High School Album #2
This one and the #1 album used to switch back and forth a lot. #2 was very influential for starting me off on so many damn bands, but it just hasn't stuck as much as #1. So, here we go:
I first got into Weezer way back at the end of '99. I had just seen Mallrats for the first time and I heard the song at the end. "Suzanne" was a great pop song, how good was it you ask? Well, let's ask Academy Award winner Ben Affleck, who sang the song on the commentary for Mallrats for a few seconds....okay, that was lame. Anywho, I downloaded the song on....get this....NAPSTER! I know, scary. And I was like, "Hey, wasn't that the 'Buddy Holly' band?" I ended up downloading a few more songs and got The Blue Album. It was great and I had to have more.
At the time, they only had one other album....Pinkerton. But at the time, the thing still hadn't sold 500,000 copies, so it was hard to find. I had to search a few different record stores, but it was my mom who actually found it. She gave it to me for X-mas that year. And X-mas Eve, I opened it, put it in my CD player and went to bed. And my first reaction to it when I awoke the next morning:
"What a disappointment!"
I had TBA and it's b-sides and they were all great pop hits, but this album....this thing, what the hell was it? It was all scratchy and the vocals weren't as poppy, they were singing about being monks and lesbians and butterflies, I mean, what the hell!? I actually put the CD away for almost three months before listening to it again.
Then something happened. One night, I was sitting at the computer and I had no new music to listen to (this was in '00, when I had no broadband and no blogs to keep me filled with new music), so I decided to pop open that damn Pinkerton again, see what all the fuss was about on the net about how damn great it was. Man, I must have been fucking crazy when I heard the album the first time, because thing was a whole new world. Scratchy guitars, they were cool. Lyrics about lesbians and monks, right on! Matt Sharp's beautiful falsettos? My god, they were beautiful. Why had this thing changed on me? I don't know, but I can' t be happier.
You take a song like "Across The Sea", which has that beautiful bit of piano, then it turns into an anthem about longing. Rivers wrote it about a Japanese girl who wrote him fan mail, but for my teenage mind, it was every cool girl on the net who said, "You're a cool guy!" and bullshit like that. That song spoke to my teenage mind.
Then you have the one two combo of "Pink Triangle" and "Falling For You", you probably have the most heartfelt lyrics that Rivers Cuomo ever put on an album. "Pink Triangle" has actually happened to me. Of course, not like Rivers. I didn't pick out the wallpaper patterns yet or anything, but I did have a crush on a lesbian. And "Falling For You"....wow. The lyrics are just....I can't describe the lyrics so that you get a good sense of them, but download the fucking song if you don't have the songs. Do it now!
Bonus:
Pinkerton was not always the way it is now. It used to be....A SPACE OPERA!!!! Well...a rock space opera. Songs From The Blackhole is....well, I'd hate to call it my generations's Smile but, it's kind of close. There is a rumor that this year, being the 10th anniversary of Pinkerton, that we may get the album as it was meant to be. So here are a few demos that you must check out, for they're great:
Blastoff!
Longtime Sunshine
I first got into Weezer way back at the end of '99. I had just seen Mallrats for the first time and I heard the song at the end. "Suzanne" was a great pop song, how good was it you ask? Well, let's ask Academy Award winner Ben Affleck, who sang the song on the commentary for Mallrats for a few seconds....okay, that was lame. Anywho, I downloaded the song on....get this....NAPSTER! I know, scary. And I was like, "Hey, wasn't that the 'Buddy Holly' band?" I ended up downloading a few more songs and got The Blue Album. It was great and I had to have more.At the time, they only had one other album....Pinkerton. But at the time, the thing still hadn't sold 500,000 copies, so it was hard to find. I had to search a few different record stores, but it was my mom who actually found it. She gave it to me for X-mas that year. And X-mas Eve, I opened it, put it in my CD player and went to bed. And my first reaction to it when I awoke the next morning:
"What a disappointment!"
I had TBA and it's b-sides and they were all great pop hits, but this album....this thing, what the hell was it? It was all scratchy and the vocals weren't as poppy, they were singing about being monks and lesbians and butterflies, I mean, what the hell!? I actually put the CD away for almost three months before listening to it again.
Then something happened. One night, I was sitting at the computer and I had no new music to listen to (this was in '00, when I had no broadband and no blogs to keep me filled with new music), so I decided to pop open that damn Pinkerton again, see what all the fuss was about on the net about how damn great it was. Man, I must have been fucking crazy when I heard the album the first time, because thing was a whole new world. Scratchy guitars, they were cool. Lyrics about lesbians and monks, right on! Matt Sharp's beautiful falsettos? My god, they were beautiful. Why had this thing changed on me? I don't know, but I can' t be happier.
You take a song like "Across The Sea", which has that beautiful bit of piano, then it turns into an anthem about longing. Rivers wrote it about a Japanese girl who wrote him fan mail, but for my teenage mind, it was every cool girl on the net who said, "You're a cool guy!" and bullshit like that. That song spoke to my teenage mind.
Then you have the one two combo of "Pink Triangle" and "Falling For You", you probably have the most heartfelt lyrics that Rivers Cuomo ever put on an album. "Pink Triangle" has actually happened to me. Of course, not like Rivers. I didn't pick out the wallpaper patterns yet or anything, but I did have a crush on a lesbian. And "Falling For You"....wow. The lyrics are just....I can't describe the lyrics so that you get a good sense of them, but download the fucking song if you don't have the songs. Do it now!
Bonus:
Pinkerton was not always the way it is now. It used to be....A SPACE OPERA!!!! Well...a rock space opera. Songs From The Blackhole is....well, I'd hate to call it my generations's Smile but, it's kind of close. There is a rumor that this year, being the 10th anniversary of Pinkerton, that we may get the album as it was meant to be. So here are a few demos that you must check out, for they're great:
Blastoff!
Longtime Sunshine
posted by Bubba Da Cat at 12:21 AM
1 Comments:
Pinkerton! Yes!
I got into Weezer via the blue album, and various friends and relations too loved their jangly pop sensibilities and their overdriven guitars, but few got into Pinkerton. I listen to it at least as often as the blue album. I think it's really brilliant and a nice progression from where they started.
And a Smile-like Weezer opera? Sweet cuppin' cakes that freakin rules! And makes some sense too. Could Pinkerton be similar to the Beach Boys' Smile replacement "Smiley Smile?" It was slapped together with leftovers from a larger epic, it followed a universally loved album (though Pet Sounds took longer to catch on) and fans just didn't dig it and sales weren't so good.
I'm a big beach boys geek it seems. Anyway, thanks for reminding me of that CD sitting on my shelf. I'm going to go listen to it.
and the links for the bonus tracks don't seem to work.
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