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Pinkerton

Weezer - Pinkerton Audio CD

A fair review of the Weezer "Pinkerton" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Weezer reviews here, or go back to the Weezer tabs.

Band: Weezer
Title: Pinkerton
Rating:

Release Date: 1996-09-24
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Tired of Sex 2: Getchoo 3: No Other One 4: Why Bother? 5: Across the Sea 6: Good Life 7: Scorcho 8: Pink Triangle 9: Falling for You 10: Butterfly

An overlooked gem.
Ignored upon its original release, "Pinkerton" now stands out as Weezer's most accomplished album. More ambitious than either the Blue or Green albums (both classics themselves), "Pinkerton" is a raw, deliberately-underproduced album that takes a veiled concept about Madame Butterfly and fuses it with Rivers Cuomo's obsessive lyrics, endlessly hummable melodies, and Weezer's roughest garage-band sound.

Pinkerton
When it was released in 1996, it was loathed, even hated. Often cited as Weezer's best album, Pinkerton has a strange history. 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.

Brilliant and Honest
With this one, Rivers Cuomo didn't care about making perfect rhymes, perfect chords, perfect quality recordings, or topping the charts; he cared about getting his frustrations, his opinions, and his sick quirks out into the air for everyone to hear. Amazing. This is artistic venting. It's a little too much to handle at first, but when the lyrics get in your head and you realize what is being said, you can't help but notice that you've thought the same sick things and been through the same awful situations (only you don't have the guts to admit it to the whole world in a song). Every guy in this world who isn't perfect can relate to this album (as sad as that is). That's what's so great about Pinkerton. . . and that's without even mentioning how awesome Cuomo's happy pop punk hooks mix with grunge elements, loud distortion, sloppy vocals, and poor recording quality. This album is the definition of perfect irony, things that shouldn't work just. . . . work. Too bad Rivers straightened up his life, I could have handled a few more Pinkertons. .

Standout electric rock
. 4 1/2

Still as hard-hitting as the day it was first misjudged by many, Pinkerton encapsulates whatever the whole "emo" label became for me in not only Cuomo's vulnerability and singular songwriting genius but for how punctual almost every note by every member is played throughout.

Buy it
Put it on and turn the volume to 11. This is Weezer's best album, truly excellent.

You can see a complete list of all Weezer discography, or go back to the Weezer tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.