Pinkerton

this is the album where he felt liberated, where he would be creating this new sound for everyone. the emotional nakedness he hinted at in Weezer (funky blue cover) became fully realized here. not only his voice showed his emotions, you can hear it in every note of his fractured guitar - the soaring, pins and needles feeling it elects out of you with every solo, every vibrato. the music drove you because he sang about a pain not only secular to him, it's an album he made for YOU just as much as him. you almost wanted to grab cuomo and tell him everything will be alright by the end of Butterfly, crying and muttering to yourself how your girlfriend/boyfriend is an idiot.

a funny thing happened. about the time this album came out, power-pop/punk was going on it's way out. this cd was left on the side, pushed away in favor of nameless bands long forgotten. only making gold (as opposed to the 4 million weezer sold), cuomo freaked and closed the door on his musical career for awhile to sort through it all.

earlier this year, cuomo and company came out just enough to hammer enough songs to make a new album, one just released earlier this month. Weezer (funky green cover) seems to be poised as a new beginning for this band. the switch from blue to green, the retro-funky clothes - you can tell from the beginning that this is the same weezer you loved...but...somethings...just...different. something doesn't add up, that's only confirmed when you come back and listen to Pinkerton right after dispensing Weezer (green) out of your cd player.

Pinkerton's emotional beauty, the harsh nakedness and razorblade rhythm cuts deep. every song makes you want to sing, not only because of the melody (which is outstanding), but because you FEEL his pain. Tired of Sex, Across the Sea, Good Life - these are the songs i yell while i'm driving to work, cd-player blasted up, anger and energy thrown on top of it. critics blasted this at first because they expected meandering pop w/o substance. they bought into spike jonzes' videos about weezer - the geeky sensibility, the happy-go-lucky charm. it took critics years before they realized how amazing this album truly is - after rivers locked himself into his room, after everyone forgot who weezer even were.

the green album that was released but only a few days ago. where pinkerton soars and climaxes, green takes a calculated approach and just bops. cuomo hasn't the power anymore to show us what he feels in his music. for better or for worse, pinkerton scared him off that path. from now on, it seems as if cuomo will become another faceless/nameless songwriter who hides behinds his lyrics (albeit still VERY good songs).

so here is pinkerton - on one hand one of the best albums released in the 90s, yet simultaneously something which drove its creator to the brink of depression. the weezer you see now is 1/2 of their former self. here they are at their height.

But time changes everything. When I first heard Pinkerton, I thought, "Whoa, Rivers, what do you think you're doing?" (Rivers Cuomo is the band's frontman.) On the surface, Pinkerton sounds like a desperate, overly emotional and possibly even annoying this-is-my-life-story kind of album. With time, it evolves into one of the most mind-blowingly awesome rock albums of the nineties.

To what do we owe this bizarre transition? All that I can figure is that people tend to hear without listening. When they first hear Pinkerton, they think, "Man, this doesn't sound cool." They don't really pay attention to what they're hearing.

After a while, they begin to pay attention to the words, the rhythms, the infectious melodies, and then they're hooked. To everyone's surprise, the music all of a sudden sounds really, really good. I'm talking good enough to bring about vicarious happiness, anger, longing and sadness - maybe even enlightenment. Trust me, it's happened with a lot of people.

Join the club. Buy this album.