Friday, September 3, 2010

90s Jams #50: Weezer "El Scorcho" (1996)

Years on, Pinkerton's placement among the 90's album rock canon has generated an abundance of cliched critiques regarding what makes it so special, especially the one about how Rivers Cuomo had crossed a rock-star line, avoiding metaphors, straight-up confessing his inner-workings and too-much-info about his personal life. That may be true, but back in October 1996 when "El Scorcho" was a Buzz Clip (trust me, it was, despite that they had already sold 2 million records), adolescents like myself and nearly every other Weezer fan I knew heard the lyrics of the chorus and double-speed bridge-section as something far more universal.

Regarding the video (and I'm pretty sure this is the version that was aired on MTV & not Mark Romanek's original edit) and Weezer's image as a band throughout the first 2 albums, as presented on MTV... Matt Sharp and Pat Wilson fucking killed it in both "El Scorcho" and in "The Good Life." Never content to just stand in front of the camera and play air-guitar, Matt usually had his own storyline regardless as to what the director was asking for.. Pat usually said "fuck this" and did whatever the hell he wanted.. Brian Bell was always the one dude who continued strictly rocking out the whole time Matt and Pat were off doing God-knows-what, which was absolutely essential to maintain a sense of musical continuity. And then of course, Rivers was always playing Scott Stapp... The super fucking serious lead singer. Call me crazy, but is this not the world's most perfect rock band?

No comments:

Post a Comment