¤ jetless heights

makin’ tea in your underwear

+ Thu, February 24

11. Weezer - El Scorcho

The first time I heard El Scorcho was in David Nestor’s car in 6th grade.  I remember hearing the “Goddamn you half-Japanese girls” line and writing whatever group that was off on the spot as some crappy, racist group or something like that.  I did this.  I did this with Weezer.  And no, I can’t believe it either.

I didn’t end up buying this album until early 1999 when I decided to, y’know, catch up with every single other one of my peers and give Weezer the good listen they deserved.  I bought the blue album and Pinkerton at roughly the same time and essentially listened to nothing but them for the next 4 or 5 months and indeed, 7 years later, I still hold them as two of the best albums I own.  Absolute classics.  Pinkerton’s been on my mind recently as I’ve finally come to terms with those that call it as an “emo” masterpiece.

And I settled on the subject how?  Simple: those people are wrong.  Those people are wrong and I hate them.

Let’s look at Pink Triangle as an example.  Nice song about a guy falling in love with a lesbian, something for him to be bummed out about for sure.  If this were an emo song the rough trajectory would go as such: boy meets girl, boy learns girl is a lesbian, boy moans for 3 minutes, boy performs acoustic solo, boy performs “edgy” electric solo, boy moans for one minute more, boy’s strained vocals fade out.  That’s that, but this, this is Weezer and after a nice sarcastic rocker, they end the song with the quaint litte “If everyone’s a little queer / Why can’t she be a little straight?”  Sarcasm topped with—oh yeah—more sarcasm.  And it’s funny!  What emo songs ends with humor?

El Scorcho itself?  Come on now, it’s a song about a girl and it’s named for a hot sauce in a New Mexico restaurant.  Emo that, record reviewer asshat.

When it comes to Pinkerton, certainly it’s an album about heartache and longing and all the other fun girl things, but get serious here.  Weezer approaches the subject with a playful, sarcastic take, poking fun at the girl, poking fun at themselves and even poking fun at their little, ol’ three chord music.  If this were truly an emo album, it wouldn’t be having fun, it would be wistful and longing.  And Rivers definitely would not let you know that he’d rather keep whackin’.

2 people have chimed in.
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1 → John  –  (Feb 24 2005, 10:17 AM)

When I read about it being “emo” I was pissed as hell.  I have to agree man, those people are just wrong. 

2 → Liz  –  (Feb 25 2005, 12:17 PM)

And I’m jello, baby. So classic.






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