Second albums are hard.
For every Nevermind or Led Zeppelin II there's dozens of follow-ups
that did not have the same level of success as their debut.
The term is sophomore slump.
There are many reasons why a second album becomes an issue
and a shit-hot debut is top of that list.
Public expectations that weren't present on your first attempt become deafening.
You have to get over the hurdle of creating something that people will love just as much as your earlier stuff
while conversely making it fresh and exciting enough that it doesn't seem like a rehash.
It's a tricky balance as many bands have found out
but today I'll be talking about Weezer's awkward jarring and yet simply genius second album.
This is how Pinkerton defined Weezer.
["El Scorcho" - Weezer]
In 1994 Weezer released their self-titled debut known as the Blue Album.
They had a triple platinum hit on their hands with modern rock hits in the form of
"The Sweater Song", "Say It Ain't So" and "Buddy Fucking Holly".
The video for the latter was his own phenomenon both on MTV and elsewhere.
A cutting-edge quirky novelty directed by future Her director Spike Jonze,
where the band were transported into an episode of TV's Happy Days.
It was so big that was packaged with the Windows 95 installation disc.
They were a big deal
but how do you follow that up?
Pinkerton came about in no small part
due to the experiences of lead singer and songwriter Rivers Cuomo between 1994 and 96.
"I really wanted these songs to be an exploration of my dark side,
all these parts of myself that was either afraid or embarrassed to think about before.
So there's some pretty nasty stuff on there.
You may be more willing to forgive the lyrics if you see them as passing low points in a larger story.
And this album really is a story: the story of the last two years of my life.
And as you're probably well aware, these have been two very weird years."
And specifically there are three key aspects that stand out.
With the success of their debut, Weezer became the kind of rockstars
they had grown up inspiring to be like Kiss or Cheap Trick.
But for Cuomo after the initial novelty had worn off the lifestyle bored him.
The touring, the faceless fans, the utter sense of being alone.
To combat this somewhat he applied for Harvard to study classical composition.
In his application letter for Harvard he wrote:
Constrained by the supposes alt-rock limitations of their debut
Cuomo envisioned an opera titled Songs From The Black Hole,
inspired in part by Madame Butterfly. Sort of Puccini Meets The Pixies
After months of work, he abandoned the project
as most the results were he noted "so lame".
But a couple of those songs including opener "Tired of Sex" would end up on Pinkerton,
while the themes of rock star lethargy are still present in "Across the Sea"
and "El Scorcho".
Alongside this Cuomo was living with a self-imposed two-year celibacy
the reasons for this life choice the summed up in songs like "Why Bother?"
and "Tired of Sex".
The unintended effect of this decision was that Cuomo became increasingly internal
and sexually frustrated in his song writing, creating drawn-out scenarios in his head
about women he'd had momentary interaction with.
"Across the Sea" is the most prominent example of this.
In it he reveals his desires for an eighteen-year-old Japanese girl
that wrote to him with fairly standard fan mail questions
He then goes on to fantasize about her at length.
Before lamenting that they can never be together
due to her age, location and his rock star lifestyle.
This exaggeration of circumstances is inflated again through tracks like "El Scorcho" and "Pink Triangle,"
both about supposedly separate women he developed crushes on, though barely ever actually spoke to.
In the latter he states:
Despite his lack of communication with her.
As Cuomo's right leg was 2 inches shorter than the other,
during this period he took some time out to get it lengthened.
This involves surgically snapping his right thigh bone then wearing a steel brace for several months
and performing self-administered stretching of the leg four times daily.
Cuomo likened the ordeal to "crucifying his leg."
He found it extremely painful to play anything on guitar
that wasn't reachable on the first position of the fretboard.
The songs themselves are way more abrasive than those that are present on Blue
and this could be a way of Cuomo expressing his intense physical pain.
Lyrically the process is also referenced in "The Good Life":
In the chorus he mentions that since his surgery he hasn't been able to put himself out there:
and how he wants everything to be back to normal.
There's also a play on this idea at the beginning of "Pink Triangle":
Stable here has the dual meaning
Both Cuomo meaning stable in self
and stable as in being able to get around without a cane.
Pinkerton arrived on September 24 1996 and people fucking hated it.
Critical reception was middling to poor
while Rolling Stone readers voted third worst album of 1996.
It peaked at number 17 on the Billboard chart before quickly disappearing.
The band put out "El Scorcho" as the first single but it didn't get much play on either radio or MTV,
perhaps due to its surreal lyricism,
and awkward guitar work that marked it separate from the Blue singles.
Trying to avoid the gimmickry of their previous Spike Jonze led clips
"El Scorcho"'s video was filmed by Mark Romanek.
"The Good Life" was chosen as the second single but similarly it did not get much radio play.
With the apparent failure of the record combined with the departure of bassist Matt Sharp
Cuomo became somewhat of a recluse, painting his walls black
and not recording another album until 2001's Green Album.
In his journal in 97 he wrote:
Surprisingly since then it's become a bit of a cult classic.
Rolling Stone readers five years after naming it third worst album
voted it 16 best album of all time.
The personal fucked-up lyrics that made it hard for mainstream followers to accept
made Pinkerton key to the emo rock canon.
The first wave of mainstream emo bands like Jimmy Eat World
Saves The Day and Dashboard Confessional cite it is a major influence
on their overly introspective and heart on sleeve lyricism.
Most Weezer fans are split between the Blue album and Pinkerton as the band's most important work.
These essentially showed the two sides of Cuomo's personality:
the Golden God of Power Pop
and the awkward recluse of distorted emo rock.
Cuomo himself has a complicated relationship with Pinkerton's songs.
About the awkward confessional lyrics of the record, he told Entertainment Weekly in 2001:
But recently he's been more able to accept the songs
with Weezer having played Pinkerton live in its entirety on multiple occasions since 2010.
Nowadays Weezer fully embraced the gimmickry first shown in the "Buddy Holly" video.
They made me rockstars on the level of their heroes but they can make videos starring Kermit the Frog
or the first wave of viral YouTube stars.
They're the kind of band that can cover the memetic "Africa" by Toto
and have it become the biggest hit in a decade
and then have Toto cover them right back.
In a way they are no longer the band that created Pinkerton.
Most know them for "Buddy Holly", "Hash Pipe" or "Beverly Hills"
and yet Pinkerton is Weezer and the most influential, their most essential.
If there's one record to show Rivers Cuomo's head cracked open
in all its raw filthy detail it is Pinkerton.
Thanks for watching.
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