25th anniversary review: Weezer – “Pinkerton”

This review is part of a series looking back at significant albums on their anniversaries. Through the benefit of hindsight we will be viewing the album not just as it was released, but how it stands the test of time, as well as its place in the band’s discography and the genre in general.

DGC – 24 Sep 1996

Under appreciated when it was first released, Pinkerton now stands as Weezer’s masterpiece.

Pinkerton is known as Weezer’s deepest and darkest album, and that led to the album being a colossal failure when it was released. With low album sales and negative reviews, I always felt like Cuomo felt really offended by the reaction to Pinkerton. Even though this album was vindicated in the end, coming to be a cult favorite and now frequently touted as their best album, with even Rolling Sone magazine retracting and rewriting their review eight years after the album’s release, Cuomo always seemed stung by that initial rejection of Pinkerton. After this album, Weezer got shallower, more calculated, and took way fewer risks. There’s a reason why the saying “They really went downhill after Pinkerton” has been uttered so many times it’s actually the punchline of a ClickHole article.  Cuomo didn’t want to risk another Pinkerton, and ironically that made Pinkerton the last truly genuine album he ever wrote.

People like to say that Pinkerton is based on the opera Madame Butterfly, but that’s not really the case. The album neither tells the story of Madame Butterfly nor does it really parallel the plot of the opera. I’m as disappointed as you are to find that an opera from 1904 doesn’t actually have a scene where an American naval officer in Japan falls in love with a woman who turns out to be a lesbian like it’s some sort of proto-Chasing Amy. It’s more accurate to say that Pinkerton is named after the opera, as its name comes from Madame Butterfly’s male lead, Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton, a character that Cuomo said was an asshole and who represents the part of his personality he wanted to come to terms with. The album also borrows themes from the opera, particularly an American fascination with Japan and orientalism, and the closing track, “Butterfly,” appears to be a veiled apology from Pinkerton to the opera’s tragic heroine, Butterfly. But that’s about where the connections end. Otherwise it’s really an album about Cuomo coming to find himself whilst attending Harvard University.

The feedback and wildly loose drumming that marks the opening moments always brought to my mind the opening of Pussy Galore’s 1989 album Dial ‘M’ for Motherfucker. The opening track, “Tired of Sex” is a freewheeling fuzz fest, belying the frustration and desperation of the lyrics. I’ve seen people sometimes argue that “Across the Sea” is problematic because Cuomo, 26 at the time, was singing to an 18 year-old girl in Japan. It’s a weak argument to me since 18 is a legal adult and my own parents had a bigger age gap than that. But also, he was probably loosely referencing the heroine of Madame Butterfly, who is a 15 year-old girl marrying an older American naval officer, and therefore Cuomo aged her up from the opera. It’s a surprisingly poignant song of longing if you’re not trying to poke holes in it that aren’t there.

“The Good Life” is a tightly wound little pop song about growing from a partier into a quiet homebody, which I always found to be a funny contrast when, 13 years later, the band would put out a song called “Can’t Stop Partying.” “El Scorcho” is interestingly structured, moving through several different tempos and tones throughout the track, making for one of the band’s most unusual yet well-written love songs.With Weezer having just wrapped up their big tour withGreen Day,I would have loved to see how much relish the band got out of singing the lines “I asked you to go to the Green Day concert/You said you’ve never heard of them/How cool is that?” every night. “Pink Triangle” is a great song and, coming in 1996, it showed some of the minor, superficial problems that have to be navigated in the dating world with the increasing acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people. Finally the closing track, “Butterfly,” is possibly Cuomo’s most delicate and heart wrenching song.

Pinkerton is easily Weezer’s masterpiece and nothing they’ve put out since is comparable. Back in the 90’s, it looked like Weezer were down for the count after Pinkerton, and that we probably wouldn’t get another album from them again. Instead, they’ve put out 13  albums since then that simply haven’t even approached Pinkerton’s greatness. Sure there have been decent albums here and there like the Green or White albums, but nothing has been as personal, as introspective, and as beautiful as Pinkerton .And, at this point, I seriously doubt they’ll ever put out anything on the level of Pinkerton ever again.