Pinkerton (album)

Untitled

Pinkerton is the second studio album by American alternative rock band Weezer, released on September 24, 1996 on DGC Records. After discarding initial plans for a space-themed rock opera entitled Songs from the Black Hole, the group recorded Pinkerton in between vocalist/guitarist Rivers Cuomo's stints at Harvard University. Much of the album was written by Cuomo while he was away at school. To assist in capturing the group's live sound, Weezer decided against hiring a producer for Pinkerton.

The record used a darker, more abrasive sound in comparison to the band's debut album, Weezer, with themes drawn from Cuomo's disillusionment with the rock lifestyle. Pinkerton is named after the character B.F. Pinkerton from Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and the album plays as a concept album based loosely around the opera. Like the opera, the record contains many references to Japan and Japanese culture.

Pinkerton debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200 and fell far short of sales expectations after the success of the band's debut, Weezer (1994). The record spawned three singles, two of which were released in an attempt to save the album commercially: "El Scorcho", "The Good Life" and "Pink Triangle". Despite receiving negative reviews from critics upon its release, the album went on to achieve cult status and wide acclaim years after its release; the 2010 "Deluxe Edition" reissue holds a perfect score on aggregate review website Metacritic. It was the last Weezer album to feature bassist Matt Sharp.

Background

Frontman Rivers Cuomo's struggles with rock and roll success influenced the writing of Pinkerton

After the multi-platinum success of Weezer's self-titled debut album, also known as The Blue Album, the band took a break from touring for the Christmas holidays in late December 1994. Rivers Cuomo traveled to his home state of Connecticut and began preparing material for Weezer's next album using an 8-track recorder.

Cuomo's original concept was for the album to be a space-themed rock opera, Songs from the Black Hole. It would feature songs that segued seamlessly and end with a special coda that briefly revisited the major musical elements of the album. The band began developing the concept through intermittent recording sessions in the spring and summer of 1995. During this time, Cuomo, who was born with one leg shorter than the other, received leg surgery intended to lengthen his right leg, followed by painful physiotherapy sessions; this affected his songwriting, as he would spend long periods hospitalized, unable to walk without the use of a cane, and under the influence of painkillers. In the same period, Cuomo applied to study at Harvard University with an application letter describing how disillusioned he was with the rock lifestyle, writing:

Fans ask me all the time what it is like to be a rock star. I can tell that they are dreaming, as I dreamed, when I was a kid, of someday ruling the world with a rock band. I tell them the same thing I would tell any young rock-star-to-be [...] you will get lonely. You will meet two-hundred people every night, but each conversation will generally last approximately thirty seconds, and consist of you trying to convince that no, you do not want their underwear. Then you will be alone again, in your motel room. Or you will be on your bus, in your little space, trying to kill the nine hours it takes to get to the next city, whichever city it is. This is the life of a rock star.

By spring 1996, the Songs from the Black Hole album concept had been abandoned. The album would instead feature songs written while Cuomo was at Harvard, chronicling his loneliness and frustration, or what Cuomo referred to as his "dark side".

Recording

After the Blue Album tour ended in August 1995, Weezer took a seven-day break. A few days before Cuomo left to study at Harvard University, the band gathered for two weeks of recording at Electric Lady Studios, the same studio where they had recorded The Blue Album, and tracked the songs "Why Bother?", "Getchoo", "No Other One" and "Tired of Sex".

While Cuomo was at Harvard, other Weezer members worked on side projects. Matt Sharp promoted his band The Rentals' debut album, while Patrick Wilson and Brian Bell worked on material for their bands The Special Goodness and the Space Twins respectively. Weezer regrouped in January 1996 during Cuomo's winter break for a two-week recording session at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California, with the intent of completing the songs they had worked the previous August. After recording new songs "El Scorcho" and "Pink Triangle", the band members went their separate ways again while Cuomo returned to Harvard.

