Weezer frontman Rivers Coumo is not a rock star, despite making some of the best rock music of my lifetime. His existence and overwhelming success is antithetical to the rock and roll lead singer aesthetic of bravado and charisma, and we should all celebrate it. My first concert was Kaiser Chiefs, Weezer and Foo Fighters in 2005, and while they were considered co-headliners, Foo Fighters was the rock show. If you compared Rivers to Dave Grohl that night, it would boggle the mind that they are in the same business. It’s exactly that lack of stage presence that makes Rivers honest, relatable, and authentic because he just couldn’t be bothered to fake it. The beautiful vulnerability expressed on 1996’s Pinkerton is a window into his world, and provides the clever comfort of knowing someone else is out there striking out with girls and feeling disillusioned.

Early reception to Pinkerton was not warm, although it would eventually go on to sell over a million copies in the decades that followed. As the follow up to the wildly successful debut of Weezer (The Blue Album), expectations of another fun pop friendly record were dashed. There wasn’t a, “Buddy Holly” on this album, but that’s not to say it didn’t have some stellar tracks. Artists sing about lost or unrequited love all the time, as they have through millennia, but few get as personal as Rivers gets for 34 minutes on Pinkerton.

The first single, “El Scorcho” finds Rivers pleading through the chorus about how similar he is to the love interest in question, and how they would be great together. Where it really turns up the emo to eleven with the bridge, “How stupid is it? For all I know you want me too, and maybe you just don’t know what to do, and maybe you’re scared to say: ‘I’m falling for you.’” It’s the conversation he’s had in his head for a week making its way into the song without a hint of editing to shield himself from the hurt. As a teenager I was thinking damn, that paralyzing fear that a beautiful woman will put you in exists for him too.

As he mentions at the beginning of, “El Scorcho” Rivers is into half Japanese girls. So how could he not have a song with lyrics that could span the Pacific, “Why are you so far away from me? I need help, and you’re way across the sea, I could never touch you, I think it would be wrong, I’ve got your letter, you’ve got my song.” “Across the Sea” is truly an intercontinental ballistic serenade, however it wasn’t just oceans but orientation that robbed Rivers of love as well. “Pink Triangle” describes him barking up the wrong tree with a lyrical treasure, “When I think I’ve found a good old fashioned girl, then she put me in my place, everyone’s a little queer, can’t she be a little straight?”

The Blue Album this is not. You won’t find pop hits similar to “Island in the Sun” or “Beverly Hills” on this album, but they played five songs from Pinkerton on their blue album 30th anniversary tour and all were highlights with that crowd. It’s also worth noting that this record is like the King James Bible to the emo genre, and while that’s not my cup of tea, you can see the origin story here. It makes you think, it makes you feel. I’m sure people who label themselves ‘alpha male’ everywhere belittle it, which these days is like a cattle prod for a listen.