The Good, The Bad & The Queen

Damon Albarn 这个英伦人，可以说实在是让人佩服不已。英国Britpop风潮过后，至今仍然保持较高的创作水平，实在是难得。除了最风光时代的Blur，到近年的Gorillaz，都是非常成功的乐队。现在Damon Albarn 不满足现状，带来了新乐队The Good, The Bad & The Queen。乐队成员也都是大牌，贝斯手是英国早期著名乐队Clash的Bass手Paul Simonon，鼓手是被喻为非洲音乐之神的Fela Kuti乐队的鼓手Tony Allen，吉他手则是我最喜欢的The Verve 的吉他手Simon Tong。正式成员是这4名，但是创作时还包括一名成员那就是著名混音DJ师Danger Mouse，包办专辑中一些电子混音。对于The Verve的 Simon Tong来说他的音乐路程可以说都是即风光又灰暗的，为什么怎么说呢，早在The Verve时期的时候队中就有Nick McCabe这位天才吉他手，所以Simon Tong的处境就是可有可无的状态，处于十分尴尬的状态，要不是Simon Tong为乐队贡献了Come on一些重要歌曲，才保留了自己在队中位置。The Verve解散后随之组建了The Shinning，只发一了张True Skies则宣告解散。现在可好了，在The Good, The Bad & The Queen中担任吉他手，完完全全的可以挥发自己的才华，继续走他的音乐之路。
其实The Good, The Bad & The Queen开始并不是乐队的名字，只是Damon Albarn 他们这一群人发行这张专辑的名字。但最终还像还是成了默认的乐队名，不知道日后Damon Albarn会不会更改乐队名。新专辑共12首歌曲，前一向The Good, The Bad & The Queen就在Myspace上面完全的公布了整专辑的试听。Herculean是乐队在10月30号发行了第一张单曲，单曲成绩相当不错。第二只单曲则是Kingdom Of Doom。Herculean 的配曲制作的很出色，尤其是歌曲开头制的制作，低低灰暗的钢琴声，加上一些合声，让这首歌曲有些不错的听头。而Kingdom Of Doom则是紧奏的吉他和小调钢琴贯穿前后。The Bunting Song 的旋律是十分安静，而且让人感觉有些广阔，空旷。在整张专辑中能够发现Blur与Gorillaz式的歌曲，虽然只是有些歌曲中的一点点，如演唱的曲调。整张专辑营造了一分阴暗的气氛，但时不时的为你敞开一面拥有阳光的窗户，'80's Life 就是这样的作品。一首独立民谣式的Green Fields也是相当的出色。而专辑的最后一首The Good, The Bad & The Queen，是一首长达7分种的歌曲，听到最后我又在一次不得不佩服他们的创作能力，The Good, The Bad & The Queen这首歌曲开篇优美的旋律，加上不多的演唱，随后便是器乐的演奏，曲子由慢变快，缓慢的开始急促，紧张的结束。对于这一张拥有的12首歌曲，独立摇滚，迷幻，英伦，电子相结合的一张专辑。看来还需要反复的听上几遍才能够了解其中他们要给人们表达的情感与他们那神秘的思维。
"The Good, the Bad & the Queen" refers to all the subjects that live under the London sun, so it's a fitting if awkward moniker for a project -- not a band, as its leader has strenuously asserted -- designed by Blur frontman Damon Albarn as a way to return to writing about England, specifically London, the subject that brought him to fame in the mid-'90s as one of the leading lights of Brit-pop. As he was completing work on Gorillaz's second album, Demon Days, he began working on the Good, the Bad & the Queen, which actually had its roots in an older project. Shortly after the turn of the millennium, he teamed up with Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen after the drummer heard that Albarn name-checked him in the chorus of "Music Is My Radar," the bonus track added to the 2000 comp The Best of Blur. During 2004, Albarn headed to Nigeria with former Verve guitarist Simon Tong to record with Allen and other African musicians, but before the album was completed he turned his attention toward Demon Days.
At the end of those sessions Albarn gave the Nigerian tapes to Gorillaz producer Danger Mouse and the music radically evolved into the Good, the Bad & the Queen, with the idea that this, despite its African origins, would be music about London. Initially, Albarn toyed with the idea that this would be a solo project, but it turned into a full-fledged band -- a band that now needed a bassist. Albarn called up Clash bassist Paul Simonon, who had retired from music over a decade ago to paint. Simonon was convinced to join this project, which now had an irresistible angle: the auteurs behind Parklife and London Calling, two quintessentially London LPs and two bona fide classics, were teaming up to make music about the town again. The resulting music may have had sounded little like either Parklife or London Calling -- it was a moody, languid affair, owing much to the Specials -- but it bore trademarks of all four musicians, from Albarn's ongoing obsession with music hall and pop songwriting to Simonon's loping basslines to Allen's rhythms to Tong's sensitive tonal colorings. Before they released a record, the Good, the Bad & the Queen first started playing concerts, unveiling their complete album at a series of concerts, culminating with a gig at Camden's Roundhouse just before their debut single, Herculean, hit the shops. This spooky single appropriately surfaced the day before Halloween in 2006, followed by Kingdom of Doom in January 2007. The full-length The Good, the Bad & the Queen appeared that month as well on both sides of the Atlantic, greeted with uniformly positive (sometimes enthusiastic) reviews. Shortly after the album's release, Albarn began to insist in press interviews that this band had no official name, a bit of an odd move considering the numerous articles, written in 2006 as the group was recording, that called the outfit the Good, the Bad & the Queen. The quartet went on tour in the spring of 2007, playing events in New York and the Coachella festival.