During a week-long break in the spring of 1996, the band regrouped at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California and recorded three new songs, "The Good Life", "Across the Sea" and "Falling for You", before Cuomo returned to Cambridge for his university finals. The band put the finishing touches on the album in the summer of 1996 in Los Angeles. Two additional tracks, "I Swear It's True" and "Getting Up and Leaving", were abandoned prior to the mixing process.

Weezer decided against hiring a producer, feeling that "the best way for us to sound like ourselves is to record on our own." The band hoped to explore "deeper, darker, more experimental stuff" which would better resemble the band's live sound. To give the album a live, "raw" feel, Cuomo, Bell and bassist Matt Sharp recorded their vocals in tandem around three microphones rather than overdubbing them separately.

Writing and composition

Much of Pinkerton was written by Cuomo while he was studying at Harvard University. Writing from a more direct and personal perspective, the album explores Cuomo's dysfunctional relationships, sexual frustration and struggles with identity. At just under thirty-five minutes, Pinkerton is, according to Cuomo, "short by design." Pinkerton features a darker, more abrasive sound.

The album's first song, "Tired of Sex", written before the release of the The Blue Album, has Cuomo describing meaningless sex encounters with groupies, reciting his list of encounters and wondering why true love eludes him. Lead single "El Scorcho" addresses Cuomo's shyness and inability to say "hello" to a girl while at Harvard; he explained that the song "is more about me, because at that point I hadn't even talked to the girl, I didn't really know much about her." Second single "The Good Life" chronicles the rebirth of Cuomo after an identity crisis as an Ivy League loner. Cuomo, who felt isolated at Harvard, wrote the song after "becoming frustrated with that hermit's life I was leading, the ascetic life. And I think I was starting to become frustrated with my whole dream about purifying myself and trying to live like a monk or an intellectual and going to school and holding out for this perfect, ideal woman. And so I wrote the song. And I started to turn around and come back the other way." The album's final single, "Pink Triangle", describes a man who falls in love and wants to get married, but discovers the object of his devotion is a lesbian. "Across the Sea" was inspired by a letter Cuomo received from a Japanese fan: "When I got the letter, I fell in love with her. It was such a great letter. I was very lonely at the time, but at the same time I was very depressed that I would never meet her. Even if I did see her, she was probably some fourteen-year-old girl, who didn't speak English."

Themes

Pinkerton is named after the character BF Pinkerton from Puccini's 1904 opera Madama Butterfly. Calling him an "asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star", Cuomo felt the character was "the perfect symbol for the part of myself that I am trying to come to terms with on this album." Other titles considered included Playboy and Diving into the Wreck (after a poem by Adrienne Rich). Like Madama Butterfly, the album views Japanese culture from the perspective of an outsider who considers Japan fragile and sensual; the album's themes infuse the Japanese allusions with its first-person narrator's romantic disappointments and sexual frustration. Cuomo felt that Pinkerton "is really the clash of East vs West. My hindu, zen, kyokushin, self-denial, self-abnegation, no-emotion, cool-faced side versus my Italian-American heavy metal side." He stated that "the ten songs are sequenced in the order in which I wrote them (with two minor exceptions). So as a whole, the album kind of tells the story of my struggle with my inner Pinkerton."

Artwork

The artwork for Pinkerton is from an ukiyo-e print by Hiroshige.

The artwork on the album's cover is Kambara yoru no yuki ("Night snow at Kambara"), print number 16 in Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hiroshige's popular 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō series. Lyrics from Madama Butterfly are printed on the Pinkerton CD in their original Italian: "Everywhere in the world, the roving Yankee takes his pleasure and his profit, indifferent to all risks. He drops anchor at random..." Behind the album's CD tray is a map with the title "Isola della farfalla e penisola di cane" (Italian for "Island of the Butterfly and Peninsula of Dog"); on the map are a ship named USS Pinkerton and "Mykel and Carli Island", an allusion to Weezer's fan club founders. In a 2005 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Cuomo explained that the names listed on the map are those who influenced him during the writing of the album, with Howard Stern being one of those influences. Other names include Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian Wilson, Lou Barlow, Joe Matt, Camille Paglia and Ace Frehley.

