It’s like live band karaoke, and everyone is invited, which is all this really boils down to at the end of the day. They’re not reinventing the wheel; they’re using it.
Respectful enough to rouse any struggling family gathering but knowing enough to amuse those in on the joke, ‘The Teal Album’ at once satirises the covers album and makes a decent stab at perfecting it.
The meticulous replications of The Teal Album aren't a million miles away from that notebook, but by having Weezer pop into familiar settings, Cuomo has created a hyper-saturated, uncanny valley, where nothing seems quite real. An ideal album for the internet, in other words.
For a covers album orchestrated by a popular rock band, The Teal Album could've turned out much worse.
In spite of all the possible pitfalls Weezer could have faced in its delivery, The Teal Album is a truly pleasant surprise, and one of the most likeable records to have emerged in recent months.
On The Teal Album, Weezer delivers an outright hilarious choice of ten faithfully-executed classics for an overall colourful experience. Teal is the colour of a band having pure, shameless fun.
For an album with both a Eurythmics cover AND a Black Sabbath cover it’s a surprisingly listenable, albeit pointless entry in their discography, Weezer has spent a decade becoming more interesting to read about than listen to.
The covers never stray from their iconic originals at all, much less enough to warrant the cover’s existence, and the only changes are in tinny or downright annoying transposing/altering of well-known instrumentals, making the album feel immediately enjoyable and just-as-immediately disposable.
I can understand Weezer forgot long ago what they were good at. I know they've forgotten how to write great songs. But here's the thing-at least they used to make better memes than this.
No band with perfect pitch has ever been this tone-deaf.
/ | Radio X |