Songs For The Deaf

'Every Queens of the Stone Age Album Is a Concept Album and the Concept Is Doing Drugs in the Desert' Big ups for adding this given the S/T was a weird (but appreciated) inclusion in the main 1001 over this LP. QoTSA's discography is incredibly solid, but nothing will ever top the combo of Homme, Grohl, Oliveri, and Lanegan on a road trip to nowhere. This was the album where Queens became a band in its own right, not just a loose collective of 90s' grunge/hard rock greats each putting out insane instrumentals. The radio interstitials connect the insanely strong run of tracks into a one-hour world where the sun is high and hope is gone, a fully-realized bitter yet wry haze that defines the Homme's project to this day. Whether you get down with the ragged textures of this LP or not, this is an /album/ through and through – an entire artistic vision, not a loose collection of tracks with one hit single thrown in. Defines the essence of what this project should be about, this was an essential add to the list and one I should have thought of myself.

At LONG last! Nothing can beat the string of perfect desert-rock jewels "No One Knows" - "First It Giveth" - "A Song For The Dead" and "The Sky Is Falling" on the first side. This thing is wild. It's seductive AND menacing. It grooves and rocks in equal measure. Josh Homme croons like his life depends on it. His guitar roars and swoons effortlessly, like tires scratching on the asphalt. Oliveri's bass ticks like an indicator going bonkers. Dave Grohl's drumming is firing in all cylinders. And Mark Lanegan's appearance chills the bones, as if he was a ghost on the side of the road... A little later, QOTSA deliver the *perfect" melodic rock / motorik song with "Go With The Flow". Homme's vocal lines and mellifluous harmonies there are a work of sheer genius. And just as in "A Song For The Dead", the syncopated accents in the drums feel like bumps on a highway to hell. And yet the car drives even faster the more you go into the song. When has rock'n'roll ever felt so exciting? When? Even the supposed "deeper cuts" have a cult-favorite aura to them: "Gonna Leave You", "Do It Again", "God Is in the Radio", "Another Love Song", up until the gothic title-track and (almost) closer. It's always a whole trip to get lost in their cinematic twists and turns... This is an oversight so HUGE in the original book it almost ruins it. As huge as the one of Weezer's "Blue Album", if only in terms of cultural impact. Wouldn't be surprised to see this record joining said Blue Album in the users list's highest global scores in the near-future... I know I'm getting old and this LP feels sort of "dad rock" for the younger generations. But it's a dad rock CLASSIC now, just like the ones of The Who, Creedence or Led Zeppelin decades before it. Because when younger people want to start looking into the past, *Songs For The Deaf* is as good an entry point as the best records by those other legendary acts. So, Dimery and co, please take out the "draft" that the self-titled debut was, and place *Songs For The Deaf* instead. And add *Rated R* while you're at it! Honestly, you'll keep on looking like jokes if you don't do so. 5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 10/10 for more general purposes ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 68 (including this one) Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 86 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 165 ---- Emile... Je viens de lire ta dernière réponse. Je vais essayer de trouver le temps de rédiger la mienne bientôt. D'ici-là, ben bonne année!

Certified banger. No filler, all killer. The best hard rock album of the 21st century and it's not even particularly close. Definitely should have been on the original list over the debut.

An absolute banger - kind of insane Dimery included the debut when this beast exists. A cool concept that doesn’t over complicate the songs themselves, and just a truly exciting, versatile, and fucking cool record

I've done that very drive while listening to the radio, and it's pretty damn accurate. This is a fun ass hard rock album for the 21st century, and has stood the test of time as a modern classic.

Songs For The Deaf is a fabulous desert rock album. The songs "No One Knows", "First It Giveth" and "Go with the Flow" are modern rock classics. Great rock riffs, drums by Dave Grohl and guest vocals by Mark Lanegan.

Yes! My review of ther self-titled (which was in the original list) said "Rated R or Song for the Deaf should probably be here in its stead ... I will be a bit disappointed if this is the only time Josh and the gang feature on this list." Good to see at least one person agreed with me! This is probably their best album, but still sounds as weird as everything else. The variety of styles and sounds, combined with the wee "radio announcements" makes it feel like a compilation album - in a good way! Also part of the soundtrack of my life from ages 19-23, so always an album I will look back on fondly.

