Blue is great but Pinkerton is so much better. I’m really surprised by the results.
To me Blue is an example of “We’re a band, let’s get together and write some songs” whereas Pinkerton is more like “I can’t stop these songs from coming out of me.” Great music can come from both categories obviously, but I think most of the best music out there comes from the second. Pinkerton kind of makes you forget that it was written ahead of time and instead feels like the CD player somehow captured Rivers’ mind unraveling in real time. I’d love to knock it given how offensively bad they became, but it’s great and genuine and full of an intense nervous energy - it sounds like he’s going to jump out of his skin throughout and the music reflects it (especially those drums, they feel so alive on that album).
I’ll preface this by saying I really do like Blue, but I think it’s one of those albums that gets disproportionately elevated over other similar and equally good albums due to nostalgia or what period in your life you first heard it. I think those factors and the fact that it’s become such a staple can make people overlook the clunkiness in a couple of its components - the intro to “Undone” I think would be otherwise unforgivable, and “Holiday” (“Holiday, Far Away, To Stay”…) is something that would be ripped apart if it were written by an unknown or less revered band. This feels too negative so I’ll end this by saying “My Name Is Jonas”, “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here”, and “Say It Ain’t So” are truly special songs and deserve all the praise they get. But I’ll take Pinkerton every time, it’s not even a debate in my mind.
