Weezer -- Teal

6/10

Weezer's Teal, released smack dab between two pop albums, feels like a bone tossed to fans only interested in the band's rock side. Hang with us guys, here's some covers of some (mostly) 80's songs you probably like. The fact is, I do like most of these songs. Indeed, this entire project came out of a fan campaign to have the band cover Toto's "Africa." Weezer responded by doing so, then releasing an album featuring it and nine other covers. The covers are all well-done and enjoyable, but suffer from two adverse elements. The first is that they're all over-polished to a blinding sheen. Sure, Teal was released between two pop albums, but a little grit here would have gone a long way. The second issue is that the vast majority of these songs play it very safe. Great covers retain the spirit of the original, while displaying the individual characteristics of the band doing the covering. Thus, these covers are all merely good, and merely disposable, unfortunately non-essential.

"Weird Al," though.


2019 Atlantic/Crush
1. Africa (originally by Toto) 3:58
2. Everybody Wants to Rule the World (originally by Tears for Fears) 4:04
3. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (Originally by Eurythmics) 3:34
4. Take On Me (originally by A-ha) 3:43
5. Happy Together (originally by The Turtles) 2:25
6. Paranoid (originally by Black Sabbath) 2:44
7. Mr. Blue Sky (originally by Electric Light Orchestra) 4:46
8. No Scrubs (originally by TLC) 3:10
9. Billie Jean (originally by Michael Jackson) 4:54
10. Stand by Me (orginally by Ben E. King) 3:00