Release

Geffen A&R rep Todd Sullivan described Pinkerton as a "very brave record, ' but worried: "What sort of light does this put the band in? It could have been interpreted as them being a disposable pop band. '" The label was pleased with the record and felt that "no one's going to be disappointed".

Three men in a recording studio. The screen is split in three parts, the left one showing the guitarist, the middle another guitarist, and the right one the drummer.

"The Good Life" music video

The band turned down a video treatment for lead single "El Scorcho" proposed by Spike Jonze, who had previously helped raise the band's status with his videos for Undone (The Sweater Song) and "Buddy Holly". Cuomo explained: "I really don't want the songs to come across untainted this time around... I really want to communicate my feelings directly and because I was so careful in writing that way. I'd hate for the video to kinda misrepresent the song, or exaggerate certain aspects. " The final video featured the band playing in an assembly hall in Los Angeles, surrounded by light fixtures of diverse origin flashing in time to the music. Mark Romanek, the video's director, quit after numerous arguments with Cuomo, leaving Cuomo to edit the video himself. The video debuted on MTV's 120 Minutes and received moderate airplay.

A day before the album was to be released on September 24, 1996, a restraining order was obtained against the band and Geffen by Encino, California-based security firm, Pinkerton's Inc. The company sued the band and Geffen for alleged federal trademark infringement, claiming that Weezer was trying to capitalize on the company's reputation. Under the terms of the restraining order, which had Pinkerton's Inc seeking two million dollars in damages, Weezer would be kept from "selling, distributing, or advertising an album with the name Pinkerton. " Geffen spokesman Dennis Dennehy defended the title, arguing that "to Weezer, Pinkerton is a character in Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly... It was not meant to be aimed at any sort of corporate entity. " Cuomo wrote a six-page paper defending his choice of the title, explaining "why I chose it, and how it works for the album, and how it's essential. " The case was thrown out of court after the judge determined that "that the hardship of not issuing the Pinkerton disc would be greater for Geffen than any hardship Pinkerton's Inc or its shareholders might incur from consumers who mistakenly presume the company has anything to do with the album. "

As it became apparent that Pinkerton was not meeting expected sales figures, Weezer felt pressure to make another music video more to the liking of MTV. The music video for "The Good Life", directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, features a pizza delivery girl (played by Mary Lynn Rajskub) and uses simultaneous camera angles appearing on screen as a fractured full image. The video was rush-released by the record company to try to save the commercially failing album, but was not successful.

In October 1996, the band toured the Far East with concert appearances in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Afterwards, the band flew home to Los Angeles, where Patrick Wilson and Matt Sharp made a promotional appearance on the nationally syndicated radio show "Modern Rock Live" in an attempt to improve the album's standing on the US album charts. A few days later, on November 1, Weezer launched its tour of North America at the Ventura Theatre in Ventura, California. On November 6, Weezer performed an acoustic set at Shorecrest High School in Seattle due to a contest won by a student. A few of the songs performed at the acoustic set would later appear on the The Good Life EP. The band continued to tour until Christmas 1996.

In July 2009, Karl Koch, the webmaster for Weezer's website, revealed that Weezer was preparing a "deluxe edition" of Pinkerton. On November 20, 2010, the reissue debuted at number six on the Billboard Catalog Albums chart and re-entered the Billboard 200 at number 73.

Reception

Initial reaction

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	100/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Entertainment Weekly	B
Los Angeles Times
Melody Maker	mixed
NME	7/10
Pitchfork	10/10
Q
Rolling Stone (1996)
Rolling Stone (2004)
Spin	7/10

