Secret Meeting score: 74
by Phil Scarisbrick
It’s amazing how social media campaigns can lead to many an unlikely thing happening. From Rage Against The Machine getting a Christmas number one with Killing In The Name, to people paying to watch ‘YouTube stars’ box, the world has undoubtedly changed due to social media’s immense reach and influence. One such campaign was a Twitter account dedicated to one request: for Weezer to cover Toto’s behemothic hit, Africa. In May last year, it finally happened, but what happened this weekend off the back of this surprised everyone- a full album of covers entitled The Teal Album.
Usually, the point of a covers album is for an artist to deconstruct a song and rebuild it in their own style. Ryan Adams did this superbly on his underrated reimagining of Taylor Swift’s 1989. Johnny Cash turned other people’s songs into haunting odes to the finite nature of life as he entered his twilight years. Here though, Weezer have created what is essentially ‘Rivers Cuomo does karaoke’.
Kicking off with the aforementioned Africa, the backing is almost Toto’s original backdrop verbatim. As we move onto Tears For Fears’ Everybody Wants To Rule The World and Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams, it is clear that this is the only clear thread throughout the album. Cuomo has a very good voice, and if you were unsure of his vocal range before, his performance on Take On Me proves he has the minerals.
As unlikely as this whole album is, Weezer doing a straight cover of TLC’s No Scrubs (without feeling the need to alter the gender direction of the lyrics) is probably the most unlikely of them all. Closing out with Ben E. King’s arrangement of Stand By Me, this is the most ‘different’ sounding of the songs, although still pretty close to the original.
Normally, a covers project is put together for a specific purpose. At its best it can be a heartfelt tribute, whether emotionally or artistically, at its worst it is usually a fifteen-minutes-of-fame singer-songwriter doing a faux-ernest, piano-backed take of an eighties disco song to sell mortgages or something. The point is that in all those cases, they serve a purpose. However conceited they may be, they’re created to achieve something. Here though, there doesn’t seem to be any purpose other than a bit of fun, and that is absolutely the charm of the whole project. As Oscar Wilde said “We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.” and the Teal album is a wonderfully fun, yet completely useless piece of art.
Want to keep up to date with all our latest pieces? Follow us on social media…
