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The Good, The Bad & The Queen
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The Good, The Bad and The Queen
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Track Listings
1 | History Song |
2 | 80S Life |
3 | Northern Whale |
4 | Kingdom of Doom |
5 | Herculean |
6 | Behind the Sun |
7 | The Bunting Song |
8 | Nature Springs |
9 | A Soldier's Tale |
10 | Three Changes |
11 | Green Fields |
12 | The Good, the Bad and the Queen |
Editorial Reviews
Product Description
The Good, the Bad & the Queen is a new project featuring Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz), Paul Simonon (The Clash), Tony Allen (Fela Kuti/Africa 70) and Simon Tong (The Verve).THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE QUEEN traces a journey from the English music hall tradition, over to West Africa for Afrobeat, zigzagging through the West Indies and it's reggae and dub, back to England and London's punk scene, all the while taking in a strand of British beat music from the '50s right through to Britpop.
Amazon.com
To open this oddball supergroup's debut, Paul Simonon hints at "Guns of Brixton," and when Tony Allen's flex rhythms come in, there's a shadow of Fela Kuti, too. Then Damon Albarn's slow grit of a voice enters--framed by Simon Tong's flecked guitar. And collectively, The Good, the Bad, & the Queen is quickly sui generis, adamantly different than anything you think you've heard. A band with this much power has at least two options: to cut loose raucously or to mute their overt power for a more covert, dub-inflected atmospheric potency. Smartly, Albarn and his crew opt for the half-light of elastic bass lines, the clouds between the parentheses of drums--the covert. It's not until "Kingdom of Doom," the erstwhile 'single' of the album, that motion expands beyond the languorous. And even then, Tony Allen largely sits out. You get the full flush of Simonon and Allen on "Three Changes" shuffling time even while holding the tempo to a dubbish gait. It's not Blur, the Clash, Fela, the Verve, or Gorillaz. It's more than just names on albums. --Andrew Bartlett
Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- Product Dimensions : 5.63 x 5 x 0.39 inches; 3.46 ounces
- Manufacturer : Parlophone
- Original Release Date : 2007
- Date First Available : January 28, 2007
- Label : Parlophone
- ASIN : B000IAZ3E0
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #125,344 in CDs & Vinyl (See Top 100 in CDs & Vinyl)
- #263 in Britpop
- #2,321 in Adult Alternative (CDs & Vinyl)
- #56,770 in Rock (CDs & Vinyl)
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2017I'm really really late in the game on this review, being that this album is now 10 years old, but after reading some of the reviews, I will offer this; what other super group of different genres has made a better album out there? Traveling Wilburys? Please. Albarn and Tong's British Invasion fetish mixed with Allen and Simonon's World Beat and Reggae grooves makes for an intoxicating listen. If you like Damon Albarn's songwriting, then this is his best outing since The Gorillaz- Demon Days. All the musicians are top notch. You can place this album in your record shelf alongside Billy Fury, Beatles, Kinks, Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, Augustus Pablo, Lee Perry, Clash, Radiohead, and other classics from the UK and beyond. Again, try to remember that this is a supergroup. Hard to believe!
- Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2013An excellent group from the London underground rock scene,a mix of different music styles, like rock, pop,reggae,ska, psichedellic, and even a bit of punk(the theme song) all "melted" in a beautiful and inmaginative way, very well performed by Damon Albarn & Co, it is a sound quite peculiar and so londoner that make them unique. I enjoied very much every time that I hear it, there is not a bad song in the entire CD, all of them have it's own particular touch, the members of the group are talented musicians and together they achieve a great sound, it is a shame that they no longer exist as a band. To finish I must say that, of course, this is not silly comercial music like almost everything today , this is really good stuff, and if you like the rock music as an art, buy it, you won't be dissapointed.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2007First thing you notice is the dub bass of Paul Simonon then Albarns dark understated vocals- and throughout this excellent album the odd arrangements and sounds form a hybrid with electronic and disconnected classical strings hanging from very simple songs. Theres dub- a little britpop but mostly an odd kaleidoscope of sounds and a Kingston meets the eastend vibe. Organic folky roots music with a post 911 feel of gloom. This is Gorillaz without the trends or guest stars- this is a well assembled cast of excellent musicians creating a unique experience- timeless but modern.
