Performer Notes
- Queens Of The Stone Age: Josh Homme, Nick Oliveri, Dave Grohl, Mark Lanegan.
- Additional personnel includes: Dean Ween (guitar).
- Producers: Josh Homme, Eric Valentine, Adam Kasper.
- Recorded at The Site, San Rafael, California and Barefoot Studios, Hollywood, California.
- "Go With The Flow" was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. "No One Knows" was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance.
- On their third album, Songs for the Deaf, Queens of the Stone Age are so concerned with pleasing themselves with what they play that they don't give a damn for the audience. This extends to the production, with the entire album framed as a broadcast from a left-of-the-dial AM radio station, the sonics compressed so every instrument is flattened. It's a joke run wild, punctuated by an ironic mock DJ, and it fits an album where the players run wild. As usual, Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri have brought in a number of guests, including Mark Lanegan on vocals and Dean Ween on guitar, but they've anchored themselves with the drumming of the mighty Dave Grohl, who helps give the band the muscle sorely missing from most guitar rock these days, whether it's indie rock or insipid alt-metal. QOTSA may be a muso band -- a band for musicians and those who have listened to too much music; why else did the greatest drummer and greatest guitarist in '90s alt-rock (Grohl and Ween, respectively) anxiously join this ever-shifting collective? -- but that's the pleasure of the band, and Songs for the Deaf in particular: it's restless and pummeling in its imagination and power. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (12/26/02, p.108) - Included in Rolling Stone's "50 Best Albums of 2002"
Rolling Stone (9/5/02, p.70) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...This is prog grunge for the unpretentious....Whether the ace metal is speedy or onerous, it is always deployed in the service of the eccentric song structures, and every track becomes a splendid, mysterious thing."
Spin (1/03, p.70) - Ranked #8 on Spin's list of 2002's "Albums of the Year" - "...A feast for metal lifers who [can] no longer stomach Korn."
Q (12/02, p.67) - Included in Q Magazine's "50 Best Albums of 2002"
Q (9/02, p.104) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...This album mixes melancholy and might to a rare degree..."
Uncut (1/03, p.95) - Ranked #31 in Uncut's "100 Best Albums of the Year"
Uncut (9/02, p.104) - 5 stars out of 5 - "...(a) breathtaking, virtually flawless album."
CMJ (12/30/02, p.11) - Ranked #10 on CMJ's "Top 10 of 2002"
CMJ (9/2/02) - p.6) - "Queens of the Stone Age get better with age....QOTSA's music is a comfort zone, thanks to its readiness to rock all night and party every day..."
Kerrang (Magazine) (p.52) - "SFTD was a vision of dark-hued rock brilliance louder than a bomb."
Mojo (Publisher) (1/03, p.73) - Ranked #3 in Mojo's "Best Albums of 2002"
Mojo (Publisher) (9/02, p.95) - "All the elements which made its predecessor so great are here, but in excelsis...the thrill of these ensemble performances is downright scary."
NME (Magazine) (8/17/02, p.32) - 9 out of 10 - "...All of what you might want from them and their music is here. There are great titles, displays of extraordinary rock'n'roll and great disturbing pop..."
