History Music / Pinkerton

''Pinkerton'' is AlternativeRock band Music/{{Weezer}}'s second album, released on 24 September 1996. The album was initially planned as a RockOpera named ''Songs from the Black Hole'', but the concept was eventually abandoned, and the final album combined songs that were discarded from ''Black Hole'' and new, {{Creator Breakdown}}y material.

As mentioned above, frontman Rivers Cuomo's initial plan to follow their self-titled debut was to create a RockOpera that he described as "an analogy for taking off, going out on the road and up the charts with a rock band, which is what was happening to me at the time I was writing this and feeling like I was lost in space". The songs were also influenced by Cuomo's CreatorBreakdown as he underwent painful surgery to correct the fact that he was born with one leg shorter than the other, and was accepted to study at [[IvyLeagueForEveryone Harvard]] with a letter describing his disillusionment with the rock lifestyle but only found himself more isolated and lonely.

Despite this, the album settled on being a CultClassic and slowly but steadily gathered a fanbase, and years later [[VindicatedByHistory the consensus altered]] and it became recognised as Weezer's MagnumOpus.

The title of the album comes from the character in ''MadameButterfly'', but right before its release the [[PinkertonDetective Pinkerton security agency]] [[FrivolousLawsuit sued for trademark infringement]], only to have their case thrown out almost instantly. The first single, "El Scorcho", stiffed on MTV, possibly due to Cuomo's refusal to indulge in the "gimmicky" Creator/SpikeJonze-esque videos that made "Buddy Holly" a success, and despite subsequent singles "The Good Life" and "Pink Triangle", ''Pinkerton'' stalled at #19 on the ''Billboard'' charts and endured a severe critical mauling: [[NeverLiveItDown infamously]], ''Rolling Stone'''s review criticised every song save "Butterfly" (which reviewer Rob O'Connell praised and compared to Music/BigStar) and a year-end readers' poll named it one of the worst albums of 1996. The terrible response drove Weezer into a hiatus for three years and influenced the band's LighterAndSofter direction afterwards.

As mentioned above, frontman Rivers Cuomo's initial plan to follow their self-titled debut was to create a RockOpera that he described as "an analogy for taking off, going out on the road and up the charts with a rock band, which is what was happening to me at the time I was writing this and feeling like I was lost in space". The songs were also influenced by somewhat of a CreatorBreakdown as Cuomo underwent painful surgery to correct the fact that he was born with one leg shorter than the other, and was accepted to study at [[IvyLeagueForEveryone Harvard]] with a letter describing his disillusionment with the rock lifestyle but found himself isolated and lonely.

The title of the album comes from the character in ''MadameButterfly'', but right before its release the [[PinkertonDetective Pinkerton security agency]] attempted to sue for trademark infringement, only to have their case thrown out almost instantly. The first single, "El Scorcho", stiffed on MTV, possibly due to Cuomo's refusal to indulge in the "gimmicky" videos that made "Buddy Holly" a success, and despite subsequent singles "The Good Life" and "Pink Triangle", ''Pinkerton'' stopped at #19 on the ''Billboard'' charts and endured a severe critical beatdown: infamously, ''Rolling Stone'''s review criticised every song save "Butterfly" (which they praised and compared to Music/BigStar) and a reader poll named it one of the worst albums of 1996. The terrible response drove Weezer into a hiatus for three years and influenced the band's LighterAndSofter direction afterwards.

Despite this, the album settled on being a CultClassic and slowly but steadily gathered a fanbase, and years later the consensus altered and it became recognised as Weezer's MagnumOpus.

* OneWordTitle: "Pinkerton", "Getchoo".

!''Pink Triangle Tropes:

!''Pinkerton'' provides examples of:

* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: Played with - although the music sounds much more aggressive and punk-influenced, with much rawer and heavier production compared to Weezer's debut, the compositions are also much more complex and technical than that album. For example, the bridge from "Across the Sea" cycles through about four key signatures in thirty seconds while constantly shifting back and forth between the song's normal tempo and half-time.

* CreatorBacklash: Rivers admits in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FySvK2nEh7Q&feature=player_embedded#! this interview]] that he was severely embarrassed by how ''Pinkerton'' sunk on the charts and received a critical pasting, feeling that it was his fault that he had exposed TooMuchInformation about himself. As a result, he suffered from crippling self-doubt for a long time and steered Weezer back into a LighterAndSofter direction, hoping to avoid the backlash that ''Pinkerton'' had suffered.
-->'''Rivers''' (2001): 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 2008 however, years after critical opinion had already begun to soften, he finally admitted to having come around to the album again:
--->''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.
* CreatorBreakdown: [[WordOfGod Rivers]] admitted some of the material was inspired by the isolation he felt at Harvard, when he could only write "while the dinner was in the microwave" because he was otherwise either doing homework or lying in bed on painkillers. "The Good Life" is most heavily inspired by this, nodding to his slovenly appearance and the "old man cane" he needed to walk with during leg surgery.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Surprisingly averted: Geffen was very pleased with the album, and A&R representative Todd Sullivan even described it as "very brave". However, the fact that it sunk so badly made Geffen refuse to allow Weezer to self-produce ''The Green Album''.

* RealitySubtext: Rivers once admitted to fans one of the original lines in the second verse of "Tired of Sex" was "Tuesday night I'm making Gwen". Gwen happened to be a real person he was dating but her family disliked him somewhat, so he changed the name to "Lyn".