Pinkerton peaked at number 19 on the US billboard charts, falling far short of sales of its multi-platinum predecessor, The Blue Album. The album received a mixed reaction from critics. Jeff Gordinier of Entertainment Weekly criticized the band for choosing to self-produce the album and dismissed it as "a collection of get-down party anthems for agoraphobics". Writing for Rolling Stone, Rob O'Connor called the songwriting "juvenile" and described the song "Tired of Sex" as "aimless". Rolling Stone readers voted the album the third worst of 1996. Melody Maker praised Pinkerton's music, but advised the listener "to ignore the lyrics entirely. " NME praised the album, writing that "by the time the affecting acoustic lament `Butterfly' wafts in like Big Star at a wildlife protection meeting, Pinkerton starts feeling like a truly moving album. " Pitchfork initially awarded the album 7.5 out of 10, writing that "Pinkerton might actually be a bit much for fans who were wooed with the clean production and immediately accessible sound of these guys' debut, but if given a chance, it might surprise even some anti-Weezer folk. "

Cuomo was embarrassed by the album's mixed reception and the confessional nature of its songs. On August 13, 1997, he wrote: "This has been a tough year. It's not just that the world has said Pinkerton isn't worth a shit, but that the Blue album wasn't either. It was a fluke. It was the video. I'm a shitty songwriter. " In 2001, he told Entertainment Weekly: "It's a hideous record... It was such a hugely painful mistake that happened in front of hundreds of thousands of people and continues to happen on a grander and grander scale and just won't go away. It's like getting really drunk at a party and spilling your guts in front of everyone and feeling incredibly great and cathartic about it, and then waking up the next morning and realizing what a complete fool you made of yourself. " By early 2008, Cuomo had reconsidered the album, saying: "Pinkerton's great. It's super-deep, brave, and authentic. Listening to it, I can tell that I was really going for it when I wrote and recorded a lot of those songs. "

Retrospect

Despite its mixed initial reception, Pinkerton has had enduring sales and in later years has garnered critical acclaim, garnering cult status through internet word-of-mouth, and eventually came to be considered among Weezer's best work by both fans and critics alike. In 2002, Rolling Stone readers voted it the 16th greatest album of all time. In 2004, Rolling Stone gave the album a new review, awarding it five stars out of five and adding it to the "Rolling Stone Hall of Fame". Drowned in Sound praised it as "the ultimate break-up album, the best unrequited love album and the greatest collection of confused emotions captured in the universe... EVER!" Guitar World ranked it #76 on its list of the "Top 100 Guitar Albums of All-Time". New Zealand's The Movement placed it #12 on its list of "The 101 Best Albums of the 90s, " and Pure Pop of Mexico ranked it #21 on its list of "The 50 Best Albums of the 90s. " It has received perfect scores from both AllMusic and Tiny Mix Tapes, the latter calling it "one of the best albums of the 20th Century. " In 2005, Spin Magazine named it number 61 in its list of the 100 best albums from 1985 to 2005. In 2003, Pitchfork placed the album at #53 on their "Top 100 Albums of the 1990s" list, and also gave it a perfect rating. The "Deluxe Edition" reissue holds a perfect score on aggregate review website Metacritic. As of August 2009, Pinkerton has sold 852,000 copies in the United States, and it is certified gold.

Pinkerton has been influential on alternative rock; acts including Manchester Orchestra, Yellowcard, Saves the Day, Taking Back Sunday, The Ataris, Thursday, the Used, The Brobecks, Dashboard Confessional, The Promise Ring, The Long Goodbye, and Rye Coalition have cited it as an influence.

In 2010, Brian Bell told The Aquarian Weekly: "Pinkerton has definitely taken on a life of its own and became more successful and more accepted. At the time, it wasn’t especially critically acclaimed. In fact, I think it was one of the worst records of the year by Rolling Stone that year, and then later it was hailed. That just goes to show the fickleness of the music business and industry. As an artist, you just have to do what you believe in at the time, whether it’s accepted or not. You just have to keep going with it. "

Accolades

Since its release, Pinkerton has been featured in several music publication "best of" lists.

