Weezer
Pinkerton (1996)
C.M. Crockford
Here's the big, massive difference
between the Blue Album and Pinkerton, Weezer's 1996 sophomore effort:
Weezer invites you to dive
into the world of this particular band, one that's esoteric and
pleasingly yearning (in a way that reminds you maybe of those Beatles
albums your dad pulls out sometimes), filled with harmonies and big
triumphant guitar solos. In direct contrast Pinkerton makes
you identify with Rivers Cuomo and his deep frustrations, often to a
very, very uncomfortable degree, the equivalent of being in a cramped
room with a man ranting at you about his creepy issues. Pinkerton
is the desperate, jumbled spilling out of a single guy's rage with
said status, obsession with “half Japanese girls†and desire to
be a “good little boy†when he knows he's not that in the least.
You could condemn
Cuomo's Orientalist obsessions and petty grudges, but it's hard to
because (1) the songs are so good and well…(2) most of us
have felt like this. We've
probably just processed it a little bit easier, in part because of
pieces of pop culture like this.
And of
course, the main thrill of the album is exactly that it was a raw,
dirty record (at least as raw as Weezer could get) written by a man
who's chucked his super ego into the trash because it's not fucking
helping. The solo on “Pink Triangle†for example is closer to a
Cobain bridge than the hummable ones on “Buddy Hollyâ€, while
“Tired of Sex†opens with feedback and hideous, simplistic
keyboard interlocked with sludgy bass. Weezer produced the record
themselves and it has the ramshackle, resentful sound of a band
making themselves as loud and profane as they want, Patrick Wilson's
drums throughout on “Getchoo†and “Falling For You†pounding
to be heard in the mix. It can get a little grating on repeated
listen, as if the band was just being snotty to the average listener,
but the splashes of beauty throughout are breaths of fresh air amid
squeal that still reward twenty years later, like the xylophone on
“Triangleâ€
What
truly makes Pinkerton so
effective and powerful though is how personal and fearlessly,
hideously unfiltered the songs are. Cuomo wrote them of course
famously after spending time at Harvard and an operation on his leg,
writing ten pieces of bile, loneliness and loathing: loathing for
himself and for the women he wants so badly that then changes back
into a simple need for anyone, physically and emotionally. Inspired
by the opera Madame Butterfly, Pinkerton is
a version of that kind of heavy emotion, albeit processed through the
world of a white twentysomething pop savant. Many of the lyrics sound
like threats or floating creepy thoughts: “It used to be a game/Now
it's a crying shame/Cause you don't wanna play around no moreâ€, “So
I broke into your room and read your diary…â€
But
that's why so many people started to embrace Pinkerton,
why it's DNA is embedded in dozens of bands, right down to the
acoustic closer - “Butterflyâ€, a beautiful, unbearably wrenching
piece of work where Cuomo wrestles with what he's done, who he is,
and the possibility of real, lasting empathy for women as something
other than intangible, beautiful objects. “I guess you're as real
as me/Maybe I can live with that/Maybe I need fantasy/a life of
chasing butterfly,†he sings, a moment of epiphany that hopefully
doesn't fade and wither either (amusingly plenty of emo bands seem to
have missed the point here). Pinkerton was
a martyr, an album made so other, especially major label bands didn't
have to cross that line and could write slightly more palatable
alt-rock. Cuomo himself disowned it for a few years til he got the
message that it had found its audience at last, but Weezer will
never, ever make anything like it again. Pinkerton lived
so others could find it, relate, then start bands of their own,
repeating the same cycle of alienation, identification, and creation.
And on pop music goes.