10 Perfect Hard Rock Albums Of The 2000s
2. Songs for the Deaf - Queens of the Stone Age
At the dawn of the 2000s, a lot of the more en vogue forms of rock were a lot more toothless than you probably remember. Though the sounds of The Strokes and The White Stripes did a good job at putting us back on the right track, cribbing from the classics wasn't exactly breaking that much new ground either. We needed something that sounded a little more dangerous, and we got our answer in the back of Josh Homme's Camaro.
Framed as a journey through California into Joshua Tree, all of Songs for the Deaf feels like a dangerous road trip, where a few barfights and even death isn't out of the question. Going through the entire record, Homme really stepped up as a songwriter, crafting some of the gnarliest riffs of his career while also getting Dave Grohl to absolutely wail behind the drum kit.
Aside from the more radio friendly singles on here like No One Knows or Go With the Flow, the best parts of this album are where everything fades away and you become one with the music, like the mid section of The Sky Is Fallin or the sad ending of Mosquito Song. The drive may have been long, hard, and a little bit offputting, but there's something about it that makes you want to take the ride all over again.