The album was recorded in September 1995, January, March and June 1996 at a variety of studios (Sound City and Hollywood Sound Recorders in Los Angeles, Fort Apache in Boston, Rumbo Recorders in Canoga Park and Electric Lady Studios in New York) during Cuomo's breaks from Harvard, which left the other band members plenty of free time to indulge in their own projects. Intending a rawer, DarkerAndEdgier sound, Cuomo chose to have the band self-produce the record with 12 engineers, replacing [[TheCars Ric Ocasek]]'s earlier radio-friendly production with a pounding drum sound and vicious, aggressive guitar sounds accomplished by connecting them to multiple distortion pedals at once. Cuomo, bassist Matt Sharp and guitarist Brian Bell also eschewed overdubbing vocals like on their previous album, choosing instead to record them live around three microphones.

* BetterThanItSounds: It's the [[CreatorBreakdown breakdown]] of a socially inept, crushingly lonely, self-destructive rock star put to music.

* RecordProducer: The band '''self-produced''' the album, with engineering by [[{{Kyuss}} Joe]] [[{{Tool}} Ba]][[QueensOfTheStoneAge rr]][[VerucaSalt esi]], Billy Bowers, Jim Champagne, David Dominguez, Greg Fidelman, [[Music/MercuryRev Dave]] [[Music/FlamingLips Fridmann]], Rob Jacobs, [[Music/FooFighters Adam]] [[Music/PearlJam Kasper]], Dan [=McLaughlin=], Cliff Norrell, [[{{Hole}} Jack]] [[Music/{{Beck}} Joseph]] [[GreenDay Puig]] and Jim Rondinelli.

* ShoutOut: The album's title comes from the main character of ''MadameButterfly''.

** The opening piano and flute in "Across the Sea" apparently are quoting from TheBeachBoys' "You Still Believe in Me".
** "El Scorcho"'s title comes from a packet of Del Taco hot sauce named "Del Scorcho", it quotes from PublicEnemy's "Don't Believe the Hype" ("I'm the epitome of public enemy"), the lines about "listening to [[MadameButterfly Cio-Cio San]]" and "watching [[{{ECW}} Grunge leg-drop New Jack]] through a press table" were borrowed from an essay by one of Cuomo's classmates, and the line "I asked you to go to the GreenDay concert" is a reference to how [[http://www.weezerpedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=A_Mad_and_Furious_Master a lot of the female fans Cuomo met on tour were Green Day fans]].

--->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.

The title of the album comes from the character in ''MadameButterfly'', but right before its release the [[PinkertonDetective Pinkerton security agency]] attempted to sue for trademark infringement, only to have their case thrown out almost instantly. The first single, "El Scorcho", stiffed on MTV, possibly due to Cuomo's refusal to indulge in the "gimmicky" videos that made "Buddy Holly" a success, and despite subsequent singles "The Good Life" and "Pink Triangle", ''Pinkerton'' stopped at #19 on the ''Billboard'' charts and endured a severe critical beatdown: infamously, ''Rolling Stone'''s review criticised every song save "Butterfly" and a reader poll named it one of the worst albums of 1996. The terrible response drove Weezer into a hiatus for three years and influenced the band's LighterAndSofter direction afterwards.

* RecordProducer: The band '''self-produced''' the album, with engineering by [[{{Kyuss}} Joe]] [[{{Tool}} Ba]][[QueensOfTheStoneAge rr]][[VerucaSalt esi]], Billy Bowers, Jim Champagne, David Dominguez, Greg Fidelman, [[Music/MercuryRev Dave]] [[Music/FlamingLips Fridmann]], Rob Jacobs, [[Music/FooFighters Adam]] [[PearlJam Kasper]], Dan [=McLaughlin=], Cliff Norrell, [[{{Hole}} Jack]] [[Music/{{Beck}} Joseph]] [[GreenDay Puig]] and Jim Rondinelli.

* AsianGalWithWhiteGuy: Certain lyrics of the album nod to Rivers' famous RaceFetish, such as "Goddamn you half-Japanese girls/Do it to me every time!" from "El Scorcho".

* AsianSpeekeeEngrish: The opening lines of "Across the Sea" have this, since they're quoting from a letter Rivers got from a Japanese fan (who apparently "are 18 year old girl/Who live in small city of Japan").

* RecordProducer: The band '''self-produced''' the album, with engineering by [[{{Kyuss}} Joe]] [[{{Tool}} Ba]][[QueensOfTheStoneAge rr]][[VerucaSalt esi]], Billy Bowers, Jim Champagne, David Dominguez, Greg Fidelman, [[MercuryRev Dave]] [[FlamingLips Fridmann]], Rob Jacobs, [[Music/FooFighters Adam]] [[PearlJam Kasper]], Dan [=McLaughlin=], Cliff Norrell, [[{{Hole}} Jack]] [[Music/{{Beck}} Joseph]] [[GreenDay Puig]] and Jim Rondinelli.

-->'''Teenage Victory Songs''', [[http://tvs.soymilkrevolution.com/?p=133 "Why Bother?"]]

-->'''Jeff Gordinier''', ''Entertainment Weekly''

-->Much like ''{{Hamlet}}'' is a young man’s play, I feel that ''Pinkerton'' is something of a young man’s album.

-->A collection of get-down party anthems for agoraphobics.
-->Jeff Gordinier, ''Entertainment Weekly''

** A few songs on the deluxe edition contain audible studio chatter somewhere within the song. "Across The Sea Piano Noodles", "Butterfly (Alternate Take)", and "Longtime Sunshine" are notable examples.