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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
EMAILPRINTby The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 38 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 56 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Virgin
Release Date: 23 January 2007
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Alternative, Rock
Summary
Danger Mouse produced this first album for the new collaboration between Damon Albarn (Blur,Gorillaz), Paul Simonon (The Clash), Tony Allen (Africa 70 / Fela Kuti) and Simon Tong (The Verve).
Also On Metacritic
MUSIC: Blur: Think Tank Damon Albarn: Democrazy Gorillaz: Demon Days Gorillaz: Gorillaz
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Observer Music Monthly
One of the most surprising and magical records for which Damon Albarn has ever been responsible.
Read Full Review >Playlouder
Where 'Parklife' was exuberant and almost knowingly callow, 'The Good, The Bad & The Queen' is weary, confused, almost mourning for what once was.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle
A near-perfect sonic snapshot of London under Blair's blowback blitz.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times
They sound like a seasoned team, an understated unit where nothing dominates and everything contributes to enhancing the moods of Albarn's songs.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
The mood is more melancholy than the lineup would suggest — much of the album sounds like ''Waterloo Sunset''-era Kinks set to languid dub grooves.
Read Full Review >The Guardian
You're left both marvelling at the album itself, and considering what a unique figure Albarn cuts. If you doubt it, try to imagine the result if any of Britpop's other major players had assembled a supergroup and made an anti-war concept album. Now take your fist out of your mouth.
Read Full Review >Mojo
Neither the return of the Last Gang In Town, nor the crisp, literate, wonderfully confident pop with which Albarn perfectly crystallised the mid-1990s. Instead, The Good, The Bad & The Queen is a noir-ishly understated suite of songs, further testament to its chief author's need to keep on moving. [Jan 2007, p.98]
New Musical Express
For all its weird beauty, this is very much Damon's record - much more so than Gorillaz. Or indeed, Blur.
Read Full Review >Spin
Even with all the name players involved, Albarn focuses the spotlight on the songs, which are terrific. [Jan 2007, p.92]
Urb
Albarn claims this album is a letter to the London of today, but it's impossible not [to] get swept into the grandfatherly smell that permeates every number. [Dec 2006, p.127]
Rolling Stone
The eclectic elements combine for dark, muted balladry a la Syd Barrett or the Beatles' White Album, with a touch of dub.
Read Full Review >Trouser Press
More than any rock album in recent memory... this is a producer's creation.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
Albarn seems bent on exploring unsettling moods and shuffling rhythms rather than gleaming melodies and addictive choruses. [Feb 2007, p.94]
PopMatters
The Good, the Bad & the Queen positively crackles with life and melody throughout.
Read Full Review >Village Voice
The music, however lean, is the most poignant vision Albarn's devout Anglo-centrism has offered: a beautifully dark, boozy, overcast dream of London, cinematic in its scope and careful in its craft.
Read Full Review >Dot Music
While unlikely to ignite the zeitgeist as "Parklife" once did, "The Good, The Bad & The Queen" probably says just as much about Britain 13 years on.
Read Full Review >musicOMH.com
This is possibly not an album for those wanting immediate hooks and satisfaction, but it's a remarkable achievement and more proof - if any were needed - that Albarn is one of the most innovative and talented songwriters of his generation.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
He's orchestrated a unified, dramatic album -- it's a tapestry of impeccable, sorrowful, yet sultry soundscapes -- but given the pedigree of this band, it's hard not to wish that the album offered more of the quartet just playing, gussied up with no effect. Nevertheless, as an album The Good, the Bad & the Queen is singularly effective.
Read Full Review >Prefix Magazine
If nothing else, The Good, the Bad & the Queen is a clear demonstration of Albarn's maturation.
Read Full Review >Stylus Magazine
It is a funereal album whose spark and anger is obscured like the smoldering foundations of a burnt out city.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
But for all its momentary highlights, this is a record that doesn't tend to grow on you as much as sink and seep into your skin: and it does this slowly.
Read Full Review >Vibe
Good is comparable in spirit to the everything-is-in-play feel of Clash albums like Sandinista!. [Feb 2007, p.128]
Magnet
Sounds far richer than the one-off project that it is. [#74, p.97]
Hartford Courant
With haunted, abstract songs that are about as easily grasped as passing specters or gusts of sea mist, the Good, the Bad and the Queen is a dream collaboration that sometimes feels like a nightmare.
Read Full Review >Lost At Sea
We’re left with a brilliant, often mesmerizing but all-too-sketchy defeatist manifesto on the surface, which, with further musical fleshing-out (Verve guitarist Simon Tong is woefully underused), might have been worth serious investigation.
Read Full Review >Under The Radar
While The Good, The Bad & The Queen is more than the sum of its parts, it's also less than you'd expect. [#16, p.92]
Amazon.com
It's not Blur, the Clash, Fela, the Verve, or Gorillaz. It's more than just names on albums.
Read Full Review >BBC collective
This is a beautiful record; so wistful and reflective when it finishes it’ll make you feel instantly nostalgic.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
The results are cohesive almost by default, considering how monochromatic the bulk of the disc comes off. Yet monochrome by design isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when you're out to challenge rather than entertain.
Read Full Review >cokemachineglow
If anything, that’s the trick here: each time the listener pegs it with one of Albarn’s past sounds, the track subverts and confounds the expectation.
Read Full Review >Blender
Unlike the rousing punk-, Kinks- and new-wave-colored mosaic of Parklife, this one sticks to sepia-toned, dub-nodding abstractions. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.86]
Read Full Review >Alternative Press
[It] comes off as another Albarn project that's neither amazing or anathema. [Feb 2007, p.122]
Uncut
The biggest surprise is how rarely this scratch supergroup really swings to its full potential. [Feb 2007, p.68]
The New York Times
Mood music doesn’t get any moodier than the Good, the Bad & the Queen. [29 Jan 2007]
The Onion (A.V. Club)
It's easy to respect the album's sustained washed-out tone, but it'd be nice if the songs were memorable past their running time. Intrigue without any payoff makes for pretty dull listening.
Read Full Review >Billboard
"The Good, the Bad and the Queen" seems to be waiting for a payoff that never materializes.
Read Full Review >Delusions of Adequacy
For all its aural pleasantries, it seems bored, lethargic, strapped, bounded and paralyzed by mysteriously viscous elements.
Read Full Review >NOW Magazine
A dreary dump of sad sack pop blather that makes poor use of the substantial talent on hand.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 56 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
gabriele z gave it a10:
Album's melancholic sound makes my back trembling.
Boniver A. gave it a10:
The most beautiful and charismatic album released in 2007, it's magical.
Einar J. gave it a5:
You wonder, how Damon Albern could go so wrong with his vocals on this record. Instrumental The Good, The Bad & The Queen works so much better, and the track 'Back In The Day', seems to be misplaced on the Herculean single.
Scott S gave it a10:
The best album released in 2007. Some exceptional singles, but it's real genius is how the entire enterprise unfolds, with songs flowing into each other.
B junior gave it an8:
Amazing production, instrumentation, and i've never heard damon albarn sound so beautiful on nearly every track. All in all a great vintage mellow pop album with hints of herman's hermits, specials - ghost town sound, & maybe some stone roses, and classic blur ballads.
Steve W gave it a9:
The album sleeve & artwork sum this album up for me. Intriguing, original & loads of atmosphere-what a sound! Albarn's played a blinder with the Bass guitar kicking all the way through and some badass drums!
pendepomo gave it an8:
this album is great, but this thing of forming an elite-band out of legends it's gonna become like a cliche, so this charistmatic event it's unestable
