Cycles

I’ve been listening to Queens of the Stone Age a lot lately. They’ve got an excellent new album out that has drawn me back into the band’s distinguished catalog. 

             Front man Josh Homme sways seamlessly between meathead menace and a sort of classy southwestern falsetto croon, the juxtaposition weirdly reminiscent of Jim Morrison.

            Homme’s voice sinuously, almost hypnotically weaves dark tales, like the serpent whispering honeyed lies into Eves innocent ear, while the band jams in a place between dirty grooves and grungy racket.

It’s good shit. 

Plus Make it Wit Chu unassailably cool, possibly the coolest song written so far this millennium.

It’s great to get back into a good band I haven’t really thought about in a while. It’s been a couple years now since I really listened to a QOTSA album all the way through, and its nice to be reminded that the modern hard rock genre isn’t a complete wash.

I tend to listen to music in cycles. There might be a six-month period where I’ll listen to the Stones every day, while changing the station every time the Beatles come on, because John’s voice is pissing me off for some reason. Then one day I’ll be in some pretentious coffee shop procrastinating on a writing assignment and hear Rocky Raccoon, after which I’ll listen to every Lennon/McCartney recording in a week. (I just want to go on record as saying Youtube has terrible videos for this song.)

 When I got Cage the Elephant’s first album I left it in my car stereo playing nothing else while driving for like 3 months straight. My senior year in high school I listened to either Pink Floyd’s The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon every single day.

Sometimes these temporary obsessions turn into ruts. I mean as awesome as Jeff Buckley was, one can only listen to his sole studio album so many times before going a little nuts.

Even so, I see my cyclical tastes as a good thing. Hell, it’s probably half the reason I know as much about music as I do. I obsess about a band for a couple weeks learn all I can about them and then move on for a bit.

After all I know I’ll be stuck on them again soon enough.

I wonder what I’ll be stuck on next to next.

I want to know what bands you obsess over. Have you listened to the entire Johnny Cash collection beginning to end? Can you Rap every Run DMC Lyric word for word? Tell me about it in the comments section.