Weezer - Pinkerton (FIRST REACTION) 

It's funny that you mention that this feels self-aware or satirical about the stereotypical emotional struggles of the lyrics, because I feel the polar opposite about this album. There is some weird level of sheer sincerity about the way Rivers straight up talks about his creepy thoughts about that Japanese fan; or how he reads the diary of the girl in "El Scorcho"; or the iconic "I'm dumb, she's a lesbian" line, with zero attempt at subtext. It just feels so unfiltered and juvenile, almost autistic in its (imo) lack of self-awareness.

What you said about this being a concept album is partly true, Rivers had recorded demos for a concept album named “songs from the black hole”. It was to be a sci fi rock opera about a crew of astronauts going on a mission in outer space with the captain representing rivers,falling in love with the other female crew mates. Inspired by the opera “Madama butterfly”,Pinkerton is in fact named after a character in that opera. However because of River’s loneliness,frustration with life in Harvard, and having to be on painkillers after undergoing an extensive surgery to lengthen his right leg which has given him chronic physical pain.Rivers’ mindset at the time took a darker turn and he began writing vulnerable and emotional lyrics,he scrapped the concept album and began recording Pinkerton without a producer with the intention of capturing his raw feelings musically. Songs from the black hole is still regarded as the biggest what-if in the weezer fandom.

This album (especially the B-Sides) is of an awkward, depressed guy being way too honest and emotional to us the listener. That's what it is to me, and I love it.

Really enjoying your reaction vids! It's refreshingly watching someone listen to some of my favs for the first time. Some thoughts on Across The Sea: Although you felt it to be predatory, I would consider that Rivers addresses that acting on his thoughts to be wrong. "I could never touch you - I think it would be wrong". He's already thought about power dynamic issues that happen with having relations with a fan. Despite his intense loneliness and desperation for love (or lust), he's able to process through and knows it would be wrong to act on it. He goes on in the bridge to reflect on his want for a relationship, just not from a fan. I think I read this somewhere: "Across The Sea is less about 'I wonder how you touch yourself', and more about growth into 'As if I could live on words and dreams and a million screams, oh how I need a hand in mine to feel'"

Across the Sea has writing credits for the girl who’s mentioned in the song. She sent rivers a letter, it’s mostly the first verse.

Classic album that was absolutely hated on release. the cult following this album has received over the years Is amazing. Love every track on here but Pink triangle has always been my favorite for some reason and I really hope they play it when I go see them live in a few days. They usually do but knowing my luck they probably won’t.

this is the best weezer album. I will never forget seeing them in a club right after this album came out. 2 hours. every song off both albums except only in dreams. They went so hard.

Ayyyy he did it! I remember listening to Pinkerton after hearing blue and wondering what the fuss was about, I thought there was no way it could actually be the better album. But after a few listens it clicked and I’m team Pinkerton for sure now

the deluxe version of the album has some nice additional songs btw

Now that you've listened to the big two, you are finally ready for the white album. It's a masterpiece.

I love your reactions man! keep it weezy🧑

Across the Sea I think at least shows a honest struggle with the fan-artist power dynamic and eventually, a distancing and rejection of it. He even says "I could never touch you, I think it would be wrong" and he never ends up meeting her or touching her, and he cuts off their contact and basically says "Letter for a Song, we're equal now. Nothing further is needed". At least if we're taking River at face value here. Most rock artists have no problems sleeping with fans, sleeping with hundreds of them, many of them not of age either. Rivers here is pointing out an issue, wrestling with it, and coming out on the right side of it. Other rock artists just sleep with the teens and move on.

Butterfly is about having a romanticized idea about relationships and damaging and destroying them in reality because one's idealized romantic desires are unrealistic and damaging to the other person. The subject is continually pursuing this romantic ideal in a cyclical way, but he can't help but destroy what he loves because it's a one-sided love. The key is the verse: "I guess you're as real as me/ Maybe I can live with that/ Maybe I need fantasy/ Life of chasing butterfly" He's not understanding his partner as a real person and is only fulfilling a fantasy that will inevitably end in his conquest of the butterfly which results in her metaphorical destruction and his moving on to another "butterfly."

I fuckin love this album 😭

The thing is the whole album is serious and personal, that’s literally the headspace he was in at the time. He was so far gone and that’s kind of the whole idea. He had a very dark era of his life when he went to school at Harvard after touring for the Blue Album, and that’s what all the songs are about.

This is like intrusive thoughts had a soundtrack. It lingers. Stays there and once you get it you will never be the same. That's why it's a masterpiece.

