WEEZER – Pinkerton (Part 1)

We’re Crate Digging this week, and pulling out Weezer’s sophomore 1996 release, the much beloved and beleaguered Pinkerton. Brandon and his old screenwriting pal, Greg Schmidt, try to figure out which is more accurate – Pinkerton as commercial and critical failure, or beloved masterpiece of the 90s. Brandon’s first up to bat. Part 1 after the jump.

From: Brandon Hall
To: Greg Schmidt

Weezer’s sophomore album, Pinkerton, has seen every level of critical response possible in the 15 years since it was released. In 1996, the Rolling Stone readers ranked it the second worst album of the year. According to Wikipedia (thanks again!), a reviewer from Melody Maker advised the listener to “ignore the lyrics entirely.” Rob O’Connor at Rolling Stone wrote, “As a songwriter, the band’s singer and guitarist, Rivers Cuomo, takes a juvenile tack on personal relationships,” which is certainly true, but adds for good measure, “Weezer over-rely on catchy tunes to heal all of Cuomo’s wounds.” Which is also true. Even Rivers hated it, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2001:

“It’s a hideous record… It was such a hugely painful mistake that happened in front of hundreds of thousands of people and continues to happen on a grander and grander scale and just won’t go away. It’s like getting really drunk at a party and spilling your guts in front of everyone and feeling incredibly great and cathartic about it, and then waking up the next morning and realizing what a complete fool you made of yourself.”

But then, like, in retrospect, everyone seemed to love it. When Geffen reissued Pinkerton as a Deluxe Edition, Pitchfork gave it a 10! All Music also gave the album a perfect 5 stars. Even Rivers, I guess, came around, telling Pitchfork in 2008, “Pinkerton‘s great. It’s super-deep, brave, and authentic. Listening to it, I can tell that I was really going for it when I wrote and recorded a lot of those songs.” And anyone who still admits to being a fan of Weezer clarifies that, well, at least “the Blue Album and Pinkerton are amazing.”

Greg, I am really excited that this is the second Crate Digging dialectic we’ve done at AudioVole, considering the first was Green Day’s Dookie, an album released in 1994, the same year as Weezer’s debut and much celebrated Blue Album. Serendipitously, Green Day is called out by name on Pinkerton in “El Scorcho!” Both bands are still around but their careers have taken very different trajectories. Green Day won a Grammy for American Idiot in 2004. Weezer’s 2005 album Make Believe was given a 0.4 on Pitchfork, which is remarkable only for the silliness of its score, and any time I run into someone over the age of 18 really excited for the new Weezer album, it has become increasingly difficult not to yell out, “What is wrong with you?” and even harder to disguise the judgment, disdain, and pity writing novels of scorn across my face. If you’re into Green Day, I just think you’re kind of lame.

I’m also excited to talk about the album, because I’d like to decide, once and for all, how I feel about it. Taken only in the context of other Weezer albums, it’s easily, obviously the second best of the lot, so is it great by comparison only? Is it objectively great? Does it deserve Pitchfork’s 10? Or is that the nostalgia talking? Every few years, I decide to give Pinkerton another go, and I usually have the same reaction. I really dig it for a week or two, then it starts to grate and annoy, I say, “Sure as shit not as good as the Blue Album,” and put it away.

Having spent the past few days listening to it again, this is my brief assessment: The songs are catchy and they rock. I want to play them loudly and jump around while listening to them. Opener “Tired of Sex” is all kinds of awesome, has a great opening with that weird keyboard sound, pounding drums, and kick-ass bass line, and feels both reminiscent of Green Day (the bass line) and Nirvana (the guttural yelps towards the end of the song.) But the songs are also painfully and shamefully on the nose, lyrically. One after another, they are the confessions of an emotional infant — pure, unadulterated id that definitely verges on the creepy — “So I went to your room and read your diary,” he says in “El Scorcho” about a girl he’s supposedly never even talked to.

Emotional honesty is very important to me. And confessional songs have a glorious and expansive place in our pop music history. But while I really can’t take issue with any individual song, and I think any of them would be an excellent addition to a Weezer album, piled together as a whole, the result is overwhelmingly pathetic. It’s like 35 minutes of listening to your friend whine about girls and how there’s no point in talking to any of them because they probably won’t like him anyway. At least it’s only 35 minutes, I guess.

So, Greg. I know you loved Pinkerton, which is one of the reasons I wanted to do this album with you. Do you still love it, or has it changed for you? And what, if any, affect do you think this album has had on Weezer’s career? Is it the reason Rivers can’t/won’t write any more interesting music?

“I’m a lot like you, so please, hello. I’m here. I’m waiting,”

Brandon

Download Weezer – El Scorcho (mp3)