9/10 i’ve liked it more than my first time listening to it Im glad this album gave me an excuse to give this a relisten because it really is a great album :)

Ooh, a Queens of the Stone Age album that isn’t their debut! Fantastic. I think I may have listened to this album in its entirety one time, but I think that was during a workout, so I didn’t give it my undivided attention. I know the singles off of this album really well, but most of this album will probably feel new to me, even if I did indeed listen to all of it at some point. Songs for the Deaf is a little short of five stars for me, but it’s still a really great hard rock album. Listening to this, it’s clear that it was crafted with a vision for a complete work of music, and not just a collection of songs. SftD truly feels like a road trip across a desert landscape, and Josh Homme is the perfect guide. To me, QotSA teeters right on the edge of being sinister, but without going full-tilt into that sinisterness. Homme is the perfect guide for that journey, because there’s a quality to his voice that makes you want to follow and trust him, but you know in the back of your mind that you need to keep your wits about you if you do. The guitar work on this album is great, and the riffs burrowed straight into my brain. “No One Knows” is incredible, and easily the best song on the album, if not the best song that QotSA has ever put out. There’s multiple catchy guitar riffs, expert drumming, and a bridge that manages to build a sense of dread and wonder at the same time. I wish a couple of minutes could have been taken from “The Sky is Fallin’” or “God Is in the Radio” and given to “No One Knows” instead. “Go with the Flow” is great too, with its screeching guitars, and “First It Giveth” is up there too. This album has a few points that dragged for me, but it did wind up finishing on a really strong note with “A Song for the Deaf” and “Mosquito Song.” Despite those low points, SftD is still a great album, and easily one of the best rock records of the aughts.

So I never got into QOTSA because the stuff I heard off Songs For The Deaf weren't really to my tastes even though they ostensibly should've been at face value, and listening back through the whole album now I'm more confident they're not for me. It's weird, because there are elements throughout that are okay but it's a mix of a little bit too grungy, a bit too proggy, a a bit too indie-influenced as a lot of 'rock' from the 00s tended to be, none of it egregious or dominant over the course of the record but the cumulative effect is that I just don't really enjoy it even if I recognise that it's good and occasionally appealing to my ear. Josh Homme's vocals annoy me though, especially in the upper register, and I'm also annoyed by the interludes/skits that I've marked down many a rap album for having as a waste of time and there are a few in here too. I think it gets a 3 because it's never bad and occasionallly good but this is more alt/stoner than heavy rock and that pretty much explains it for me.

