You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, but I Feel like a Millionaire

The first time I had heard of Queens of the Stone Age, much less heard of them, was their hit “No One Knows”.  The only reason I probably knew about them in the first place is that I love love love Dave Grohl as a drummer, and up to this point he was mostly playing guitars and singing for the Foo Fighters, having “retired” from playing drums after Nirvana dissolved.  I had read that he was playing with this band Queens of the Stone Age on their new record, so I wanted to check it out.  I heard “No One Knows” on rock radio and loved it.  I loved the video.

Then I went to a close friend’s house for dinner, and he played the album, Songs for the Deaf.  To be honest, I hated it the first time I heard it.  I don’t remember which song he started it on…perhaps the title of this blog entry, but for reasons I don’t know I just didn’t get the screaming.  So other than listening to “No One Knows” and later “Go with the Flow”, I didn’t really pay attention to them.  A couple of years later I heard their first single off the new album Lullabies to Paralyze entitled “Little Sister”.  Immediately I loved the song and feel to this day it was one of the best singles from the 2000s.  So I gave them another chance and grabbed Lullabies to Paralyze.  I loved that album and thought it was time to rehear Songs for the Deaf.

Needless to say I got it the second time around.  I went from hating it to liking it in a millisecond.  I think I listened to the album several times through back to back before I picked up something else.  There are still some albums that I need to hear, particularly their first two, the self-titled debut and Rated R, but I have liked their other albums.  Songs for the Deaf has been their best reviewed record and is the obvious subject of this blog.

#39 – Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf (Metascore = 89)

I must first talk about the primary personnel playing on this record, because not every player performs with the band on a regular basis, some members have been fired, and a few are guests.  I have already mentioned Dave Grohl.  Josh Homme is the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter for the group.  People rag on him for not being a great soloist, but I think he has a great penchant for writing riffs, and to be able to sing and play those riffs at the same time goes a long way in my book.  Nick Oliveri was the bassist, singer and other songwriter for the group.  He and Homme had a falling out in 2004, and Oliveri was fired.  This was a pretty big deal considering the two had been in bands together since Kyuss days, and Oliveri was a strong contributor to the songwriting.  Mark Lanegan, originally of Screaming Trees (an underappreciated grunge group back in the days of Pearl Jam and Nirvana in my opinion), provides vocals on a few of the songs and is an irregular contributor to their records.  Dean Ween provides guitars on “Six Shooter”, “Gonna Leave You”, and “Mosquito Song”.

The album opens with a sarcastic take on modern radio through the use of a radio DJ introducing the album with a bunch of talk about lame radio music before the drum beat kicks in (I should note that on “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar…” former drummer Gene Trautmann plays the drums, not Dave Grohl) and the song launches into the airwaves.  “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar…” is a tour de force of a song, Nick Oliveri screaming as everything else is turned up to eleven.  This segues right into “No One Knows”, the best song on this album.  The riff to this song is just awesome.  There are no other words to really describe it.  The drumming is also over the top, with Homme singing of Big Brother, Brave New World times in this desert apocalypse (ok, that’s just my take).

The fun only continues with “First It Giveth” through “The Sky is Falling”, where everything that the band does slams into you like wave after heavy wave.  Mark Lanegan sings “A Song for the Dead”, a song with a spaghetti western feel to it.  “Six Shooter” is so-so; it’s not a song I put my playlist to listen to.  “Hangin’ Tree” (Lanegan’s) is also ok but not a song I put regularly on my playlist.  “Go With the Flow”, another single off the record, is a relationship on the brink, with Homme suggesting he can “go with the flow, but don’t say it doesn’t matter anymore”.

Obviously I really enjoy this album.  I could go over some of the other songs on this record, but repeating myself about “Do It Again” having a killer riff or “A Song for the Deaf” being a fantastic song seems rote.  However, I do believe the Metascore is justified here.  As awesome as most of this record is, there are some songs that do drag it down and make it less accessible.  That said, I believe that there are a lot of people that would enjoy this album if they gave it a chance.