Songs for the Deaf is the third studio album by the American rock band Queens of the Stone Age, released on August 27, 2002, by Interscope Records. It features guest musicians including Dave Grohl on drums, and was the last Queens of the Stone Age album to feature Nick Oliveri on bass. Songs for the Deaf is a loose concept album, taking the listener on a drive through the California desert from Los Angeles to Joshua Tree, tuning into radio stations from towns along the way such as Banning and Chino Hills.
Songs for the Deaf received critical acclaim and earned Queens of the Stone Age their first gold certification in the United States. One million copies were sold in Europe, earning a platinum certification from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in 2008. "No One Knows", "Go with the Flow" and "First It Giveth" were released as singles.
The cover art for the US double LP version of the album is different from the CD version, featuring a red Q (with a sperm cell as the line in the Q and an egg cell as the circle) on a black background with no other text. It was released on red vinyl. The UK vinyl version cover is the same as the CD cover except with the colors reversed. The person on the album disc is musician Dave Catching, who performs on the album.
Both the CD and LP cover have a Parental Advisory seal on most copies, due to the word "fuck" appearing in the tracks "Song for the Dead", "Song for the Deaf" and "Six Shooter", as well as for the violent lyrics of the latter track.
There were also three different album covers that were made for the CD version of Songs for the Deaf. All of the interior artwork for each of the three versions is the same, but there were covers printed in red, magenta, and orange. The most common copy of the album sleeve is the red cover.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
'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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
Read more on Wikipedia