A decade ago Canadian twin rockers Tegan and Sara released their fifth album, “The Con.” It was a departure from their earlier albums. The Quin sisters were signed to Neil Young’s label as an acoustic duo while they were still in their teens and until that point had yet to explore what would define their sound.
“The Con” was rough, raw, and full of emotion, packing in 14 tracks in just 37 minutes. It spawned two singles, “Back in Your Head” and “The Con.” Many have called it a coming of age record and it has since become a seminal record for the band, influencing a generation of young musicians.
In celebration of the album’s 10th anniversary, Tegan and Sara decided to reissue it as a cover album, featuring all 14 tracks performed from a diverse mix of artists.
“The Con X: Covers” features alt.rocker Ryan Adams burning through a rocking rendition of “Back in Your Head,” while Cyndi Lauper brings new life to the same song with her own version. Sara Barielles turns “Floorplan” into a completely new song, and younger artists like Shamir, who deftly handles “Like O, Like H,” demonstrate the influence that the album had on them while they were still in their teens.
Warner Bros. Records will be donating net album proceeds to the Tegan and Sara Foundation and a portion of the proceeds from the tour will also go to the organization that the Quins founded a year ago to support self-identified women and young girls in the LGBTQ community. All the artists on the album donated their time and energy to the project.
“The Con was a bit messy and fragmented when we released it,” Tegan Quin said calling while on tour in Portland, OR. “We’d had a hit with ‘Walking with a Ghost.’ It was like, should we go into the studio and make a real commercial record? Instead we made ‘The Con,’ which was pretty anti-establishment and full of rough edges.
“To hear these artists smooth out the songs, artists who we admire bringing their own interpretations to our music, the experience has been pretty surreal.”
To say that “The Con” was the group’s breakthrough moment misrepresents their early success. “So Jealous” released in 2004 saw the band breaking into mainstream pop with the single “Walking with a Ghost,” which was covered by The White Stripes.
“The Con X” was released in October 2017 and has been selling well. NPR did a piece called “Children of The Con,” interviewing young artists inspired by Tegan and Sara’s music. The group started out pre-social media and Quin said they never really had a mentor. Their music has always been hard to categorize, never fitting into one particular genre. They spent their early years opening for a list of male artists, who at times treated them like kid sisters.
“We always felt a little lonely and lost at sea,” Quin said. “I think we were hard to classify and identify with and combined with us being queer, I think a lot of other artists kept us at arm’s length.
“I think we were unfairly labeled as a band for women and gay people early in our career. A lot of our frustration came out on that album and we were involved in every step of it. It was our way of saying, ‘Don’t marginalize or diminish us because we’re the real deal.’ After ‘The Con’ came out we started to develop a scene and artists started to contact us to collaborate with them. When we released the album it didn’t feel that significant to us.”
In many ways the energy and creativity on “The Con” makes it a timeless album, one not defined by the style of the times. Listening to it today it sounds like it could have been released in 2017.
“It’s a strange, often messy, genreless record,” Quin said. “We didn’t recognize that at the time. We just noticed more people coming out to our shows.”
The Quins have a long history of playing the Philly area, dating back to the late 90s while they were still in their teens. This writer can recall seeing them in one early performance at The Point in Bryn Mawr playing to a packed house. Their playful on-stage banter continues today.
“Playing Northeast cities like Philly made us feel like we’d made it,” Quin said. “Philly is so different from where we grew up in Calgary. We thought we were a big deal even when we were playing a room of 100 people, it was just so foreign to us.”
This time they’ll be playing for more than 100 fans.
IF YOU GO
Tegan and SaraWhat: An evening of original acoustic songs celebrating The Con
When: 9 p.m., Friday, November 10
Where: Tower Theatre, S. 69th St. & Ludlow St., Upper Darby
Cost: $26-$135Online: http://www.teganandsara.com