The best hard rock album of the 21st century, if not the best hard rock album ever? For all the hard rock dreck I drudged through in the main list, there's no way that Songs for the Deaf should have slipped through the cracks, but fortunately the user list comes to the rescue. I have history with Songs for the Deaf, it was one of the first albums I fell in love with during my early teens and an album that helped shape my music taste. I haven't listened to it in a long time so I'm trying to approach this from an unbiased perspective, but fortunately this album still rocks. I made it sound like this was just a hard rock album, but that's doing this album great disservice as there are a lot of factors that make it click. SftD is a variety of hard rock known as "stoner rock", which takes influence from psychedelic rock and heavy metal but doesn't go far enough in either direction, opting to stay within the more accessible realm of hard rock. This album is also alternative rock, which is important for reasons I'll get into later. The hard rock elements give these songs a much needed oomph, but it's not the only thing in the album that achieves this. This album is notorious for its "loudness" (in short a mastering technique which reduces dynamic range making the quiet moments less quiet,) and while it's generally considered a negative thing I think this album is one of the rare cases where it works in the albums favour. This album blasts you with sound and almost every song does this at some point to give the songs a punch, and that's an accurate descriptor as sometimes the sound bursts are so powerful it feels like a physical hit. The first song "[...] Millionaire" uses this effect multiple times and it really sends a message as to what to expect from the album. The Queens of the Stone Age album in the book is far heavier on the stoner rock side and it hurts the accessibility of it, there are a few songs that go into alt rock territory and I think they're the best on that album and a prototype for their next two albums, Rated R, and Songs for the Deaf. If Only is easily the poppiest of the bunch although seems very primitive compared to anything from this album, but the seed was planted back then. The alternative rock stylings on this album give it a much needed boost for hooks to counterbalance to the hardness. For this album Mark Lanegan (from the Screaming Trees) and David Grohl were recruited, and the inclusion of these two grunge legends had great impact. Grunge was a great example of mixing heavy and aggressive sounds with pop music (and underneath rocky exterior this is a pop album) so I think they were added to give the album that sweeter appeal. I think Lanegan might actually be the secret sauce as to why the songs sound so good, as the band lost much of the pop appeal after his departure. The final thing that makes this so special are the radio broadcast parody snippets. SftD is a concept album, supposedly of a road trip from LA, through the Californian deser,t to Joshua Tree. In-between songs there's radio skits and radio dial turning to give it the immersive feel of flicking through radio stations while on a road trip, also with some satire on radio culture. The album already has a very desert type feeling to it so these two factors combined put you in that frame of mind for most of the album's runtime. The album ends on a folky, chamber pop song called Mosquito Song. It's far from the best song on here (or maybe not, I find it very difficult to pick favorites on this album), but flipping the entire album on its head is an interesting way to close it out. There's no electric guitars and it's a very delicate and soft song, with a vaguely Latin theme, so completely different from anything else. Interestingly Mosquito Song still manages to pack a punch with the orchestral swells. One of the members of Ween also get a writing credit here Should it be on the main list: Yes, 100%. How did the debut make it in over this? Top 3 songs: No One Knows, Another Love Song, Song for the Deaf

Not much needs to be said about this one. I was a huge Kyuss fan in the 90s, and Queens of the Stone Age kept carrying that musical style forward. This album was the deserved breakthrough. Songs like "Go With The Flow," "No One Knows," and "Song For The Dead" (one of the best drum intros of all time) completely balance out the few somewhat lesser songs on the album. Even if the AM radio intermissions start to become a bit annoying. An easy 5 stars.

Yes this is a better album than the QoS one of the list. Could argue their best album, though I tend to personally prefer like clockwork. This is still a five star album in my book.

This album is amazing! The radio interjections are weird, but fit strangely. The heavy songs are all bangers. and the last song starts very calmly but ends in a bombastic conclusion

I loved this when it came out but it's had a bit of a renaissance with me recently and I've spun it more than I have in decades. Cracking album.

Stoner rock, hard rock, desert rock, alternative metal, progressive grunge. Está bien. Un 4, venga.

Love a bit of QOTSA. Obviously No One Knows is a banger. I remember fondly the BBC Radio 1 Live lounge version. Classic.

This is such an amazing album that I can even overlook the fake radio thing that's not really useful.

A little bit psychedelic, a little bit garage rock, and a little bit grunge rock...this is the album that put Queens of the Stone Age on the map, and it's a fantastic album. The thick, distorted, sludgy guitar-forward sound does a lot to define this album's style. This style is further defined and supported by Dave Grohl's grunge-knowledgable drums. With three of the band members providing vocals as well, "Songs for the Deaf" has some great harmonies. The staticy radio segments played between some of the songs only tighten the cohesiveness of this album as well as the garage/grunge theme. This album isn't really a metal album, but it has metal moments that really slay. Even the weirdness of the bonus track, "Mosquito Song" really landed well with me. Honestly, this is probably QotSA's most solid piece of work, and is a great user contribution that makes up for its exclusion from the original book part of the project. If I'm being prescriptive, this is around a 4.5 for me, so I might as well round up and make it my first 5 from the user album list. Again, great addition!

Listened to this during a workout and now I'm a bodybuilder. 9/10

This is, in my honest opinion, the album that should have been included in the original list. No shade to the selftitled album, but this one has the most cultural significance. Chockful of hits, and still hast that raw, dry desert feeling that they lost in later years. Superb!

