I love Queen! Freddie Mercury was one of the best showman
that ever lived and in front of Brian May’s guitar this band was a fucking
force! Plus, there’s a whole mess of other brilliant shit going on, but I’m too
dumb to write about it accurately. Dumb or lazy? Little of both right now.
It has been too long since I last heard the
opening track, “Keep Yourself Alive,” from Queen’s self-titled 1973 debut. I
really missed it!
The rest of this disc is pretty new to me, I’m pretty sure I
never listened to it all the way through. It rocks, its theatrical, it’s
bluesy and dirty. “Modern Times Rock ‘N Roll” reminds me of Black Sabbath, Led
Zeppelin and a little AC/DC… a side of the band I didn’t really know about. “Son
And Daughter” is now my new favorite Queen song!
And then something weird happens. “Jesus,” is a song about,
well… Jesus. It is glorious! It is uplifting. I got choked up listening to it!
I’m so glad I listened to this album. Thank you baby Jesus!
I wish I could say I knew who Nirvana was before “Smells
Like Teen Spirit” came along, but I can’t. I picked up a copy of Bleach sometime around 1992. I've spent some time with this album over the years.
Recorded for something like six or seven hundred bucks, she sounds
pretty good! (That’s the first time I referred to an album as “she.” Can you do
that?) Lots of great stories about the making of this record, none of which I
will attempt to tell. Just a quick factoid! Although, this album features two
drummers, neither one is Dave Grohl. Chad Channing and Dale Grover kept the
time on this one.
Bleach is a perfect Indie Rock
album. But it has some intangible quality to it that separates it from just any old Indie Rock being churned out at that time. Bleach has pretty much everything.
Is it loud? Check – “Blew” “School” “Paper Cuts”
Does it have a hit? Check – “About A Girl”
Are there goofy song titles? Check – “Floyd The Barber”
(Andy Griffith Show reference.) “Mr. Moustache”
Is there a obscure cover song? Check – “Love Buzz”
Does it foreshadow the brilliance that is to come? Check.
Mark Lanegan sings one of my all-time favorite Queens Of The
Stone Age songs, “In The Fade,” and one of my favorite Twilight Singers songs, “No.
9,” with Greg Dulli! He was in Screaming Trees, he’s put out a lot of solo
stuff and he’s a shy motherfucker.
I once saw a Queen's show and they started playing “In The
Fade.” So, you instantly think, “cool Lanegan’s here!” He was, but I never saw
him. He came out in a shadow and left under a blanket of applause. (Yeah, I
just wrote that cheese!) And I just read he will be on the new Queens Of The
Stone Age album!
Mark’s solo albums are usually let’s-go-stick-our-heads-in-the-oven
kind of affairs with Tom Waits comparisons up the ass! His last, Bubblegum,
came out way back in 1994. So, this one was kind of a big deal when it came out
last February. Sadly, I never listened to it until now!
I thought I had a good idea of what to expect on Lanegan’s
first album in years called Blues Funeral. I was pleasantly surprised at how wrong I was.
The English mag, The
Quietus, supplied me with exactly what I was going to say about this album, why write it twice? "Blues
Funeral incorporates beats marshalled by sequencers with grand cinematic sweeps
and a rock & roll sensibility that reveals an artist refusing to paint
himself into a corner." That’s why Rock journos make the big bucks, kids!
I’m almost shocked at the tempo and veracity of the album’s
opener, “The Gravedigger’s Song.” I was half expecting a minute of shoveling
sounds into a long builder about cold bodies in the ground.
“Gray Goes Black,” and “Riot In My House” are two definite
standouts.
Almost a full hour of music, there’s a lot to digest.
Especially, how unlike Lanegan it is.
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