The Con (album)

The Con is Tegan and Sara's fifth full-length studio album, released on July 24, 2007 (February 18, 2008 in the United Kingdom). Guest performers on the album include Jason McGerr of Death Cab for Cutie, Matt Sharp of The Rentals and formerly of Weezer (on Sara's songs), Hunter Burgan of AFI (on Tegan's songs) and Kaki King.

The album is dedicated to Rita Clement and Burt Harris.

Background
The album was written during a period of intense emotional turmoil for both Tegan and Sara. Sara was struggling with Canadian immigration to get her American-born girlfriend a working visa so they could live together (she wrote ‘I Was Married’ about the ordeal), while Tegan was dealing with the break up of a five year relationship.

As announced on their MySpace blog, a special edition CD/DVD was released at the same time as the CD-only version. The CD/DVD release has a parental advisory warning for profanity on the DVD, although the CD contains no explicit content.

"Back in Your Head", the first single, and the second single, "The Con," were used heavily for promotional purposes. The vinyl release of this album includes a promotional copy of "The Con" on CD. "Call it Off" is the third single from the album. The music video for "Call It Off" was released September 15, 2008.

According to the DVD edition of the album, Sugar, Spell It Out was a tentative album title. The DVD also reveals the title track "The Con" was tentatively titled "Encircle Me" and "Like O, Like H" was previously titled "SOS."

EE Storey, the band's artistic director, designed the album artwork.

For the United States portion of their world tour of this album, they have posted a series of videos called "Trailer Talk" on their MySpace profile.

1,500 copies of The Con demos were sold for charity at concerts.

Critical reception
The Con received positive reviews from the media, scoring 80 on review aggregator MetaCritic. The album debuted at number 34 on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling about 19,000 copies in its first week. On week 2, the album fell out of the top 50, at #69, selling about 10,000 that week, totaling at 29,000.

Filter Magazine calls The Con "a startlingly dark, yet characteristically vibrant offering, featuring a band that’s learned to harness the energy-highs, while tempering pretty (even pastoral) pop-folk with a new, deeply-affecting brand of melancholy." PopMatters gives The Con a score of 8 out of 10, calling it "very, very good. To be more precise, it is one of the best albums so far of 2007 and one of the best recent pop releases." The A.V. Club says that "ultimately even The Con's failings work in its favor, providing a macro version of what the best Tegan And Sara songs do, by stumbling along recklessly, then falling together."

DVD features

 * The Con: The Movie (Making of the album)
 * Extras
 * Ptosis: Explained
 * Ptosis Outtakes
 * Duct Tape Dreads
 * Feelings Report

Personnel

 * Tegan Quin – guitars, keyboards, piano, vocals
 * Sara Quin – guitars, keyboards, piano, vocals
 * Christopher Walla – guitars (6, 10), keyboards (12), organ (6), shakers (6), cymbals (5), tiny guitars (5, 14), bass (4, 9)
 * Ted Gowans – guitars (2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14), keyboards (2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13), organ (13)
 * Matt Sharp – bass (1, 2, 6, 9, 11, 12) on all of Sara's songs
 * Hunter Burgan – bass (3, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14) on all of Tegan's songs
 * Kaki King – lap steel (4), guitar (11)
 * Jason McGerr – drums, percussion