Absolute banger, never stops being good

This is indisputably a better album than QotSA from the main list. This time, it plays with radio-station interludes and interruptions, which is a bit hacky on the first listen, starts to make more sense as you listen again, but becomes boring when you're familiar with it. The music is great. No One Knows is a rare exception in early 2000s music in that it was released into a landscape of absolute codswallop, yet not only avoids joining in with the hogwash but stands up for itself nearly 25 years later. I might prefer the The Divine Comedy version of it though. This album, though, is pretty bloody good. I'll admit I didn't really pay much attention to QotSA when I was in my teens or twenties, and they only really started resonating with me towards the end of my thirties. Now I'm into the second half of my forties, I will gladly put an album of theirs on, mainly for what their music is designed for - long distance driving. It's grand.

A fine addition to the album list! I was already familiar with a couple of the songs on here and the rest were just as great!

an album that deftly mixes the dulcet sweet tones of their vocalist and the groove crunch of the band. No One Knows is such a good single. First It Giveth and Song For The Dead are both awesome. The concept of this being a radio station tune search is also pretty rad. Go With The Flow is another great song. An album so stacked up with hits it is impossible to ignore.

This album deserves the hype, because the stars aligned for this album to come out at the perfect time, with the perfect line-up of band members, and just enough hits to make an hour fly by. Listening to something like this after the snorefest that was the Clutch album makes this only stand out more, and it's no wonder that this album made it to the big time.

Good pick

A masterpiece.

Rating: 10/10

Awesome album

Solid rock record. I could have done without all the skit/fake radio stuff.

This is a more solid pick than the debut album in the official list. Pretty great; high four.

I really liked this one a couple down spots but over all very good.

Little pretentious, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they rock pretty hard. I just know the singer thinks his shit don’t stink. Who the fuck performs in the catacombs. What an ass. Anyway, yeah, it’s great. I enjoyed it except for the fucking commercials they edited in. Fuck that. There’s enough already. 4/5

QotSA is one of those bands whose music I enjoy but not for long listening sessions. For some reason their music becomes droney after listening for more than a couple songs and it all starts blending together. But like I said, I do enjoy the songs individually. 3.5 rating but I'll bump it up to a 4.

Should have been on original list

Me ha parecido un buen disco de rock, con canciones no muy atronadoras y con más de una conocida. Para darle más escuchas. No tan cercano al heavy-metal, pero sí a rock contundente.

Great songs (for the deaf and non-deaf), but a bit longer than they should be to be perfect. (I'll not check 'cause I'm lazy, but it would be curious if the album length was precisely the duration of a trip from LA to Joshua Tree. (I'll) never know)

Very suprising that this didn't make the original when so many flavor-of-the-month rock releases did. A modern classic in many respects. Lots of great songs on here, but I find a bit top heavy in the tracklist. Not to say that the later songs are bad, they just don't stir me the same way.

Listening to the user lists there are a few recurring themes I’ve seen. This hits on two of the three recurring ones. 1) I could have sworn this was on the main list. 2) A band that the Spotify algorithm thinks I should love way more than I do. I enjoy them. I occasionally will chose to put on one of the their records I just don’t love them. The third theme which doesn’t apply here is me asking why someone chose this. That I understand for this one. Great record. While a focused rock record it differs in writing from song to song. It has well executed musicianship. Great record all around and worth a listen.

Wow this takes me back- kinda a one off with departures but boy it was one hell of a one-off! Real atmosphere on this- so assured and 'in the zone' all the way through.

stoner rock, hard rock, desert rock, alternative metal, progressive grunge.

Should definitely have been on the list, even though Rated R is my personal preference.

A decent number of people somewhat regularly tell me that QOTSA rock and kick ass. When I listen to QOTSA I find myself absolutely loving the guitar tone and riffs, the production, etc. I don't really love much else. Sometimes I wish these guitar riffs would go on forever, I don't care much for the vocals of their supposed "sense of humor" or whatever. That being said this album rocked and I really enjoyed it.

Stoner rock, hard rock, desert rock, alternative metal, progressive grunge. Está bien. Un 4, venga.

The radio/Songs for the Deaf bit became tired. That is my number one thought. A lot of the album is good rock alternative with catchy beats, but c'mon. Every other song contributes something to the theme, and I just wanted to listen to the actual music. It ties the album together, I guess. I have to knock down my rating to a 3. [Pawn Stars meme] That's the best I can do.

