The final installment of our Pinkerton dialectic is a two-parter! Greg wrote his entire post on his phone from Comic-Con which just absolutely stuns me, not only in the many salient points he was able to make, but in its general overall grammatical correctness! “El Scorcho” kind of blows, he says in so many words. Brandon chimes in to conclude that Rivers’ massive egotism was probably threatened by Spike Jonze. But really, who wouldn’t be threatened by Jonze? I mean, have you seen the video for “Buddy Holly!?” I hardly even remember who the band in that Spike Jonze masterpiece was.
From: Greg Schmidt
To: Brandon Hall
I guess, for me, what makes Rivers lyrics tolerable is his self-deprecating nature. This is obvious in “Falling for You” when he refers to himself as “little old 3-chord me.” Even when he says ridiculous things, I always feel like he’s winking as he says them.
I agree with your comparison of Matt Sharp leaving to Jay Bennet’s departure from Wilco. When great bands lose members and leave only one strong creative force, I usually find their new work less interesting. It’s not always productive to go unchallenged when writing music. You need a strong personality to sometimes say, “sorry, dude, but that guitar solo sucks. Let’s write a new one.” Weezer is now the Rivers Cuomo show and I’m no longer interested.
I think a catchy music video for “El Scorcho” could have helped immensely. The album needed a gimmick to get people on board for an album that was going in a new direction. But honestly, I don’t really care for the song and always felt like it solely existed to be the single that fans of Blue Album could swallow. “The Good Life” with a Spike Jonze video would have been a better debut. I think the reason Pearl Jam’s Vs got away with skipping the videos is that the album really is a 10 out of 10 and was embraced both by fans and critics.
I think that the combination of music and video can create powerful results as seen in the “Jeremy” video. That music video really added a new element that made it into something more than just a song. In regards to Weezer, how much more silly did the video for “Buddy Holly” make that already ridiculous song? I thinks it’s totally fitting. And when it came time to do the “El Scorcho” video, what were they afraid of? It’s not like the song had any deep message that could have been distorted. So yeah, I think they blew it when they lost Spike Jonze for the video. He probably could have pushed them up in the charts again. But even if Pinkerton had been successful, I wonder if the path of Weezer would have changed significantly. Rivers was already disenchanted with the business and his relationship with Matt Sharp was probably already strained. But maybe they would have held together for one more great one.
By the way, did we figure out if Pinkerton’s a great album? What’s the final score?
“At ten I shaved my head and tried to be a monk,”
-Greg
From: Brandon Hall
To: Greg Schmidt
You know, I thought of another apt comparison: Wes Anderson’s movies were always so much better when he had to fight tooth and nail with Owen Wilson on the script. Wes Anderson sans Owen Wilson = hubristic pretentiousness without soul. Just like Weezer’s Green Album! And everything since.
As for “song that would fit best on the Blue Album,” I kind of feel the honors fall to “The Good Life.” It just has that hard, danceable vibe that could fit perfectly between “No One Else” and “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here.” But honestly, I just perused Blue Album to see where I would put “The Good Life” and was immediately struck by how much Blue CRUSHES Pinkerton! I’m definitely biased, and can’t claim otherwise, but none of Pinkerton’s songs can hold a candle to anything on the Blue Album (with the possible exception of “Surf Wax America”). And Greg, I know you won’t have a chance to respond to this because it’s our last post, so I’ll just note that I expect you disagree on this point.
As for Cuomo’s fear that videos distract from the austerity of his music, I think that’s just massive egotism destroying the fun quirkiness that made the Blue Album great. Rivers is obviously a very conflicted individual who can pen self-deprecating lyrics, and then turn around and posture like his songs are sacred, not to be sullied or thrust into the shadow of a music video. Remember, Pinkerton was released in place of the rock opera, Songs from the Black Hole, Weezer had initially been working on. Rock operas = sure sign someone is taking himself too seriously. As for the music videos, I imagine he mostly didn’t want someone else getting credit for the popularity of his song. I imagine he saw Spike Jonze’s creativity and popularity as a threat.
Interestingly, did you know “The Good Life” was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris about 10 years before they directed Little Miss Sunshine, and now they have almost as much clout as Spike Jonze? It also starred Mary Lynn Rajskub, another Little Miss Sunshine alum, who never fails to rock my world.
You gave Pinkerton an 8/10. I think I’d give it a 7/10. Maybe a 7.5/10. Which puts me pretty close to your score, actually. I don’t think it’s a great album. Certainly not transcendent in the way the Blue Album is. But it is good. A lot of the songs are catchy, and almost all of them are fun, taken individually. But I’m ready to put it away again. We can reunite in five years.
Until then, “why bother? It’s gonna hurt me,”
Brandon
AudioVole 
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