Publication	Country	Accolade	Year	Rank
Magnet	United States	Top 60 Albums 1993–2003	2003	#17
Spin		100 Greatest Albums, 1985–2005	2005	#61
The Movement	New Zealand	The 101 Best Albums of the 90s	2004	#12
Pitchfork Media	United States	Top 100 Albums of the 1990s	2003	#53
Guitar World		Top 100 Guitar Albums of All-Time	2005	#76
Rolling Stone		100 Greatest Albums of the '90s	2010	#48
Alternative Press		One of the 10 Essential Albums of 1996 ("Class Reunion of '96" issue)	2006

Track listing

All tracks are written by Rivers Cuomo

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Tired of Sex"	3:01
2.	"Getchoo"	2:52
3.	"No Other One"	3:01
4.	"Why Bother?"	2:08
5.	"Across the Sea"	4:32
6.	"The Good Life"	4:17
7.	"El Scorcho"	4:03
8.	"Pink Triangle"	3:58
9.	"Falling for You"	3:47
10.	"Butterfly"	2:53
Total length:		34:36

Deluxe Edition

Disc one bonus tracks

No.	Title	Length
11.	"You Gave Your Love to Me Softly"	1:57
12.	"Devotion"	3:11
13.	"The Good Life" (radio remix)	4:08
14.	"Waiting on You"	4:13
15.	"I Just Threw out the Love of My Dreams"	2:39
16.	"The Good Life" (live and acoustic)	4:40
17.	"Pink Triangle" (radio remix)	4:02
18.	"I Swear It's True"	3:19
19.	"Pink Triangle" (live and acoustic)	4:18
20.	"Interview – 107.7 The End – Blue vs. Pinkerton" (unlisted track)	1:32

Disc two

No.	Title	Length
1.	"You Won't Get With Me Tonight"	3:29
2.	"The Good Life" (live at Y100 Sonic Session)	4:37
3.	"El Scorcho" (live at Y100 Sonic Session)	4:07
4.	"Pink Triangle" (live at Y100 Sonic Session)	4:10
5.	"Why Bother?" (live at Reading Festival 1996)	2:18
6.	"El Scorcho" (live at Reading Festival 1996)	4:09
7.	"Pink Triangle" (live at Reading Festival 1996)	4:52
8.	"The Good Life" (live at X96)	4:13
9.	"El Scorcho" (live and acoustic)	4:26
10.	"Across the Sea Piano Noodles"	0:38
11.	"Butterfly" (alternate take)	2:48
12.	"Long Time Sunshine"	4:17
13.	"Getting Up and Leaving"	3:28
14.	"Tired of Sex" (tracking rough)	2:58
15.	"Getchoo" (tracking rough)	2:57
16.	"Tragic Girl"	5:26

Sales chart positions

Album

Chart	Peak position
U.S. Billboard 200	19
Austria	41
Canadian RPM Albums Chart	15
New Zealand	11
Norway	18
Finland	35
Sweden	4

Singles

Year	Song	Peak positions
		US Modern Rock	Sweden	Finland
1996	"El Scorcho"	19	10	18
1996	"The Good Life"	32	–	–
1997	"Pink Triangle"	–	–	–

Personnel

All information is derived from the booklet enclosed with the album.

Weezer

• Rivers Cuomo – guitar, vocals, piano, xylophone
• Patrick Wilson – drums, percussion
• Brian Bell– guitar, backing vocals, synthesizer
• Matt Sharp – bass, backing vocals
• Karl Koch – percussion

Production

• Joe Barresi– engineer
• Billy Bowers– engineer
• Jim Champagne – engineer
• David Dominguez – engineer
• Greg Fidelman – engineer
• Dave Fridmann – engineer
• Hiroshige – cover art
• Rob Jacobs – engineer
• Spike Jonze – photography
• Adam Kasper – engineer
• Karl Koch – webmaster
• George Marino – mastering
• Dan McLaughlin – engineer
• Clif Norrell – engineer
• Jack Joseph Puig – engineer, mixing
• Jim Rondinelli – engineer
• Janet Wolsborn – art assistant

References

Sources

• Luerssen, John D. (2004). Rivers' Edge: The Weezer Story. ECW Press. ISBN 1-55022-619-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Cuomo, Rivers (2011). The Pinkerton Diaries. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Pinkerton at Discogs (list of releases)