This Con is certainly no rip off
Tegan and Sara cover album about giving back to ‘marginalized communities’
Ten years ago, Tegan and Sara recruited Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla to produce the duo’s fifth album. The group formed by identical twins Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin was already a growing force in global indie pop. But The Con took the group to the next level.
Tegan admits the album contributed to the progress of the duo and is pumped to be out on the road performing the album in its entirety in new semi-acoustic arrangements followed by songs selected from across the pair’s history. To accompany the tour, Warner Music has also released The Con X: Covers, a re-imagining of the album with contributions from such performers as Hayley Williams of Paramore to City and Colour and Chvrches, among others.
The two chose the artists to appear on the project with a goal in mind. Reflecting their own values as longtime openly gay artists, they wanted to engineer diversity on multiple levels on the record and took time putting it together. The importance to the fan base of such songs as Sara’s Relief Next to Me or Tegan’s Nineteen is well understood.
“We wanted to flip that script because when you see these type of projects or special events, the ratio of men to women is still so ridiculous and we wanted the opposite,” said Tegan. “We also aimed for as much diversity as possible and everyone had to either be LGBTQ or seen as allies. It was so humbling at times and incredibly moving to work with these artists and they all really delivered a really diverse-sounding album that I think writes another chapter in our career.”
That career now includes the massive hit single Closer, taken from their 2013 album Heartthrob, which found the two performing on stage with Taylor Swift in a viral video that is still racking up thousands of views a week. It also encompasses Everything is AWESOME!!!, the Academy Award-nominated song from The Lego Movie soundtrack featuring Tegan and Sara with The Lonely Island. Is it safe to say the pair, which released last year’s Love You to Death, seems far removed from the one that penned The Con. Not so, says Tegan. Writers may have developed the narrative of the chase after pop stardom on albums such as Sainthood and Heartthrob. But last year’s Love You to Death and its edgy singles such as Boyfriend or U-Turn didn’t fit that storyline.
“The last thing we wanted to do was chase Closer as we were exhausted by pop radio, by working one song and all that entails,” said Tegan. “So we went for a political, thematic album that rejected marriage, that rejected this heteronormative value system being put on us. It fit perfectly with what’s going on in the world because how could you go out on the road in the present times that we’re living in with a big pop record.”
Rather, the musician says her and her sister wanted to fight. To fight against still being an outside act even with all of their success. To fight to help improve “economic justice, health and representation for LGBTQ girls and women” through the Tegan and Sara Foundation. All proceeds from The Con X: Covers album will go to the foundation, which supports such initiatives as The Audre Lorde Project’s safe neighbourhood initiatives for LGBTQ people of colour.
“We’ve had an incredible career and very much are thoughtful Canadians who grew up with a mother who told us that we had to give back, to speak out, to care about marginalized communities,” said Tegan. “The whole narcissistic self-promotion aspect of music really made Sara and I feel kind of sick until we realized we could flip that on its head and use that popularity to get our message out. I want to balance the scales, to challenge the norm and be able to look back and feel that we did something in what really feels like toilet times at the moment.”
Putting their beliefs where their practice is, Tegan and Sara have stressed gender diversity on every aspect of The Con X: Tour. The hope is they can provide a means to gain the experience necessary to work in the still white male-centric music business. Everyone needs a break to get a foot in the door.
“We are both really energized, really excited about what is happening here and what we think we can do,” said Tegan. “We’ve earned the right to be popular and to be taken seriously, so let’s go.”
This last statement could be somewhat in defence of yet another popular myth around the pair. This one being, as the duo veered away from the folk stylings of earlier releases, it gained new audiences at the expense of its original fans. Tegan doesn’t buy this anymore than the line about chasing pop stardom.
“I think it made for a really good story to say that our fans were upset and that this obscure indie band with a lesbian audience was moving away from its defined role as music for women,” she said. “But our whole early career was spent opening for male acts, acquiring a male audience and getting played on alternative rock radio and the whole thing was using language holding us down. It was ridiculous.”
If you’ve attended a Tegan and Sara show, you know the audience — mixed in age and gender — is most certainly comprised of longterm fans. The singalong factor and excitement levels generated in concert aren’t the kind you develop with a single hit record. What is true is the diehard audience stuck around and a lot of new faces were added to the room.
There is one place where Tegan does think some of those old-school fans have fallen away from the concerts.
“Look, we are old,” she said. “I’m 37, I hardly go out to see music anymore and we’ve been around a long time. A lot of those original fans are at home, they’re tired after work and other responsibilities and they stay home and listen to records now.”
Ultimately, what matters to the artists as they head out on tour is what matters to any hard-working creative soul.
“The Con is a great, unconventional and strange record that was overlooked in a lot of ways,” said Tegan. “We proved that we were really good songwriters and with this new project, you can really hear that all over again. I’m really digging it.”