The Black Keys Fan Lounge Forum

Does anyone love Dan's high-pitched vocals sporadically placed throughout the record as much as I do?
Oh, and I can't wait until my double-LP arrives in the mail and I sit in my parents' basement and play it with high volume. Yum.

I do remember being a little uneasy with A&R when it first came out, and now it's one of my favorite albums of all time. Albums always have to slowly grow on you to truly be great. I remember not thinking much of Kid A or Dark Side of the Moon or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot when I first heard them...but, shit, once you let it sink in, you "get it" and your mind is blown.
Mirbs, you got it right when you say you have to let the album sink in by listening to it a few times, then waiting a few days, listen to some other records and then go back to the new one. This time around you're used to the material, and you can focus on the things that didn't stand out the first couple times around and fully appreciate it. It's happening to me with Brothers. It gets better and better each time. God damn.

I must admit this is the first time since Rubber Factory that I've loved a BK album from beginning to end. I haven't stopped listening to it since I acquired it earlier this week.

I have to disagree on the cliche points based on this fact: Some time ago on the original forum, I believe it was Chuck Aurbach that explained TBK's music as, and I'm paraphrasing here, an attempt to save rock and roll. Dan and Pat saw the terrible state rock music was in and decided to do something about it. What that required was starting from scratch and progressing and evolving their music to the point where rock branched off into garbage territory (I'm looking at you, 80s and eventually 90s) and try and do better.

What all that means, I suppose, is that this music is genuine. They've created it because it needed to be created, not because it fit some rock formula.

As far as the boring slow songs, I have a remedy. Acquire a person of a gender in which you are interested. Have them face away from and then back their hind quarters into your pelvis. In unison, slightly bend at your knees and waist, sort of like vertical spooning. Maintain a stance that will keep you from falling over or losing your balance. Once you're in place, play one of these so called 'boring songs' (I believe Too Afraid to Love You was given as an example) and gyrate your hips to the rhythm. If you can't get into these slow songs after that, consult your psychiatrist, for you might have no libido.

haha genius... wheres brandy when we need her...

I have to disagree on the cliche points based on this fact: Some time ago on the original forum, I believe it was Chuck Auerbach that explained TBK's music as, and I'm paraphrasing here, an attempt to save rock and roll. Dan and Pat saw the terrible state rock music was in and decided to do something about it.

You make them sound like super heroes. Your paraphrasing needs a little help.
Dan and Pat never "intended" to save anything but their own skinny asses from flipping hamburgers. They were young musicians, and that's all they wanted to do, play music. What happened along the way was completely unintentional.
What they were, were honest hardworking guys, working in a world of dishonest, prefabricated corporate crap: boy bands and Brittany Spears. TBK's roots and honesty shone though, and slowly but surely, fans left the "dark side" and came into the light. It was completely organic, and it's what happens every 10 or 15 years since the beginning of rock and roll. Journalists call it Garage Rock, but that name just gets in the way of what it really is. It's the rebirth of rock and roll. It's the renewing of the original rebellion, when kids first told "the man", to go fuck himself. It seems that honesty and originality can sustain itself for only so long, before it's co-opted again by imitators and commerciality. Then, when rock and roll seems to be at it's lowest point, pockets of kids start rebelling again, and the whole cycle reignites. Call it Garage, call it Grunge, call it Punk, call it whatever you want, but what it really is, is a whole new generation of kids saying "FUCK YOU"

I heard it was mowing lawns (not flipping burgers) that they escaped from. (Only throwing that in as a joke. Not trying to dispute or nit-pick Nappy's post. He obviously knows better than anyone else would)

Either way, Nappy thank you good sir for another fine post. That's a really great way to "put it" (your comments on the cycle of rock n roll). I never thought of it that way but it makes total sense.

Perhaps I did embellish ol' papa bear's words a bit with what I believe TBK are doing to rock and roll regardless of whether or not it was their intent, the intent here being to save it. What I had meant to say is that the boys started from scratch, evolved and made good, genuine music through and through. As a direct consequence, it can be inferred by dum-dums like me that it's a rock resurrection and that bands like TBK are responsible for it. They're my super heroes, Nappy. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

Amen brother.