Omg, kids are listening to Weezer. 🥹 I wanna cry tears of joy

This album isn’t goofy and it’s not satirical, it’s serious, and it’s actually one of the main influences of the 3rd wave of emo. You’re downplaying the hell outta this

my dude is inches away from getting it, he's gotta listen to the whole thing maybe 2 more times before Butterfly takes him out completely

please listen to maladroit, its one of weezers most undersold albums and its most underrated, trust. me, like criminally underrated, its up there with pinkerton and white in my opinion

Definitely you didn't understand Pinkerton

lol I clicked this just to see your response to across the sea. I wear my millenials and gen z are so self righteous it’s nauseating

This is one of the best albums ever!

I love Weezer ❤ Thank you for this =w=

Always been my favorite album …dark heavy and raw

in an interview, rivers said he'd like his voice back in pinkerton and talks about how it might have implanted with the ok human album

Picking one of my favorite albums of all time to review? I’m subbing immediately lol

Their best record. We need whole weezer discog reaction now

We are making it out of Japan with this one

You mention River’s voice sounds different on this album, this is particularly because he recorded it when he went through a painful leg surgery so he was in not only emotional, but physical pain as well.

Would love to see you react to Smoking Popes, another great band born in the 90's. Born to Quit and Destination Failure are both stellar albums 🧡Consists of a trio of brothers. Musically simple, lyrically potent.

You should really listen to “Long Time Sunshine” it’s a b side from Pinkerton Deluxe and is a great closer to the album

You should listen to the deluxe versions of Blue and Pinkerton

Two Weezer albums you should definitely react to : White Album - just a good beach pop rock album but much more modern. Ok Human - an orchestral album that is actually pretty damn good. Gives me Beatles vibes. Both still got that goofy aspect Weezer brings and OKH especially so because its literally a day in a life of Rivers but both are immaculately produced.

i think you need to hear the album "everything will be alright in the end", its one of the best albums they made after blue and pinkerton, for me its the 3rd best with the white album too

I hate to be the one to say this but rivers was so deadass bro 😭😭😭

My dad used to always sing me Butterfly before I went to bed.

This is a concept album, it’s a rock retooling of the opera Madama Butterfly

Please do a review of Carnavas by Silversun Pickups. Amazing indie/shoegaze band

Please do the B-sides from these 2 albums.

I’m not as big of a fan of this one as I am of the blue album or Everything Will Be Alright In the End, something about it just doesn’t click for me as much, still one of their best.

Congratulations, you are at peak Weezer. Best to turn back now.

If you haven’t listened to it, maybe try Definitely Maybe by Oasis. Probably my favorite album as of now

Do white album it's just as good as blue and pinkerton.

You should definitely listen to the white album and ok human by weezer. Two albums a lot of people think are as good as their first 2

This entire album comes from a concept rock opera that is a stand-in for his loneliness with new found fame. Rivers is in his mid-20's and he has no emotional connection or intimacy with the people he meets every day. A lonely solitary soul drowning in a sea of fans and the awkward, heartbreaking, and often creepy ways he lashes onto people and concepts to try to escape his predicament. It's not a parody, but sincere transparency into the failings that all people have - a blistering representation of his own pains. Read the excerpt from his Harvard application essay and then you'll realize what the album is about, it's about feeling alone, being alone, and the desperate flailing of not trying to drown.

Make sure you react to the albums everything will be alright in the end, the white album, ok humans

you either find across the sea the best masterpiece of all time or some weird creepy shit or both

i think its not like "toxic and immature" its genuinely a perception everyone else has in their life at SOME point, even if they can look back and call it dumb (like rivers himself has about this whole album) its still something that is real to him at this point, you should understand that immediately

One thing to consider about Across the Sea is that it has to be put in context with the 90s. There was a real emphasis on irreverence and a tendency to touch upon dark topics. You also have to consider that even at 1996,the American pop culture psyche was still in departure mode from puritanical Christian values. This track is pretty vanilla by comparison to many other songs from that era. Also keep in mind that a lot of the angst between genders had not really calcified at that point and there was a certain amount of permissiveness to the “boys will be boys” mentality, which allowed for far less self censoring of these darker thoughts saying the quiet parts out loud was maybe the point. Like a lot of boys growing up in this era that would gravitate towards counter culture, toxic masculinity was something that was reviled but still secretly envied. It was kinda the ideal and what women tended to gravitate towards. Being a rock star gave Rivers that alpha quality that he never had, and to have admirers across the world was a temptation of both ego and opportunity- but one he ultimately thinks better of.

A good reason why this is more musically interesting than Blue is because Rivers Cuomo studied music at Harvard in '96 just after Blue in an attempt to get away from things. Eventually the isolation of going to college inspired parts of Pinkerton. I'm glad you enjoyed the songwriting on this to a degree :)

This album is so raw geniune and might i say disgusting but it all makes up for an amazing experience of different emotions

Nah bro you just explained why the predation enhhances to the theme of the song, he doesnt want to live his own life and becomes obsessesed with the quiet life of his fanyou gool!

