Here is something you should drop to your knees for, and worship. But you’re too stupid to realise yourselves. A song for the deaf; That is for you.
I need a saga.
What’s the saga?
It’s songs for the deaf… you can’t even hear it!
The phrase “stars aligned” is a figure of speech used to describe a rare and fortuitous occurrence in which everything comes together perfectly to achieve a desired outcome. It implies that a set of events, circumstances, or conditions has come together in an optimal way, often leading to a positive result.
This is a term I think if when my mind wanders back to the album Songs For The Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age. My Spotify playlist also wanders back to this album a lot, thanks both to me and to their algorithms.
I remember the buzz leading up to this albums release. They’d already released two brilliant albums, successfully breaking free of the “some of the guys from Kyuss” tag. Similarly, Dave Grohl had by now forged his way with Foo Fighters and broken away from just “the drummer from Nirvana” label. Dave knew QOTSA frontman Josh Homme back when Josh was guitarist for Kyuss and this is just great news for the rest of us as Dave agreed to join QOTSA on drums for this album.
While we didn’t know it at the time, it was also the last album with bassist and vocalist Nick Oliveri. While Nick bought some intense vigor to the bands music (something arguably missing in their later works), there were also rumours that he bought with it some aggressive treatment of the band’s fans, as well as accusations of abuse to his girlfriend. Hence, he was fired following the tour of this album.
Joining Homme, Oliveri, and Grohl was raspy-voiced Mark Lanegan, who had done some guest work on QOTSAs previous album, Rated R, and now was joining as a full time member.
Stars aligned. Each of these guys bringing a style and energy to deliver a work of art.
Anyway, this is already way wordier than I intended so I’ll move along.
Songs for the Deaf is said to be a loose concept album, taking us on a drive through the California desert from LA to Joshua Tree; the fake radio excerpts between tracks on the album representing tuning into radio stations from towns along the drive. I still love getting lost in the second half of this album… ‘God Is In The Radio’, ‘Song For The Deaf’.
Admittedly I was into some pretty forgettable music back in the early 00’s, but I was also fortunate enough to be crazy about this band. I saw them two days in a row when they toured Songs for the Deaf in Australia… First at the Big Day Out and then the following night at the old Palace in St Kilda, which is still one of my favourite gigs ever (Here is the setlist from that night if you’re interested).
That’s all. Thanks for reading.