you've got my song

After moving to Rexburg, Idaho, for school, it took me a couple semesters before I settled in with a group of friends who had interests similar to my own. You know, the type of people who liked going to shows and shopping at thrift stores and listening to records. For people with such great taste, I was surprised that many of these new friends hadn't spent their junior high and high school years listening to Weezer like my Arizona friends and I had (although a couple of them had). I set out to correct this supposed wrong and made them all a Weezer mix to download.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I already included this photo in a previous post. I guess this album, for better or worse, is that important to me. And try as I might, I can't seem to get past my current writer's block unless I blog about this album. Again.

I don't know why expect so many people to have the same childhood I did; it used to be so unfathomable that people my age could grow up without having seen Star Wars (OK, to be fair, I still have a hard time with that). When you connect with someone I guess you assume that you have common passions and that you care deeply about the same things. While there might be so truth to that assumption, you'll never have everything in common with anyone. Intrinsically, that's a pretty common-sense statement, but for whatever reason there are things like this that I have to learn by experience. That's a lesson Weezer helped teach me.

Notes and Miscellanea:
Pinkerton includes some of my favorite Weezer songs ("El Scorcho," "The Good Life"), as well as some of my favorite songs of all time. And I dare you to find an album with better b-sides -- see "You Gave Your Love to Me Softly" and "Waiting On You" as examples. (The b-sides are now conveniently included in the deluxe edition released last year.)

If you didn't grow up as a millennial listening to this album it might behoove you to check it out now. In 15 years or so it's destined to attain the status those classic rock albums from the '70s now enjoy.