It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: Pinkerton
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.
It’s a Wonderful Life of Albums: The Blue Album
If I hear the finger picked arpeggio opening of, “My Name is Jonas” there is a near definite chance that I will listen to the rest of The Blue Album. Weezer’s 1994 self-titled debut that came to be commonly known as The Blue Album is on just about any, ‘best of the decade’ lists. It got the name due in part to the minimalist design of the cover art, featuring the band standing next to each other with a blue background, and also because Weezer released another self-titled album just 7 years later (The Green Album) a trend that would continue throughout the band’s career.
“My Name is Jonas” sets the tone for the next forty minutes and change of nineties rock. The acoustic arpeggio at the beginning quickly gives way to the driving distorted guitars that compose the backbone of the record. The guitars on most of the songs are tuned down a half step on all the strings to give a darker feel to the power chords that accompany the heavy metal caricature lead parts that work so well. This is perhaps nowhere more apparent than the lead guitar fill before the last chorus of “Buddy Holly.”
While I will admit that the single, “Hash Pipe” was my introduction to Weezer, all roads lead to blue. “Undone (The Sweater Song)” became the first single from the album and the first of my person-to-person file sharing downloads that I fell in love with from the band. Its opening notes are the background for conversations between attendees to a show that preempt the first two verses. “If you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away” became an anthem of a chorus, and if anybody could give me a ride to the party after the show, I’ll cancel plans.
The catchy single, “Buddy Holly” makes you stop in your tracks a little bit, especially if you watch the music video that accompanied it. It features the band playing at Arnold’s Drive-In from the sitcom, “Happy Days.” Clips of the show are intercut and the real cast member Al Molinaro making a cameo. The whole time it conjures the question, “Is this guy in Buddy Holly glasses really doing a song called, “Buddy Holly?” Leader of the band Rivers Coumo has maintained the look throughout the band’s career, and he has pulled off the eccentric look for three decades.
River’s introverted and unconfident writing style wasn’t quite as exposed on the debut as it was on the follow up, Pinkerton, but it is definitely present. Stating his jealousy, “I want a girl who laughs for no one else,” isolation, “In the garage, I feel safe, no one cares about my ways,” parental disappointment, “This bottle of Steven’s awakens ancient feelings.” At no point does any of it feel dishonest, and that’s what landed it on the Rolling Stone top 500 albums of all time list at #294. In addition to being a critical and commercial success, it has made Rivers the king of geek-rock since 1994.
I was lucky enough to see them last year on the 30th anniversary tour at Nationwide Arena and they did not disappoint. There were wonderful brush strokes from their whole career that night, but ending with The Blue Album in its entirety was masterpiece theater. The cool part is that I know there are generations of Weezer fans that came after me, so somewhere today there is a teenager re-enacting the line, “This band’s my favorite man, don’t you love them?”
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