish voice and fractured songs. This may be a rock album, but deep down inside there's a child screaming into a man.
(1) Tired of Sex - It will take more than one listen to understand exactly what this song is. It's not pop, it's hardly even alternative. It's definitely not emo. There's a solid heavy-metal riff underneath this, which Cuomo himself will tell you was lifted from the Scorpions. The song is essentially a repeated metal riff, only with high pitched feedback and strange Nirvana-like solos above it. And then there's Rivers screaming and nearly comical lyrics and lists of girls he's slept with. This is a guilty man who wants to fall in love but isn't sure he's quite worth it. One of the strangest songs ever written in that it combines so many musical forms and in the end, is still itself. 10/10
(2) Getchoo - Like Tired of Sex, this heavy song is extremely unaccessible. On first or second listen, you may not know what to think, you may even like it. After that, you will certainly not like it. It sounds like some lame attempt at a metal/grunge song by a poppist. And then, after the months pass, and one day you'll return to it, and you'll realize it's just a great new-wave song, like Tired of Sex, something entirely original, and so brutally masculine, even if it's a boy who's singing and not a man. It's River's which brings this song to a sort of unbearable reality, and gives it that brutal edge that the music itself strives for. "This is beginning to hurt," he moans. "This is beginning to get serious." 10/10
(3) No Other One - I once heard this song described as a heavy metal waltz. Isn't that a perfect description? The riff is decidedly Pavement, and the chorus is so wonderfully classical. "No there is no other one, no there is no other one. I can't have any other one, no I would now I never could with one." Isn't this what Emo was supposed to be about? 10/10
(4) Why Bother? - This is a fast and furious pop/punk song and one of the more immediately likeable on the album. I'm sure every adolescent can relate to these lyrics. Uncatchably Catchy. 10/10
(5) Across the Sea - This is another song where Rivers tries to make sense of love and realizes it is something he can never have. To Rivers, love is something intangible, something that comes with pain, and if it seems right or feels right, than it isn't love. So he searches for love in the strange places, such as a girl's fan-letter or an unapproachable lesbian. He thinks, self defeatingly, if he can love what he can't have, he'll never have to have it, and like many narcissistic and emotional teenagers, deep down inside, he'd rather not have it, he'd rather pine for it instead. So this song is a sort of romantic fantasy, a sort of mini-opera, a fictional opera, in which Rivers is trying to create pain for himself by imagining he loves this girl who wrote him a fan-letter. "Why are you so far away from me? I need help and you're way across the sea." What he may realize, is more than he loves this girl he's never met, he loves the fact that this beautiful line can spring from his tortured imaginations. Rivers loves heartbreak more than love itself. Many will call this their favorite Weezer song. To me, it is nothing special, just a look into Rivers' strange psyche. Once you know what it's about, and you realize how fake and horrible it all is, you may not like it either. I find it to be one of the faker and less emotional songs on the record.
(6) The Good Life - This is the closest Rivers ever got to penning a Buddy Holly on this record. Buddy Holly it is not, but catchy as hell, yes it is. There's that two-chord riff, the crazy off-beat drumming, the simple, comical, and effective "rawk" lyrics, and that sweet double-chorus, not to mention the perfect structure of it all. Is this nothing less than a work of genius? 10/10
(7) El Scorcho - Here is another song which approaches Pavement's level of whimsical spontaneity and brings it to rocking new levels. It's funny how when Rivers sings about nothing we see the most about him. Pop songs are pop songs. It doesn't matter what you're actually saying. So he just about says anything. And then those moments of truthfulness pop out, as if he couldn't hold back, "How stupid is it? I can't talk about it I gotta sing about it and make a record of my heart." Here's someone who's traded emotional stability for writing great songs. And like Ian Brown, "I don't have to sell my soul, he's already in me", Rivers Cuomo just wants to be adored. 10/10
(8) Pink Triangle - Along with Why Bother and the Good Life, Pink Triangle is the most accessible song on the record. It's chorus is wonderfully catchy, and its lyrics are truthfully, comically funny. It's another fantasy like "Across the Sea" in which Rivers "pines" for what he cannot have, but it's certainly a better written song, and it's hard not to sing along. 10/10
(9) Falling For You - This is another Weezer fan favorite and a solid glimpse into what Rivers thinks about love. "I'd do bout anything to get the hell out alive...or maybe I would rather settle down with you". Hmmm....the decisions, decisions. What does Rivers dread most of all? Falling in Love. He knows if he's really in love, there's no turning back, and once he gets there, away goes the artistic ability. If only the fans knew what this song was actually about.
