The Good, The Bad & The Queen
- The Good, The Bad & The Queen
- Band Name: The Good, The Bad & The Queen
- Record Label: Virgin
- Release Date: Jan 23, 2007
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One of the most surprising and magical records for which Damon Albarn has ever been responsible.
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90Where 'Parklife' was exuberant and almost knowingly callow, 'The Good, The Bad & The Queen' is weary, confused, almost mourning for what once was.
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A near-perfect sonic snapshot of London under Blair's blowback blitz.
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They sound like a seasoned team, an understated unit where nothing dominates and everything contributes to enhancing the moods of Albarn's songs.
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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.
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For all its weird beauty, this is very much Damon's record - much more so than Gorillaz. Or indeed, Blur.
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80While 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.
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80Neither 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]
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80Albarn 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]
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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.
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80Albarn seems bent on exploring unsettling moods and shuffling rhythms rather than gleaming melodies and addictive choruses. [Feb 2007, p.94]
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The eclectic elements combine for dark, muted balladry a la Syd Barrett or the Beatles' White Album, with a touch of dub.
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80Even with all the name players involved, Albarn focuses the spotlight on the songs, which are terrific. [Jan 2007, p.92]
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80You'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.
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80This 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.
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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.
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More than any rock album in recent memory... this is a producer's creation.
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80The Good, the Bad & the Queen positively crackles with life and melody throughout.
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It is a funereal album whose spark and anger is obscured like the smoldering foundations of a burnt out city.
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If nothing else, The Good, the Bad & the Queen is a clear demonstration of Albarn's maturation.
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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]
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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.
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This is a beautiful record; so wistful and reflective when it finishes it'll make you feel instantly nostalgic.
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70Sounds far richer than the one-off project that it is. [#74, p.97]
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70Good is comparable in spirit to the everything-is-in-play feel of Clash albums like Sandinista!. [Feb 2007, p.128]
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70It's not Blur, the Clash, Fela, the Verve, or Gorillaz. It's more than just names on albums.
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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.
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70We'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.
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68The 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.
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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.
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60The biggest surprise is how rarely this scratch supergroup really swings to its full potential. [Feb 2007, p.68]
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60Unlike 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]
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[It] comes off as another Albarn project that's neither amazing or anathema. [Feb 2007, p.122]
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Mood music doesn't get any moodier than the Good, the Bad & the Queen. [29 Jan 2007]
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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.
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40"The Good, the Bad and the Queen" seems to be waiting for a payoff that never materializes.
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For all its aural pleasantries, it seems bored, lethargic, strapped, bounded and paralyzed by mysteriously viscous elements.
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20A dreary dump of sad sack pop blather that makes poor use of the substantial talent on hand.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 37 out of 41
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Mixed: 3 out of 41
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Negative: 1 out of 41
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gabrielez10Album's melancholic sound makes my back trembling.
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BoniverA.10The most beautiful and charismatic album released in 2007, it's magical.
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EinarJ.5