I have never really cared for Queens of the Stone Age. They are a technically proficient band, but their style just gets under the skin in a most unsatisfying way.

I don't like their music but this is a record full of ideas and bangers

Good rock album, something that doesn't really exist in the early 00s. 3/5

This one comes in with a very distinct sound right from the start. It’s heavy, driving, and has a kind of desert rock feel that sets it apart from a lot of other rock albums. There’s a grit to it, but it’s controlled and purposeful. What stood out to me most is how locked in everything feels. The guitars, drums, and vocals all work together to create a steady, pounding groove that carries through the album. It doesn’t feel all over the place—it feels focused. There’s also a certain attitude behind it. Not over-the-top, just confident in what it is and how it delivers it. That confidence helps the album stay engaging from beginning to end. It’s not overly complicated, but it doesn’t need to be. It knows what it wants to do and does it well. As I’ve mentioned in this series before, sometimes that’s exactly what makes an album work. Overall, a strong, consistent rock album that holds its own all the way through.

Very straightforward rock. I feel nothing about these guys, but I also can't really fault them for anything either

Kors, vilka höga poäng plattan har. Den är inte dålig men så jävla bra är den ju inte.

This is definitely the Queens best album with not only solid rock hits but also a good array of instrumentals. It’s a bit lengthier but given its high speed sound this album is invigorating. Plenty of strong songs with excellent guitar work and solid drumming beats by Grohl. Overall it’s an album worth revisiting and one of the better 00s rock albums. 7.6/10

Solid metal base. I found the voice over radio DJ bits gave it a 'real' feeling

I don't know if I've listened to much if any of this band, though the name is familiar (if they had a prior album on this list I guess it didn't make a huge impression). I was a pretty big Screaming Trees fan in like the mid- to late-90s. In that contex his was more metal than I expected. I liked this, a little on the fence though. The muddy delivery made a lot of the lyrics hard to parse. I'd listen to more.

Boosted by Grohl

"Go With The Flow" is one of my favourite songs of all time; it's just so dynamic and visceral, and I do like "No One Knows" a lot. But this album has not stood the test of time: the wacky GTA-radio like interstitials, the weaker songs: "Six Shooter," "Another Love Song;" they drifted away from Kyuss-like stoner rock and tried and failed to do different things. It's at once their highest point and the beginning of their end.

Do I dare call this dad rock, either way it slaps

I just don't get the praise for the album. It's perfectly fine, to the extent of dullness. It kinda reminds me of Foo Fighters (besides the obvious Dave Grohl connection) where everyone seems to love them but it just sound so dull and uninteresting to me. The little radio skits didn't help either. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Yes, over the book one.

Decent album. Maybe liked this a smidge more than the other QOTSA album on the list.

I cannot describe for you the differences between most of the tracks here. Modern alt rock radio. Some of it is fun don’t get me wrong

This album definitely has all the Queens of the Stone Age songs on it that you should know I guess

Well not to sound rude but I wish I was the deaf that these songs had been for. Lol a little harsh but the singing was just so difficult to listen to. I do see how it could be considered influential, and others may enjoy, but not for me.

Stop fucking screaming at me. What the actual fuckityfuck. I know a few songs by them ("No One Knows" esp) and the music is fine and somewhat repetitive-groovy when I wasn't subject to whatever the fuck track 2 was. Or 7. Goddammit I guess like what you like but I cannot listen to that noise. I more respect the bands that do that for the entire album, at least you know what you're getting. Overall thankbeelzebub for less screaming than I'd thought (yet ♾️ more than I ever want) but I think I only truly like that one single ("Hanging Tree" is interesting in 5/4 time). Definitely giving them credit for having their own sound/feel but a) I like Them Crooked Vultures much better and b) couldn't they have done better than an Apple IIe printshop cover? 5/10 2 stars. IMO: Belonged in the book? Even though I don't like it...probably. Ok, yes.

Frankly, I didn't like their music very much, and their lyrics even less; it wasn't for me. I felt the music had some background noise or was uneven, and the vocalist's style didn't grab me. Their biggest hits seemed irrelevant to me. Sorry. Rating: 1.5