This album is a reflection of the pain rivers felt during his leg size correction surgeries

Not so fun fact .. when this album release, it was #3 on worst albums according to rolling stone magazine and critics, but over time it became praised as one of their best albums as well as helping lead the way for emo

Yeah we're all done with this song. No worries.

This is a concept album, kind of. It's basically about a guy who lives a rockstar lifestyle but at the same time is kind of a incel-loser It's based of the character Benjamin F. Pinkerton from the opera Madame Butterlfy, about a asshole US sailor in allied-occupied Japan, who gets married to a 16 year old Japanese girl, has a kid, then dips. You can interpret it as sort of some sort of modern retelling of the opera but you gotta use your imagination

White album please

Tired Of Sex: tired of superficial relationships Getchoo: relationship where he was toxic No Other One: relationship where she was toxic but he clung to her out of fear of not finding anyone else. Why Bother?: fear of pursuing a relationship again, because it may be superficial again, or end up in a heartbreak like the last two relationships Across The Sea: falls into depravity to cope with loneliness The Good Life: gets his shit together El Scorcho: a rather awkward reentering into the dating ecosystem, looking for something serious Pink Triangle: an embarassing failure Falling For You: possible success in finding something genuine Butterfly: fuck up that drives her away, realization that maybe he's the problem.

Also, The Violent Femmes self-titled 1983 debut is one of the best debut albums ever IMH(genx)O

after the blue album as a college sophomore in '92 (loving most of it), this album 4 years later seemed so lame, partly due to all the amazing music that happened in those 4 years. sooo much about what makes some music good has to do with timing. when youre in the scene at the moment, it carries so much weight with regard to how you judge how something sounds. i definitely wouldnt hold the blue album in such a high regard had it been released when pinkerton was. that being said, in retrospect, the blue album is still far superior to pinkerton and honestly anything else weezer did thereafter. im not one of those people that yells 'sellout' anytime anyone becomes popular, but they really seemed to lose whatever sense of edginess they may or may not have seemed to have in their debut after fame found them unexpectedly (and unprepared).

Good video, but maybe show it unedited without all the skipping. it kinda takes away from a reaction video. Weezer

My favourite Weezer record, but I find it really hard to listen to. I was 12 when it came out. Makes me really sad even though the lyrics are really funny. He's exposing his dark side on purpose and the vulnerability combined with the negative reviews was a major reason why the band ultimately took such a long break before returning. "Across the Sea" and "Pink Triangle" are really sad songs. I can't even listen to "Butterfly". When social media really started taking off in the late 90s, Pinkerton got re-evaluated on fan messageboards for being a classic 90s album, which it is. The band has had some okay songs here and there, but I feel like Weezer were really a product of their time in the 90s. It's probably why so many early fans have had a hard time warming up to their later releases while simultaneously, so many modern younger people naturally can't relate to (what is now) a middle-aged band. It's worth pointing out that Rivers was only 25 when writing this album. He ended up marrying his wife from Japan a year after this album. On a sidenote: after you've reacted to these two albums, check out the Saturday Night Live skit "Weezer". it's not long, and pretty much sums up the typical Weezer fan perfectly.

What’s with kids today? Gawd!!! 😪

pinkerton is great, not as great as blue though

White album

hm. def not how i look at this album. hmmmmmmmmmmm

I feel like if this album was made by some more confident and less geeky people, it would not be received as well

You should skip all the way to their 2021 album Ok Human, it’s orchestral and 10/10

pink triangle is funny until you fall in love with a lesbian

Pinkerton > Blue

I loved your commentary on “across the sea” and think you’re totally justified in feeling a little icky about it. We sometimes forget that age is only one part of the consent equation - and I think you’re correct in your comment that the fan-celebrity relationship adds some nuance to the whole situation as that relationship has an inherent imbalance of power to it. It’s the same way that professor-student or employer-employee relationships can’t always be fully consensual even if both parties are technically above the age of consent - because of the inherent imbalance of power. Great insight 👏🏼

Stop skipping all the riffs

next up: EWBAITE and White

It is weird how programmed younger people are to view things through a racist lens.

Why do you keep referencing "white" men as if it's a negative? Why should race even be mentioned or even relevant

Nah bro across the sea made me uncomfortable too lol. That second verse just ain’t it.

i recommend helvetia, they’re a side project of duster!

Yeah, seems like you're missing a lot. What a weird way to react to music. Good luck though. You have a base, sure you'll be fine.