Let’s be honest, the whole “Weezer cover Africa” thing took on a life of its own. Inspired by “Africa” by Toto’s recent memedom, a 14 year old’s twitter account became a mix of weird twitter and music twitter. The account caught on and after months, Weezer was forced to respond. And the band responded.. by trolling the world and releasing a cover of “Rosanna” by Toto.

However, a few days later, the band did finally cover “Africa”. And then weirdest thing about it? The song actually charted on the Billboard Hot 100. I’ve even talked to people who have heard it on the radio with no idea of the backstory. Weezer knew to strike while the iron was hot, performing the song live anywhere that would have them and even filming a video for the song recreating their video for “Undone — The Sweater Song” staring “Weird Al” Yankovic. The mad lib-ness of that last sentence shows just how much Weezer was willing to lean into the general internet weirdness of this whole situation.

Well, the band decided to run with it and out of the blue (no pun intended) released Weezer (The Teal Album), an album comprised entirely of covers. The surprise album became the talk of the day’s news cycle. The cover of TLC’s “No Scrubs” was the most out of left field and talked about on social media. But even more surprising that this album which was literally a surprise was how often I saw it pointed to as a sign that Weezer had sold out or become a joke act or a gimmick band or something along those lines. Y’know, all the same things that they’ve been saying about the band since the band’s first album 25 years ago.

“Pork and Beans” music video now serves as a great time capsule of early YouTube.

We should’ve learned from “Pork and Beans”, Weezer is going to do the things that they want to do! The band has always done what they think is cool and interesting. At times (most famously the Pinkerton era) the band has tried to get away from being label as a joke band. Rivers famously fueded with the director and studio over the direction of the “El Scorcho” video, demanding it be devoid of gimmicks and leading to that rather boring video.

After that, even as soon as the next video, the band for the most part were more willing to play into a less serious image. But seldom was it intentionally quirky or ironic. Things like the Weezer snuggie or the “Kids/Pokerface” mash-up seemed more about doing those things because they’re what the band thought was legitimately cool than playing into the dorky image the band has.

The band has also had a relationship to the internet different than most bands. In the early aughts, the band would put up tracks of their new songs they were working on for the upcoming album that became Maladroit. They would continue releasing demos, outtakes, or whole songs through the internet, sometimes directly and other times more mysteriously. Cuomo’s own obsessive and methodical nature crossed over with his online savvy leading to him posting a list of demos he deemed 4 or 5 stars and a comprehensive history of every song he and the band memebers have recorded. The “Let’s Write a Sawng” project was a collaborative approach on Youtube to songwriting, which eventually lead to a song, “Turning Up the Radio”, on an actual Weezer album, Death to False Metal.

People are pointing to the new album as the nail in the Weezer coffin, something they do with every new release. But The Teal Album wouldn’t be out of place at any time in Weezer’s career, sans a couple years in the late nineties. Rivers and the band have been recording and releasing covers at a fairly consistent rate since the band began. The band included “My Evaline” as a B Side for “Undone — The Sweater Song”. Their first post-Pinkerton era release (and the only release before their 2000 comeback) was a cover of the Pixies “Velouria”. Around the same time, they played two shows as their alter ego “Goat Punishment” that consisted entirely of covers, one night all Nirvana and one night all Oasis… And this was the band at their most dark and serious.

During the post-comeback Green/Maladroit era, the band slowed down on the covers (probably due to the insane amount of original songs that the band was banging out) but did record a (superior to the original) version of Green Day’s “Worry Rock”. As post-Maladroit songs slowly took shape into Make Believe’s Fallen Soldiers, the band recorded a rather lifeless cover of “Unbreak My Heart” which wouldn’t be released until Death to False Metal. The band continued the occasional live cover until the whole “Africa” thing.

Even the band clogging up their discography with such a frivolous release is nothing new. Christmas with Weezer was a six song EP of Christmas covers that were recorded for a game on the app store. The fanbase is split on whether the outtake album Death to False Metal is an official album or a side release, something the band itself doesn’t seem entirely sure about. As someone who loves a clear canon of albums by an artist, it infuriates me how ugly and inconsistent my favorite band’s is. While The Blue Album and Pinkerton’s deluxe reissues are clearly bonus releases, The Red Album, Raditude, and Hurley each had their deluxe versions release day and date with the standard editions. By Hurley, the band wised up to include songs that were either covers, remixes, or songs that were there for completion’s sake. Red and Raditude’s bonus tracks feature some of the absolute best in the band’s catalog. It creates a weird situation where my favorite songs from those two albums aren’t even on those two albums! Of course this all could have been corrected by adding the four extra songs to the tracklist proper or, y’know, just picking the ten best songs for the standard release of the album.

What I’m trying to say is that The Teal Album isn’t the end of the world. It’s not that surprising that it happened and it does nothing to tarnish the band’s legacy. The band’s excellent covers of “Paranoid Android” and “Like a Good Neighbor” (which is astoundingly one of the band’s best sounding recordings) were relegated to Youtube videos, never getting an official, high quality release. The Teal Album is a fun little entry into the bands career which isn’t world changing but it most certainly better than nothing.