On its release in 1996, Pinkerton was slammed for being an embarrassing mess of singer River Cuomo’s personal baggage masquerading as music. Nowadays, the album is seen a lot more favorably as a hard-hitting album that discusses the darker parts of Cuomo’s thoughts. Even so, remnants of that previous area remained in some places, and I was put under the impression that the album was a dumpster fire, laughably bad collection of garbled noise as several sources claimed. I recall that I tried to listen to Pinkerton a few years back purely in an ironic way, to laugh at it. I heard about a minute of the first song, didn’t like it, and decided it wasn’t worth my time. It wasn’t laughably bad or anything. I just didn’t like it.
Now, after listening to the whole thing, I can say that I still don’t really like the first track, titled Tired of Sex. I don’t like Cuomo’s dead voice (though I suppose that fits the title,) I don’t like his weird metal screeching during the chorus, I don’t like the corny lyrics. It just sounds sort of lame.
However, I have come around to the album as a whole. I sort of respect Cuomo for being entirely honest with himself and saying things in a super blunt way. There’s no point where he tries to soften his words or make himself seem sympathetic and redeemable. He just blurts out the nastiest crap about his weird Japanese fetish and how he likes to imagine girls sploinking it in their rooms, or how he licked and sniffed an envelope sent to him from a female fan. I simultaneously think more and less of him after hearing all of these things.
Apparently, the album is titled after the character Pinkerton from the opera Madama Butterfly, who in the story marries a geisha in Japan only to abandon her and leave for America to find a new wife. I don’t really know what that has to do with this album other than the fact that Cuomo has a kink for Japanese women. And I suppose Cuomo thought this kink was important enough to title the whole album after it, which is sort of odd and creepy. But again, I respect it.
The first half of the album I don’t care for much. Getchoo is a song that I dislike for the same reasons as Tired of Sex. It’s kind of a mess of sound with Cuomo yelling “Getchoo!” over it, which I still don’t know the meaning of. The chorus is just repeating “Getchoo, uh-huh!” several times. It’s an angry sound, but not a very catchy one. It’s not something I would ever listen to if I’m not relistening to Pinkerton, and it’s not something I would sing along to. Just not very fun.
No Other One and Why Bother? are two I like a little bit more, though I don’t love them. It’s when the tracks start feeling like music. No Other One has these nice electric guitar riffs that give the song a flood of emotion and pairs nicely with Cuomo’s depressed voice (he’s stopped his angry voice now). It’s a song about Cuomo being afraid to break up with a terrible girlfriend because he thinks he can’t find anyone else. The topic is pretty cool and depressing. I give it a 6/10. Why Bother? is about not even wanting to bother pursuing women because he knows it will inevitably end in heartbreak. The chorus is catchy and this song is a lot more upbeat than the previous ones. Not much else to say though. 7/10.
Every song after these I view pretty positively. I don’t feel like going over them all in detail so here’s a quick list on what the song is about and how I feel about it:
Across the Sea – This one’s about a fanletter Cuomo got from a girl in Japan, and how he starts drooling and fantasizing about her. It’s by far the creepiest song in the album, and I’m legitimately shocked that Cuomo had the balls to sing about this crap when the girl was only 18 and Cuomo was 26 at the time. But it’s pretty catchy, and I like the guitar. 8/10.
The Good Life – To be honest I don’t know what this song is supposed to be about. I think it’s about Cuomo hitting the streets again after feeling like an old man. It’s also by far the nerdiest sounding song in the album. The chorus has the lyrics, “Shaking booty and making sweet love all the night.” Cuomo made this album mainly to shake off the nerdy perception the public had of them after their Blue album debut, and by God did he fail. This song is so corny and dorky. But the chorus is pretty damn catchy and like always the guitar is great. Another 8/10.
el Scorcho – Actually, this is the dorkiest song on the album. It opens up with the lyrics, “Goddamn, you half-Japanese girls do it to me every time.” But I think this time the dorkiness is on purpose. It’s about Cuomo begging a girl to go out with him from what I can tell. All the while, Matt Sharp is doing these high pitched yells which is pretty goddamn funny. And by far the funniest thing is the line “I’ll bring home the turkey if you bring home the bacon,” which is so terrible it’s hilarious. 8/10. Again.
Pink Triangle – By far my favorite song of the album. The verses are catchy, the chorus is catchy, it has a poppy feel to it that reminds me of Blue. The lyrics again are pretty corny, but I guess in real life you can’t always say things so eloquently. My favorite part is when he says, “If everyone’s a little queer, can’t she be a little straight?” It comes off as pathetic and entitled, but in moments of desperation, we’re not always thinking so kindly. Great song. 9/10.
Falling For You – It’s okay. Corny lyrics, but fun chorus, which could be said about most of the songs. I can’t say I have too many feelings about this one. 7/10.
Butterfly – Probably the second best song on here; a slow, quiet acoustic guitar song matched by soft vocals. Essentially it’s Cuomo’s apology for being terrible and saying terrible stuff and doing terrible things. It’s pretty sad, I think. I like how the verses alternate between getting higher and lower every line. I don’t know anything about music theory so I can’t go in depth as to why I like it. But it’s good. Another 9/10.
All in all I think Pinkerton is a terrible album. Weezer should be ashamed of what they’ve done here, they are a God awful band, and this album gets my first ever 0/10 rating. I’m thoroughly shocked that real living people had the gall to gather this collection of banging pots and pans and release it for retail sale. Thankfully, Weezer would later come to their senses and release the greatest album of all time, Raditude. This is why Weezer is the greatest band of all time.
