Though it was released almost one year ago in January 2019, Weezer’s Teal Album has continued to be one of my go-to’s for the last little while. You may be thinking: wow, it’s a long time since I’ve thought about Weezer. I thought the same when I first heard the band’s name surface after what had felt like about a decade. Weezer was a common name to hear when I was going through my childhood and early teens: some of their most popular songs to date are “Say It Ain’t So” and “Buddy Holly”, considered classics of the 90s angst-pop-punk era (a genre that carried through into the early 2000s). Both songs are from their debut album, The Blue Album, which was released in 1994.
Some of you may have been following them for the years since – they’ve been an ever active band, and have released more colour-themed discography like Green Album, Red Album, and White Album. Honestly, though, I haven’t kept up, so it was a pleasant surprise to see them resurface in my world when they released Teal Album.
The catch is this: Teal Album is entirely an album of covers, as sung by Weezer. It’s odd – Weezer may not seem like the band you would necessarily associate with “covers”. But when I first heard their cover of “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics, which while it doesn’t beat the original comes in as a close second, I knew that this album was worth listening to fully.
The album consists of 10 songs: there’s Toto’s “Africa”, Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)”, A-ha’s “Take On Me”, Turtles’ “Happy Together”, Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”, Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky”, TLC’s “No Scrubs”, Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”, and Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”.
As you can see, the list is eclectic. Genres vary from classic rock to R&B, and it’s a disparate combination of songs at first glance. However, Weezer manages the unimaginable and unifies these songs to make a cohesive, artistically compelling album. Their alt-rock sound, one that is particularly brought forth by Rivers Cuomo’s lead vocals, brings an edge to many of these songs. What I appreciate the most about Weezer’s cover versions is that they don’t alter lyrics or pronouns, so songs like “No Scrubs” remain intact when talking about how a “scrub is a guy/that can’t get no love from me“. (This is particularly important, because many musicians and bands feel the need to switch pronouns if they are the opposite gender from the original artist in order to heterosexualize their cover versions). Then there’s songs like “Take On Me”, which legitimately sounds almost exactly the same as the original but with a slightly more synth-y twist (to which there is a hilarious music video that mimics A-has and stars Finn Wolfhard).
There’s something soothing and nostalgic about Weezer’s sound: they’re able to comfortably adapt to each genre and sound, and Cuomo’s vocals and range are undoubtedly pleasing to the ear. My top favourites are definitely “Sweet Dreams”, “Paranoid”, “Africa” and “No Scrubs”, but honestly they do an excellent job at them all. Weezer brings their own twist to a series of universally lauded classics from varying eras, and if nothing else, brings about an added attention and appreciation of these songs.
Considered a parody of cover albums by some fans and given mixed reviews by others, I think that no matter what the interpretation is, it remains impressive that Weezer is able to sing these songs without altering the instrumentals, vocals, and recognizable structures very much at all and yet still manage to sound like the band we know. There’s no doubt that Weezer didn’t take themselves too seriously while doing this album, which in my opinion only made the release of their Black Album soon after (March 2019) even more effective (Black Album is comprised entirely of original songs).
I, for one, will likely keep this album on repeat for the foreseeable future. I’m a sucker for well-delivered covers, and even if covers are not your cup of tea, Teal Album is worth a listen for a compare-and-contrast, if nothing else.
Listen to Weezer’s Teal Album on Spotify or Apple Music.
~ Z ~
Photo by Tools For Motivation on Unsplash
