Album: The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Artist: The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Born: Studio 13, Latimer Road, London
Released: January 2007
Genre: Indie Rock
Damon Albarn has already got some praise on this blog for his constant ability to evolve as a musician and the The Good, The Bad & The Queen is my favourite of all his post-Blur albums. Whereas the Gorillaz albums channelled his concerns about climate change and the environment, this record is all about the state of the nation, with a specific focus on life in modern-day London. Albarn was among just a small handful of musicians who voiced their opposition to the Iraq war, and his sense of anger and desperation about the conflict is a recurring theme on this album. Albarn initially intended to record the songs as a solo effort, but changed tack and persuaded The Clash's Paul Simonon, Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen (famous for his work with Fela Kuti) and guitarist Simon Tong (who played with The Verve and Blur) to join the sessions. Their excellent, low-key playing helps to generate the album's unique mood of mystery and impending doom, while producer Danger Mouse also played a key role in the record's atmospherics by encouraging Albarn to put his singing at the front of the mix. Kingdom Of Doom is one of my favourite tracks, its apocalyptic feel -- Albarn talks of floods and ravens flying -- seems inspired by the mystical poems of William Blake, but there's also a very modern resigned misery ("Drink all day 'cos the country's at war").
Another of the three brilliant singles is Green Fields, a song that Albarn wrote a few years before this album was recorded and passed on to Marianne Faithfull, whose version appears on her 2005 LP, Before The Poison. Albarn re-wrote the song with a new intro for this record but the strong sense of nostalgia remains, as he reflects on a time "before the war and the tidal wave / engulfed us all". This imagery of drowning appears in The Clash's London Calling too, and I think the desired effect is to encourage listeners to wake up and change before it gets too late. Though The Good, The Bad & The Queen doesn't quite have the same sense of urgency as London Calling, that's because it's less direct and more visionary. Two of the best examples of this approach are Herculean and Northern Whale. The latter, with its sample of As Tears Go By by The Rolling Stones and lyrics about the northern bottlenose whale that died after becoming stranded in the Thames in 2006, is one of the most musically interesting songs on the record, especially its echo location sound effects. On Three Changes, with its minimal but distinctive bass playing by Simonon, Albarn talks about Britain as a "stroppy little island / full of mixed up people", while The Bunting Song and A Soldier's Tale also allude to an appetite for war. Given the political and economic crisis that was about to engulf Britain, this now feels like an oddly prescient album.
Damon Albarn has already got some praise on this blog for his constant ability to evolve as a musician and the The Good, The Bad & The Queen is my favourite of all his post-Blur albums. Whereas the Gorillaz albums channelled his concerns about climate change and the environment, this record is all about the state of the nation, with a specific focus on life in modern-day London. Albarn was among just a small handful of musicians who voiced their opposition to the Iraq war, and his sense of anger and desperation about the conflict is a recurring theme on this album. Albarn initially intended to record the songs as a solo effort, but changed tack and persuaded The Clash's Paul Simonon, Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen (famous for his work with Fela Kuti) and guitarist Simon Tong (who played with The Verve and Blur) to join the sessions. Their excellent, low-key playing helps to generate the album's unique mood of mystery and impending doom, while producer Danger Mouse also played a key role in the record's atmospherics by encouraging Albarn to put his singing at the front of the mix. Kingdom Of Doom is one of my favourite tracks, its apocalyptic feel -- Albarn talks of floods and ravens flying -- seems inspired by the mystical poems of William Blake, but there's also a very modern resigned misery ("Drink all day 'cos the country's at war").
Another of the three brilliant singles is Green Fields, a song that Albarn wrote a few years before this album was recorded and passed on to Marianne Faithfull, whose version appears on her 2005 LP, Before The Poison. Albarn re-wrote the song with a new intro for this record but the strong sense of nostalgia remains, as he reflects on a time "before the war and the tidal wave / engulfed us all". This imagery of drowning appears in The Clash's London Calling too, and I think the desired effect is to encourage listeners to wake up and change before it gets too late. Though The Good, The Bad & The Queen doesn't quite have the same sense of urgency as London Calling, that's because it's less direct and more visionary. Two of the best examples of this approach are Herculean and Northern Whale. The latter, with its sample of As Tears Go By by The Rolling Stones and lyrics about the northern bottlenose whale that died after becoming stranded in the Thames in 2006, is one of the most musically interesting songs on the record, especially its echo location sound effects. On Three Changes, with its minimal but distinctive bass playing by Simonon, Albarn talks about Britain as a "stroppy little island / full of mixed up people", while The Bunting Song and A Soldier's Tale also allude to an appetite for war. Given the political and economic crisis that was about to engulf Britain, this now feels like an oddly prescient album.
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