What: A surprise new album at an unlikely moment.
Who: Weezer.
Why we care: It looks like Leslie Jones and Matt Damon are about to have a lot more to argue about. In a recent standout SNL sketch, Damon’s die-hard Weezer fan had some harsh words for Jones’s Weezer purist (a very real type of fan who swears the band fell off for good after its sophomore album, Pinkerton). Their argument begins during a dinner party when Weezer’s recent cover of Toto’s “Africa” wafts through the radio. Little would either character have known, though, that this song was merely the opening salvo in a dramatic expansion of the Weezer canon.
Around the time of the SNL sketch, Weezer announced that their next album, The Black Album, would arrive in March. Now, it turns out that “Africa” represents a second flank of Weezer’s fight for dominion in the first quarter of 2019: a surprise covers album. The band tweeted out the announcement of The Teal Album around midnight on Wednesday, at the very moment the album became available for purchase.
SURPRISE. #TheTealAlbum is out now https://t.co/BXg5Beb7LI It’s us covering everyone else’s hits. pic.twitter.com/TfOR6xuiWd
— weezer (@Weezer) January 24, 2019
The 80’s-centric album–dig Rivers Cuomo’s Miami Vice look on the cover–features covers of Michael Jackson, Tears for Fears, the Eurythmics, and A-Ha, along with TLC’s “No Scrubs” for good measure. The timing of the announcement, so close to the next album’s release, makes today basically Hipster Dad Christmas, and a great time all around to have serious opinions about Weezer.
Watch the Weird Al-starring video for Weezer’s cover of “Africa” below.
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