FROM MR. HARDY'S DESK: Insomniac vs. Pinkerton: The Dark Side Of Fame

   The year is 1995. Green Day just released Insomniac, the follow-up to their 1994 smash hit and major record label debut, Dookie.

   The thing about Dookie was it brought huge mainstream success for Green Day, especially with songs like "Basket Case", "When I Come Around", and "Welcome to Paradise". Now, Green Day had been frequenters of a pretty underground punk club in California that gave them their start, and this major success kinda scorned them in the club's eyes. The club banned Green Day and hated the band they had helped raise. Green Day of course hated them back for this, and so Insomniac is an album rich with hatred and dejection. It is by far Green Day's heaviest album, both as far as sound and subject matter. Insomniac is hands down the most punk rock Green Day has ever been. Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong was also suffering from insomnia from the time which was brought on by his son having screaming fits in the middle of the night, hence the title.

    So what about Pinkerton?

  The year is 1996. Weezer just released Pinkerton, the follow-up to their 1994 smash hit debut album, Weezer (the Blue album).

  The thing about the Blue album was it brought huge mainstream success for Weezer, especially with songs like "Buddy Holly", "Say It Ain't So", and "Undone". Weezer had the fortune of being one of those bands whose breakthrough album happened to be their first. 

  The thing is, lead singer Rivers Cuomo had a big idea of the glamor of being a rockstar before the huge success of the Blue album came, and when he had made it big because of that record, he realized being a rockstar wasn't quite all he was hoping it would be. He went into a kind of a depressive state and put his energy into a scrapped rock opera called Songs From the Black Hole. The exhaustion and depression of Cuomo, plus some intense events in his personal life, caused him to scrap the project and write a new album which reflected his inner turmoil.

   The product was Weezer's sophomore album, Pinkerton. The writing is darker than the Blue album, the sound is grittier and punkier, and the general mood is a lot more somber and hopeless than you what you hear from the Blue album.

   So I bet you can see why I draw comparisons between these two masterpieces of musicianship. Time to do one of those Lincoln and Kennedy-esque comparison lists!

-Both were released around the same time (Insomniac in 1995, Pinkerton in 1996)

-Both were the next album after their breakthrough (Insomniac followed Dookie, Pinkerton followed the Blue album)

-Both were written as responses to backlash to that success (Insomniac to the backlash of others, Pinkerton to the backlash of themselves)

-Both are very angsty and angry

-Both have an edgier and darker sound than the previous record

-Both were successful punk albums of the nineties

  Which do I think is the better album? To that I say: "pls don't make me choose".

  Anyway, I just thought this would be fun to talk about like I'm one of those guys who makes cool video essays on YouTube. Thanks for reading it.