25 years later, Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo reveals the first guy to like Pinkerton
Weezer’s now-revered sophomore outing was maligned upon release. But one blues rocker knew what was up before anyone else.
Aux News Pinkerton
Though it is now revered as one of the best albums of the 90s, Weezer’s sophomore effort, Pinkerton, was pilloried upon release. Rivers Cuomo, the band’s primary songwriter, guitarist, and singer, may have been tired of sex, but listeners at the time were tired of him and all the booty-shaking and love-making he was doing to inspire the album. Well, nearly every listener. In a new interview with Vulture, Cuomo revealed the name of the “one person who liked” Pinkerton: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s drummer Russell Simins.
But Cuomo’s thoughts on the record are even more interesting than Simins affirming what we already knew about the members of JSBE (that they have impeccable taste). Given the deep well of sincerity Cuomo found himself in on Pinkerton, he admits that the reaction “hurt” and “embarrassed” him. “No one on Earth liked it,” he told Vulture. “I really, really disliked myself for making the record I made and for thinking that that was the right record to make.”
His personal reaction was already evident in Weezer’s 2001 self-titled Green Album, which sees the band going in the complete opposite direction. “As often has happened with me and maybe with other artists, you kind of flip-flop,” he said. “With each album, you try to go in the opposite direction you went on the last album. So if Pinkerton was about articulating the deepest, most complicated emotions with deep and complicated songs, for The Green Album I set out to write the simplest possible songs that are just pure candy, that articulate nothing. Just pure fun and catchiness.”
Of course, the reaction to Pinkerton is an inflection point in the Weezer timelines, diving the fandom into two camps: Those who prefer the first two Weezer albums and dislike pretty much all that follows, and those who are wrong. There was a whole Saturday Night Live sketch about it. However, considering you clicked on this article, you already know about the sketch, have a profoundly personal opinion about everything written in this article, and probably disagree with all of it. Such is being a Weezer fan in the year of our lord 2023.