This will take a few listens as the pace is slow to mid tempo and pretty dark- almost blurred at times. Albarn is an excellent songwriter and this may be his best work yet and former clash bassist Simonon is superb and looks great despite his broken nose in the cd photo. Tong (ex) of the Verve and Tony Allen both add exactly what is needed- nothing fancy but nothing common or predictable. Theres an abundance of piano but not in the coldplay vein- more traditional english music hall. To sum it up this resembles the perfect mix between later period Blur and the moody slower Gorillaz material put through producer Danger Mouse's sonic treatment. So far the best album of the last few months by quite a distance. The whole album is consistent in tone and style and is once again a very special project that transcends the history of its members.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2007I NEVER EVER grow tired of this album. I have had it since the day it came out, and LOVE IT. Some folks have said that it sounds like the Gorillaz, it sounds NOTHING like the Gorillaz except Damon's voice that is it...the music is completely different than his previous efforts. I have loved everything he has been a part of... from Blur to Gorillaz and now to The Good, The Bad, and The Queen. Thanks Damon you ROCK. This album is SMART, Perfect and it will be a Classic.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2014This album is something very inspiring that Damon Albarn, Simon Tong, Paul Simonon and Tony Allen created portraying the modern british life. With some alternative rock music and melancholic lyrics, they created beautiful songs that I can picture myself listening to in forty years and remembering back in the day I loved them and bought my copy of the CD.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2010This project looks amazing on paper: the bass player from The Clash, the drummer from Fela Kuti's band, and a Brit-rock guitarist, directed by Gorillaz mastermind Damon Albarn and produced by modern hip-hop deconstructionist Danger Mouse. The possibilities seem huge. Punk and reggae meeting Afrobeat? A hip-hop rewrite of "The Guns Of Brixton"? Albarn singing in melancholy falsettos over crazy rhythms? You'd expect anything from the man who jammed with African musicians in Mali and later wrote a score for a Chinese opera.
Well, in the end, The Good, The Bad And The Queen just sounds like an Albarn solo album produced by Danger Mouse. This is pretty disappointing at first. Albarn went to the trouble of getting two legends for his rhythm section, but Danger Mouse puts them so low in the mix that you can't hear them. Once in a while, Tony Allen's distinctive shuffling drum patterns come through, on the singles "History Song" and "Herculean" and a couple of other places. Simonon is almost completely inaudible. The few basslines that come through are pretty generic.
This leaves Simon Tong's capable acoustic guitar to serve as a foil for Albarn's moody vocals, which summarizes the album quite concisely. Its low-key, sullen sound is remarkably consistent. The music is not really slow -- even when Allen is out of the mix, the acoustic guitar slinks along at a nervous, hurrying-through-a-dark-alley pace. But the album never breaks into a more strident sound, nor does it ever really slow down. All the songs sound very similar to each other, and it may take many listens to learn to distinguish them.
It's not just the production that makes the songs sound the same. They really are very similar, without a single stand-out hook, and since the rhythm section never makes it into the spotlight, without a single stand-out rhythm. The fastest song on this album (the title track, the only one to feature distorted guitars) and the slowest song (the piano ballad "Eighties Life") sound very similar, because they are both built on simplistic one-note musical lines (guitar and piano, respectively). The title track is supposed to have a rollicking music-hall sound, but the one-note guitar calls up bad memories of "Crazy Beat," and makes the song quite boring for its seven minutes. Likewise, "Eighties Life" comes unfortunately early in the album, and the slow piano drains the momentum created by the acoustic guitar in "History Song."
Perhaps this highlights Albarn's limitations as a composer. Don't get me wrong -- he's a genius, but his real talent is as more of a theatre director than a musician. Nobody comes close to him in inventing interesting concepts; nobody has his finely-tuned sense of the dramatic. He's also a frequently brilliant lyricist and vocalist. But, as an actual musical composer, he's not great. He works best when he's teamed up with inventive performers (like Graham Coxon or the guest stars on Gorillaz' Demon Days) who can turn his conceptual direction into great music.