(10) Butterfly - "I'm sorry" Rivers croons, over and over again until the song finally dies. Pinkerton was originally conceived as a concept album along the lines of Madame Butterfly. Cuomo saw himself as the white man who flirted and seduced the foreign girl, who "loved" her, only to leave her high and dry and never return. Cuomo loved love, he loved the girl, but he wanted so much more, and once he fell in love, he knew the only option was to run far far away from it, and so how many people did he hurt, I don't even know. This song is written about one girl in particular, who I don't know, but Rivers obviously hurt her, and this is the sort of song where rather than feel bad for what he did, he feels bad about who he is, and about himself. It's a moment where this narcissistic genius turns the mirror inward and thinks, God, what a horrible person I am. And deep down inside, the sadness is just overflowing. It's one of the saddest songs in the world, this song Butterfly, not because of the girl, but because of Rivers himself. He hates himself, and its never more clear than in this song. Beautiful. Folksy. Tragic.
Pinkerton Poster
Few albums in rock history have enjoyed as complete a critical and popular turnaround as Weezer's Pinkerton. Though tagged a disappointment upon its 1996 release, today Pinkerton is considered one of the most influential and important albums of that decade and beyond. In 2004, Rolling Stone even felt compelled to re-review the album, raising it from three stars to the ultimate five. Spin has since honored Pinkerton as among the 100 best albums of 1985-2005 and Guitar World ranks it among the top 100 guitar albums of all-time.Now the two-CD Pinkerton - Deluxe Edition (DGC/UMe), released November 2, 2010, adds color to the band's musical journey with the original Weezer-produced album remastered and 25 contemporaneous bonus tracks, including every official B-side and 16 previously unreleased recordings. Among the latter are the newly-discovered gem "Tragic Girl," unreleased B-side "I Swear It's True" and numerous live performances, particularly noteworthy given that the band rarely played Pinkerton songs after the album tour. The 1996-1997 concert tracks were taken from the massive Reading Festival in the U.K., radio station sessions in Philadelphia and Salt Lake City, and a lunchtime performance won in a contest by Shorecrest High School near Seattle.
Accompanying the package is a booklet with numerous photos and an essay by band compatriot Karl Koch, who reveals how the glorious "Tragic Girl" was recorded at the last minute but left undocumented, causing many to forget its existence.
A hit single can be a bit of a mixed blessing for new bands, especially if said song gets you firmly lumped into the "novelty band" category. Such was the case with Weezer, whose runaway hit "Buddy Holly" touched a global nerve upon its release, then got on everyone's nerves after months of radio saturation. However, it did ensure that they sold millions of copies of their self-titled debut. Which is why it's so strange that their second album, Pinkerton, was ignored. Perhaps the cold shoulder was due to the willfully noncommercial first single, "El Scorcho," which crashed and burned. Whatever the reason, Pinkerton soon disappeared, which is a shame because it's a great album. Whereas Weezer reveled in the band's geek-rock image, Pinkerton saw Rivers Cuomo maturing as a lyricist. From the opening, "Tired of Sex," which rants about the frustrating easiness of groupies, to the new wave pop of "Getchoo" to the epic genius of "The Good Life," there's much more diversity here than the Pixies-influenced bouncy grunge of their debut. With the closing solo, the acoustic lament "Butterfly," Cuomo demonstrates a pop mastery that promises great things from this reformed geek. --Robert Burrow
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