steelopus

weselec:

merlin:
Weezer - “Pink Triangle”
Pinkerton is a special goddamned record.
Love this mix.
Dammit that’s good. You know, I never liked Matt Sharp. There was something about him that bugged me, and I think it was his face. Those eyebrows are a problem. But he had rock instinct in spades.
Weezer is such a strange band. They seem happy now, and good for them, but remember when they didn’t release an album for like five years, and somehow that just made sense? Rivers had that wicked beard going during Pinkerton, and somehow that just made sense? He handled fame very poorly, always looked high, and seemed on the edge of nervous breakdown in every vocal and somehow that just made sense?
Nobody can or should maintain that forever, I suppose. But Lord, how I do miss that Weezer. There was such passion in that record, by all of the players. Every performance on every track dripped with personality and heartache and it somehow managed to be so dynamic that none of the genius ever felt calculated. Gorgeous.

Ah, the Pink Triangle radio mix. Among the rarest of weezer rarities, it was the abandoned 3rd single from pinkerton that never received much airplay or attention because by that point most radio stations had given up on pinkerton due to the overwhelmingly negative reviews from some major critics (all of whom have been eating their words for well over a decade). It’s one of my most prized weezer posessions (of far too many). The mix itself is superior to the album mix in many ways, but in particular the drums are a lot more punchy and in your face here - and that’s really saying something because one of the trademarks of the pinkerton mix is how wild, loud, and live the drums sound.

As for Shane’s analysis, it’s pretty much spot-on. In terms of Matt Sharp, it doesn’t take a genius to listen to post-Sharp Weezer compared to with-Sharp Weezer and realize just how much a driving force he was to the band. Just as McCartney made Lennon better, Sharp made Cuomo better.

This video was snipped from their 2004 DVD release “Video Capture Device." It’s chock full of amazing content, most of it from pre-2000. I highly recommend it as a way to kill a day in front of the TV.