Every true Weezer fan's love for their sophomore release Pinkerton grows by leaps and bounds with each passing year. Pretty much panned on its release in 1996, Pinkerton has been re-cast as a misunderstood work of art that was before its time.

It's also true that most casual music fans know "Buddy Holly" and the famous 1994 "Buddy Holly" video by Spike Jonze, but maybe since Pinkerton has been thoroughly revisited, we should revisit the music videos of Pinkerton as well (that were similarly dismissed with the album). So today we're watching one that deserves a second look, "El Scorcho" from 1996, directed by Mark Romanek.

In 2004 Weezer released a DVD of their music videos called Video Capture Device, and did a commentary track for the whole video lineup. They didn't seem excited to watch this video, but afterwards seemed a little surprised at how much they liked it. That's not surprising - although its been largely forgotten, "El Scorcho" is actually a really fantastic music video.

The director should pique your interest. Mark Romanek made this video at a time when he was making pretty legendary videos, like "Scream" by Micheal and Janet Jackson, and "Criminal" by Fiona Apple. Basically, he was turning out classic music videos at a pretty remarkable pace. Romanek decided against a concept video (like "Buddy Holly") and instead filmed a very straightforward set piece performance video featuring the four members of Weezer facing each other in a large, empty room with only some furniture and props in the middle. Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo had a hand in creating the concept himself (see the paragraph from Weezepedia at below).

As luck would have it, the four members of Weezer are really entertaining guys and this video puts their personalities in the spotlight while keeping the visuals and camera work interesting. Rivers Cuomo comes off as aloof and awkward as he does in the song. Drummer Patrick Wilson has some great comedy moments. It fits the slightly goofy, slightly sincere tone of Pinkerton and "El Scorcho" like it was an extension of the album.

So next time you find yourself in a conversation with a Weezer fan where they are expounding on the fact that Pinkerton is the greatest album of all time, make sure you mention that this video isn't half bad either.

An interesting bit of trivia from Weezerpedia on the cut of the video:

During the editing of the video for El Scorcho, Cuomo and the director, Mark Romanek, got into a disagreement about the way the video was to be made, which led to Romanek removing his name from the directing credit. Two verisions came out of this dispute, a "Director's Cut" edition (Romanek's version) and a second which probably had Cuomo as its main director.

This seems to resolved since the version on VEVO is labelled the "Director's Cut".

Adam Fairholm is the co-founder and lead developer of IMVDb. You can find him on twitter at @adamfairholm.