Weezer (The Teal Album)

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Weezer (The Teal Album)
Weezer (The Teal Album) cover
Studio album by Weezer
Released January 24, 2019 (Digital)
March 8, 2019 (CD, LP)
Format Digital, CD, LP
Genre Alternative
Length 36:18
Label Crush Music/Atlantic Records
Producer(s) Patrick Wilson
Professional reviews

Metascore 58
Weezer chronology
Pacific Daydream
(2017)
Weezer (The Teal Album)
(2019)
Weezer (The Black Album)
(2019)
Singles from Weezer (The Teal Album)
  1. "Africa"
    Released: May 28, 2018

Weezer (The Teal Album) is the twelfth studio album by Weezer. It received a surprise release on digital music platforms, with no prior promotion, on January 24, 2019, with a retail release following on March 1. The album features, exclusively, covers of famous songs, including the band's then-recent and successful cover of "Africa" by Toto.

Overview

In December 2017, Twitter user "@WeezerAfrica," run by 14-year-old Cleveland, Ohio resident Mary Klym, tweeted, "@RiversCuomo it's about time you bless the rains down in Africa."[1] After much back-and-forth between Klym and Pat Wilson, the band released a cover of Toto's "Rosanna" instead, as a digital download, on May 24, 2018. The band would, in fact, release a cover of "Africa" days later, on May 29, with limited-edition vinyl pressings of the single releasing in the following months.

"Africa" was an unexpected success for the band, giving the band their first Hot 100 hit since "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To" in 2009. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart in August 2018, becoming the band's first number-one single since "Pork and Beans" in 2008. According to Karl Koch in a 2018 Weezer Fan Club newsletter, "Africa" was initially intended to promote the band's upcoming tour, but the cover's success led the band to postpone and, ultimately, scrap the release of their then-forthcoming single, "Midnight," originally planned for the band's eponymous Black Album.


Rivers Cuomo head.png
I wrote a program to get all of the data from Spotify’s API, and we looked at the songs that were most popular that were not tagged “classic rock” or “alternative rock,” and that came out before 1994 — with the exception of “No Scrubs,” that one’s just too cool. I think there were about 200 songs in the report, so we picked the top ones and started learning them. I got all of the a capellas from YouTube and spent about 50 hours doing the vocals, really trying to get everything exactly right, and replicate all the different tracks. They did so much more layering in the ’80s than nowadays.


- Rivers Cuomo, Billboard interview, 2019[2]

The Teal Album consists of ten covers of various popular songs from the 20th century, ranging from a cover of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" to "Africa" by Toto. It contains no original songs, making it the band's first and, currently, only covers album.

Release

The Teal Album was released on January 24, 2019 with no prior announcement. It peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200 within two weeks of its release. To promote the album, the band released a "Totally Tubular Teal Bundle" featuring the CD, a digital download of The Black Album, a velcro wallet, and a signed dollar bill.[3] A second promotional bundle followed including a Rubik's cube featuring teal on all sides.[4][5] The song "No Scrubs" trended on Twitter following the release of the album.[6]

Reception

Rivers: As a student of music, maybe one of my motivations for making the Teal Album was to learn how the truly great songs work. I got all the a cappellas off YouTube and listened to every one of a hundred tracks of Michael Jackson’s voice, trying my best to replicate it. I mean, I can do a Weezer re-imagining of a song any day. You don’t have to put any thought into that.

Wood: So the exercise was worthwhile for you. What about the listener?

Rivers: You don’t see any reason to listen to Weezer’s “Africa” over the Toto version?

Wood: I don’t.

—Los Angeles Times interview[7]

The Teal Album received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Metacritic assigns a rating of 58 out of 100, based on 10 critic reviews.[8] In lieu of a review, Pitchfork published an article the day following the album's release titled "Will Weezer Ever Stop Being Disappointing?"[9]

Critics

Icon - 3 books.png This section requires expansion.
Reviewer Rating Review date Author
Allmusic 3/5 stars3/5 stars3/5 stars3/5 stars3/5 stars (3/5) Unlisted Stephen Thomas Erlewine


Track list

Personnel

  1. Klym, Mary. (@weezerafrica) "@RiversCuomo it's about time you bless the rains down in africa". 6 December 2017, 9:55 AM. https://twitter.com/weezerafrica/status/938406456302489600
  2. Ginsberg, Gab "Rivers Cuomo on His Data-Driven Approach to Weezer" Billboard. 1 March 2019. https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/weezer-rivers-cuomo-data-driven-approach-interview-8500614/
  3. "Totally Tubular Teal Bundle" Weezerwebstore.com. Archived by Wayback Machine on 24 January 2019: https://web.archive.org/web/20190124203258/https://weezerwebstore.com/products/totally-tubular-teal-bundle
  4. Breen, Lissa. "Album Review | Weezer Embrace Memes on The Teal Album" HeadStuff 19 February 2019. https://headstuff.org/entertainment/music/album-review-weezer-teal-album/
  5. File:Teal-RubiksCube.JPG
  6. Izadi, Elahe. "Everyone is talking about ‘No Scrubs’ because of Weezer. Welcome to 2019." The Washington Post. 24 January 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/01/24/everyone-is-talking-about-no-scrubs-because-weezer-welcome/?noredirect=on
  7. Wood, Mikael. "Being Rivers Cuomo: Why Weezer’s frontman put his life into a spreadsheet" Los Angeles Times. 22 Februar 2019. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-rivers-cuomo-weezer-teal-album-black-album-20190222-story.html
  8. "Weezer (Teal Album)" Metacritic https://www.metacritic.com/music/weezer-teal-album/weezer
  9. Mapes, Jill. "Will Weezer Ever Stop Being Disappointing?" Pitchfork. 26 January 2019. https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/will-weezer-ever-stop-being-disappointing/