The good news is that Danger Mouse, after removing the rhythm section from the mix, nonetheless manages to salvage the rest. His muffled, swampy production is very reminiscent of Demon Days (no surprise there), and adds a lot of incidental electronic squiggles and details to liven up the music. "Northern Whale" would be less interesting without two alternating keyboard blips that sort of create a groove. Some songs are augmented by ghostly, wispy keyboards. This is tremendously effective in the uneasy outro to "History Song," and also in the submerged atmosphere of "Nature Springs."
The album's strength is the flip side of its weakness. Because all the songs are so determined to sound the same, eventually one can really get into the minor changes that do occur. The gloomy vocal harmonies in the background of "Herculean" start to seem like a huge dramatic climax, and the jerky transitions in "Three Changes" sound effectively disconcerting. Tong's acoustic guitar keeps things moving, and so, if one listens to the album enough times, one may find that its sound does have a certain seductiveness of its own.
Another strength is Albarn's vocals. Over the course of the 2000s, his vocal style became much smoother and more skillful than it ever was in Blur. He does, indeed, pull off some amazing falsettos here -- "Behind The Sun" would otherwise have little to recommend it, but Albarn's plaintive delivery of "the cool breeze behind the sun" gives it a lot of unexpected poignancy. This adds a lot to the appeal of the album, though paradoxically it makes it easier to ignore what Albarn is actually singing. It's strange, but although the album is supposed to be some kind of commentary on contemporary British life, Albarn's lyrics are mostly forgettable. He has a few vaguely topical lines like "drink all day, 'cause the country's at war," but his attempts at social commentary are undercut by the album's extremely mannered delivery. If a pop album can be called "Victorian," this is it.
If you're willing to stick it out and listen to the album many times, eventually you might be rewarded. But its charms are very specific, and its monochromatic, endlessly careful approach is a lot harder to like than the kaleidoscopic sprawl of Demon Days. It's hard not to feel like it could have been a lot more interesting, looking at the names involved. But it's a pretty good mood piece, and its eerie acoustic sound can be surprisingly effective, for what it's worth.
Top reviews from other countries
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EstherReviewed in Spain on April 25, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantástico
Todo genial. 👌🏻
-
Cristian IngugliaReviewed in Italy on November 6, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Bellissimo disco di esordio
Uno dei dischi che mi piacciono di più degli ultimi decenni. Un bel progetto di Damon Albarn con una superband che ha confezionato un piccolo capolavoro Edizione perfetta sebbene usata, ad un prezzo minimo, consegnata con tempismo e precisione.
- sugarReviewed in Japan on September 17, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars satisfied! :-)
Clean packing and quick arrival. I'm satisfied! :-)
- Duncan GemmellReviewed in Canada on October 26, 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars A good album with simple but clever melodies and I really ...
A good album with simple but clever melodies and I really enjoy the lyrics. A good double disc set and the lyric booklet contains some amazing drawings by Paul Simonon. I saw them perform on Later with Jools Holland a while ago and they are a tight outfit. I would love to see them live if possible. I am glad that I bought this.
- E. J. SmithReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2007
5.0 out of 5 stars Enigmatic
If anything, the brilliance of Damon Albarn lies in his ability to reinvent himself while producing music that also is evolutionary and yet relevant. Just as Albarn succeeded (at least in my humble opinion) in divorcing himself and Blur from the media-concocted Brit-Pop Wars of the mid 90s by taking that project in an unanticipated directions while continuing to create excellent music, Albarn has done the same with his latest project, The Good, The Bad, and The Queen.
Just as with Gorillaz, Damon Albarn reaches into his musical palette to create his own sound based upon a variety of influences. While many will strain to find parallels for The Good, the Band and The Queen - I've read comparisons to aspects of Sandinista by The Clash and Blur's 13 - it's the composition of the band with Albarn at its apex that renders the music unique.
The musical foundation is provided by the rhythm section of Paul Simonon Simon Tong and Tony Allen who, as one reviewer noted, provide the music with an almost dub-like quality. As a consequence, the overall mood of the CD is more one of reflection upon the images being conveyed by Albarn's lyrics.
I'll leave it to someone else to provide a track-by-track breakdown of the CD. After repeated listening, I'm still attempting to get my arms around this one, which isn't a bad thing in these days of cookie-cutter music production and interchangeable pop stars produced by such cultural abominations as American Idol.
In a nutshell, The Good, the Bad and The Queen is music to drive by, to reflect by, to absorb and to feel. Five stars.