Album Review: Weezer (The Teal Album)

So, you may have heard Weezer's couple of Toto covers last year, one of which ('Africa', because of course) got the studio treatment. This cover actually turned out to be one of Weezer's more successful charting songs in about a decade. Not surprisingly, Weezer took this success and attempted to build on it by releasing an entire covers album a few days ago. This was also successful; successful in both breaking the fanbase in half and redefining the meaning of pointless.

While this album isn't the worst thing ever, it's nothing if not predictable. All the songs here have been covered to death, and are played so faithfully to the original (excluding some slightly more overdriven guitar or a different synth patch) that it practically borders on an album of karaoke. Rihanna's Tame Impala cover on Anti comes to mind. I'm not opposed to a covers album from Weezer, but I was hoping for some arrangements that were a little more adventurous and a little less paint by numbers. Plus, as if somebody doesn't know this by now, Rivers Cuomo is not the best singer. He could have tweaked some arrangements to more suit his incredibly limited range, or he could pass the vocals off to Brian Bell (his vocal turn on 'Paranoid' wasn't half bad).

Weezer has a tendency to kill any good will they accumulate as soon as they get it, following up their best album in at least 15 years (The White Album) with Pacific Daydream, and now with this uninspired covers record. For tips on how to do covers right in my opinion,check out Xiu Xiu's album of Nina Simone covers or the Ramones' Acid Eaters. You could still tell what the songs were, but they made them their own. Hopefully, The Black Album has a little bit more effort put into it than this. This reeks to me of a band playing into a meme for some quick press and a few cheap streams.

Honestly, if I went into this album and picked it apart track by track, I'd be putting more effort into this record than Weezer did. It's ok for the band to have fun, but maybe you could let the listeners (aka the reason you're famous) in on some of the fun by, I don't know, trying to entertain?



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