Weezer ‘Weezer (the Teal Album)’ — Review
In the lead-up to the release of the ‘Black’ album which arrives March 1st, American rock band Weezer surprise released a new album of covers three days ago. But is it good?
Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell, Patrick Wilson and Scott Shriner seem to be having the time of their lives right now. Always a band to rile up their audience, Weezer took the internet by storm after releasing their long-awaited and apparently highly demanded cover of Toto’s 1982 smash ‘Africa’ in May of last year. The cover was successful and catapulted Cuomo & Co back into online virality, and as a result, the band decided to stop blessing the rains and instead bless us with an album consisting of 10 covers of more meme-worthy songs.
You’d think by looking at a tracklist that consists of covers of songs like TLC’s ‘No Scrubs’, Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ and a-ha’s ‘Take On Me’, that the idea of the Teal album would be one of those that sound better in your head; and while Weezer may not have hit a home run, they certainly haven’t struck out with it. To put it bluntly, there’s nothing remarkable about this album, but there’s nothing offensively awful about it either. Weezer’s renditions of the 10 songs on Teal are fine. Sure, they haven’t done anything super creative and have opted to stay as close to the originals as possible in most cases, but it still makes for a fun listening experience. Cuomo even sticks to the correct gender narrative in ‘No Scrubs’ for crying out loud!
Some fans may be disappointed that the Teal album isn’t ten tracks of original music, but it was never going to be. Weezer have released this album as a light-hearted gesture of goodwill and that’s more than okay. The lack of creativity within their renditions might be a slight let down for some, but overall you‘d struggle to deny that it isn’t a pleasant listen from a band who are clearly making the most of their time in the internet spotlight. At the end of the day, the Teal album is just plain fun. So the question is… do you hate fun?
6.5/10
