10 Rock Music Albums No One Understood At First

Once the grunge wave started to crater after the death of Kurt Cobain, most of us needed a break from all of the morose feelings that came from that devastating loss. As things started to get a bit more cheery though, Weezer was the perfect band to lead us into the next generation, putting a lot more hooks into their alternative leaning tunes to create a sound that fell somewhere between the Cars and the Beach Boys. So when those guys started to go through their own version of internal angst, most of us were not really having it.

Coming from the same minds that brought us happy go lucky songs like Buddy Holly, Pinkerton was a much different beast, written while Rivers Cuomo was going to college at Harvard and trying to shake off all of the rock and roll hangups that came with their sudden rush of fame. That made for lyrics that felt like way too much information like Across the Sea and El Scorcho, and the public absolutely hated it, leading the band to go on hiatus for 5 years.

Once the emo wave started to gain much more traction around the turn of the century, Pinkerton actually became more of a groundbreaker than even Rivers probably thought it would be, revealing the more vulnerable side of himself and having that uncomfortable side actually become accepted by his fans years later. While Rivers would proceed to spend the next decade of Weezer's existence trying to rewrite the songs on the Blue Album, Pinkerton was the real moment where most fans felt that these nerds could be taken seriously.