Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf (2LP) [INTERSCOPE]

Why you'll love it

Dave Grohl drums on the whole thing, Mark Lanegan sings on several songs, and "No One Knows" and "Go with the Flow" became rock-radio staples. It went platinum and is one of the defining hard-rock records of the 2000s.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Dave Grohl on drums throughout
• Includes "No One Knows", "Go with the Flow" and "First It Giveth"

About the album

Queens of the Stone Age had already moved well past the point where discussions of the band's work felt compelled to mention co-founder, frontman and ultimate bandleader Josh Homme's past in Kyuss, but Songs for the Deaf is the album that wiped the whole slate clean and ushered QOTSA to the top of the post-millennial rock-'n'-roll heap. From here on in, Queens of the Stone Age was the band to beat. And it didn't hurt, of course, that Homme and then-bandmate Nick Oliveri managed to rope Dave Grohl (of Nirvana and Foo Fighters notoriety, just in case you've been living in a cave) into drumming on the whole thing.

Structured as a stoned late-night drive through the California desert from Los Angeles to Homme's longtime studio perch in Joshua Tree, with various radio stations wafting in and out along the way, Songs for the Deaf flows the way a concept album should. Deftly boogie-ing hard-rock workouts like the monster single "No One Knows" blend effortlessly into punishing stoner-metal epics and Oliveri's spastic hardcore freakouts, making room for flashes of Mark Lanegan's gothic baritone grandeur along the way. By the end of the touring cycle, Queens were a fixture on rock radio and well on their way to the arenas and festival headline stages they enjoy today. Songs for the Deaf is a star-making album and one of the best rock records of the 2000s.

Also at Kops: more Queens of the Stone Age on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Interscope, first out in 2002.