Weezer - Pinkerton Album Review
Review: After the success of the Blue Album, Weezer’s debut album, the band spent time working on a rock-opera called Songs From the Black Hole, which would have been used to express Rivers Cuomo’s mixed feelings about his life in a rock band. The story followed a spaceship on an important mission and the ship’s captain gets involved in a love triangle with two girls on the crew. During the making of this record, Rivers went through a significant amount of surgery to lengthen one his legs, which had been noticeably shorter than his other leg since birth, and much of the album’s composition was delayed because the long intervals of time that Rivers was hospitalized and receiving a lot of painkillers. After all the surgery-related events had ended, Rivers attended Harvard to pursue a degree in English. During his time at Harvard, he started writing more serious, darker songs which would later become the Pinkerton album, which became a bigger focus for the band than Songs From the Black Hole. Though the songs “Tired of Sex,” “Getchoo,” and “No Other One,” were originally meant to be put on Songs From the Black Hole, but were put on Pinkerton instead. Additionally the song “Space Rock” on the Green Album was also originally meant for Songs From the Black Hole.
When Weezer started the recording for Pinkerton, the band omitted from hiring a producer, wanting to capture a more genuine, live sound that they felt would give the album an honest, unique sound. Because of this as well as the different direction in composition from their previous record, Pinkerton gained an abrasive, raw rock sound, with drums that almost sound like they were recorded in a kitchen (a good thing in my opinion). The band thought the results represented a good live sound accurate to how they sound when performing instead of altering their sound with overprocessing. Unfortunately, because of this recording style and sound and also the fact that Weezer didn’t hire a professional producer, the band was criticized by the label and music critics alike and the record didn’t reach very high commercial success. Though a few music videos were made, namely El Scorcho, that saw fairly regular airplay. Many initial fans were deterred by the album’s radical change in sound from their first album but the album nonetheless gained a cult following. Now it is well known as one of the band’s best efforts all across the fanbase.
Personally, I believe this was their best album in terms of songwriting, themes, lyrics, and frankly I think the production and abrasive rock sound suited them the best out of all the records. I don’t believe it’s possible for the band to make anything better than this album, because this album is just so one-of-a-kind, but that is just what I personally think. There is an intimacy on this record that is unmatched by their first album as well as every album after it. Not only is the album confessional, but it’s personal in more ways. It shows the two sides of Rivers Cuomo: the intelligent, sensitive side and the pissed-off, rock-out side. I have read somewhere that Rivers suffers from Bipolar Disorder, though I haven’t read anything covering it much farther so I’m not exactly sure if that information is correct, and that he wrote the songs to satisfy his two most prominent moods, mostly to help cope with the disorder. If this is true, then it explains a lot about the album and it’s themes as well as music, and it makes me proud of Rivers to have balanced that disorder with a successful life and always show a smiling face for his performances for so many years. There is no doubt that Rivers has battled depression at different times in his life, which is something he has discussed in quite a few interviews. And Pinkerton shows the story of a guy who is battling through himself his loneliness and depression, his pursuit to find a girl who will accept him for who he is, his conflicting relationship with the rockstar lifestyle, and struggling to achieve some sort of stability. It’s a relatable and applicable conceptual album and beautifully executed. The tracklist is in the same order as the order in which he initially wrote the songs, with only a few changes. And yet the album flows from start to finish so well.
For me, this is one of those albums that I can be away from for any interval of time and still come back to it with the same amount of joy, if not more, than the last listen. Every listen is fresh and the album just never gets old. It is timeless. I’m sure that I will take a listen to this album when I am deteriorating in an elderly home and I will still find something on the record I can relate to. I would recommend this album to just about everybody, but for people who like relatable, intimate and personal music, this album is especially for you. In fact, if that is who you are, this might just be one of the most important albums you’ll ever listen to. Even though Weezer isn’t my favorite band and the genre they play isn’t my favorite, this album is definitely one of my favorite albums of all time and continuously influences me in numerous ways.
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