This hurts me to write. It feels like a betrayal. I had autistically formed a rigid list of my five favorite albums, which I rarely listen to anymore. But I can’t deny that it’s missing something. Looking back over, it didn’t even get an honorable mention. I think at the time it was only vaguely on my radar. A few months later I wrote a post about it. I considered kicking the Lynyrd Skynyrd compilation off the list, but that would be disingenuous, as the list is perfect and inviolable. Except for its one critical omission.
I hate kicking Pet Sounds to the curb, and Brian Wilson definitely is the American Mozart, and everything the Beatles did, the Beach did better. This is counter-intuitive, but they were my depression band in 2014.
But I have to give the win to Pinkerton by Weezer. It may not be better and certainly not greater than Pet Sounds, but it just … connects with me more. It’s more ever-green. And I haven’t already listened to it 300 times.
A friend told me one time that the reason I like Pet Sounds so much is because it’s about the difficulty in being a decent person in an indecent world. I think Pinkerton takes place a few years after that, when you realize you’re not a decent person either. Pet Sounds has hope — Pinkerton is about resignation.
Yesterday I went outside
With my momma’s mason jar
Caught a lovely Butterfly
When I woke up today
Looked in on my fairy pet
She had withered all away
No more sighing in her breast
I’m sorry for what I did
I did what my body told me to
I didn’t mean to do you harm
Everytime I pin down what I think I want
It slips away – the ghost slips away
Oh, and Weezer recently put out a song about the Beach Boys. So it’s like a circle or something.
So I don’t know what I’m going to do about my Five Favorites list. None of them I really listen to anymore, so maybe I should just scrap it.
Blair Naso 