Congratulations James, for making it a year, and for the recent milestones you’ve achieved. I think you’re doing so well because you’re writing such good stuff. Simple as that. Peeps: check out this post if you haven’t seen it yet. James is preparing to mark his one-year anniversary of blogging and he is soliciting questions to answer in an upcoming post. I sent him mine already; you have time to send him one yourself.
Hello and welcome again for another post in my Listening to Music Without Understanding It series. It’s time for another in-depth look at some music, and this week, it’s The Black Keys.
I was hoping to write something up with them earlier on, in advance of their new album coming out. Then their new album came out a week earlier than I was expecting, and there went that plan! With it out, I wanted to give it some time, check it out, and then report my thoughts. I think we’ve made it to that point!
I also just read the interview of Jack White in Rolling Stone the other day. In it, he kind of called out The Black Keysfor riding in on his coat-tails – a fellow two-person rock and blues combo band, coming to popularity after The White Stripes. And I have to admit, I started listening to The Black Keys after listening to Jack White and his many projects. However, the reason I really explored them, and really started to pay attention, is different, and so I will share a bit of an introduction to the band, to why I like them, and hopefully I will leave you interested in them for their own sake!
I’m a Lonely Boy…
If you look at The Black Keys as starting with their hit album El Camino, then yes, maybe they are just a recently-popular band without a history. After all, you probably know them from this:
And oh man, is that a catchy dance. A catchy song. It’s fantastic, and a great way to start an album. From there, I would actually describe El Camino as a musical. I can almost see it, as the album goes on. Lonely Boy is the opening act, and then it moves on from there, song by song, a narrator telling his stories, moving through a town. Interesting to think of it all as the same characters in the songs, really, as well.
This was not where I first came across The Black Keys, however. That was with their prior album, Brothers.Continue reading →
Nothing to do with Les Miserables …
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