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Weezer (The Teal Album): Difference between revisions
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'''''Weezer (The Teal Album)''''' is the twelfth studio album by [[Weezer]], | '''''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 "[https://twitter.com/weezerafrica @WeezerAfrica]," run by 14-year-old Cleveland, Ohio resident Mary Klym, tweeted, "@RiversCuomo it's about time you bless the rains down in Africa."<ref>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</ref> After much back-and-forth between Mary 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 ''[[Weezer (The Black Album)|Black Album]]''. | |||
{{Rivers Cuomo quote|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.|''Billboard'' interview, [[2019]]<ref>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/</ref>}} | {{Rivers Cuomo quote|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.|''Billboard'' interview, [[2019]]<ref>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/</ref>}} | ||
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 | ''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== | ==Release== | ||
The | ''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 ''[[Weezer (The Black Album)|The Black Album]]'', a velcro wallet, and a signed dollar bill.<ref>"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</ref> A second promotional bundle followed including a [[Wikipedia:Rubik's cube|Rubik's cube]] featuring teal on all sides.<ref>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/</ref><ref>[[:File:Teal-RubiksCube.JPG]]</ref> The song "[[No Scrubs]]" trended on Twitter following the release of the album.<ref>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</ref> | ||
==Reception== | ==Reception== | ||
<blockquote>{{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.}} | <blockquote>{{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.}} | ||
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==Personnel== | |||
*[[Rivers Cuomo]] — guitars, lead vocals, piano, keyboards, backing vocals | |||
*[[Patrick Wilson]] — drums, percussion, backing vocals, production | |||
*[[Brian Bell]] — guitars, keyboard, backing vocals, lead vocals (on "Paranoid") | |||
*[[Scott Shriner]] — bass guitar, backing vocals | |||
*[[Mark Rankin]] — producer, engineer, mixing | |||
*[[Jason Clark]] — engineer | |||
*[[Suzy Shinn]] — vocal engineer | |||
*[[Eric Boulanger]] — mastering | |||
{{Discography}} | {{Discography}} | ||