Ranking All the Queens of the Stone Age Albums

Queens of the Stone Age started up in the mid 1990s. However, it wasn’t exactly what anyone would consider to be a newcomer to the music industry. After all, Queens of the Stone Age was founded by Josh Homme, who had been the guitarist of Kyuss from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. Since then, the band has become known on an international level. Queens of the Stone Age has never managed to win a Grammy. However, it says a lot that the band has been nominated seven times.

7. Queens of the Stone Age

 

Homme’s new band was once called Gamma Ray. However, it needed a new name when it turned out that there was already a German band named Gamma Ray, which threatened to sue. As a result, Homme’s new band went with Queens of the Stone Age, which had been a nickname for Kyuss. In any case, the band’s self-titled studio album was also the band’s debut studio album. It wasn’t a bad release. In fact, Queens of the Stone Age was received well in its own time. Even so, it was very much the product of a band finding itself, meaning that it can’t compete with its own successors.

6. Era Vulgaris

 

Technically speaking, Era Vulgaris is a reference to the Latin name for the Common Era. Still, chances are good that most English speakers will think of the Vulgar Era, which is exactly why Homme chose to use the name. Regardless, there were both people who liked it a lot and people who disliked it a lot. Something that might be connected to how the release was restless but failed to put that restlessness to the best use for the most part. In other words, Era Vulgaris never managed to live up to its own potential.

5. Villains

 

Villains would be Queens of the Stone Age’s most recent release. It isn’t the most innovative studio album to ever come from the band. However, Villains was made with the kind of skill that one would expect from such a storied band, meaning that it is still worth listening to. Besides that, it is interesting to note that it has something of an autobiographical tone in certain places, though to be fair, that makes a lot of sense considering that Homme is now in his late 40s.

4. Lullabies to Paralyze

 

Lullabies to Paralyze was delayed for quite some time. In considerable part, this was because Nick Oliveri had been fired because of his aggression, which was a huge problem because Oliveri had been a core contributor involved in bass, vocals, and songwriting. However, it should also be mentioned that Mark Lanegan went on tour with his own band at around the same time, which resulted in rumors that he had left as well. In any case, the firing of Oliveri had a very noticeable effect on Queens of the Stone Age’s music with the result that Lullabies to Paralyze can be considered the start of a new era for the band. As such, the release showed some signs of a less than perfectly smooth transition. Despite those, Lullabies to Paralyze managed to come off as being quite good even if it wasn’t quite as good as its immediate predecessor. Granted, that isn’t much of a criticism considering that its immediate predecessor was Songs for the Deaf.

3. …Like Clockwork

 

Queens of the Stone Age’s fifth studio album Era Vulgaris came out in 2007. Meanwhile, the band’s sixth studio album …Like Clockwork came out in 2013, meaning that there was a considerable gap between the two releases. Given that Homme has been the band’s one constant member, interested individuals might guess that a line-up change was involved in some way. If so, they would be right because the drummer Joey Castillo departed during the production process. For that matter, that wasn’t even the sole interruption to the production process, with another excellent example being Homme’s very understandable depression when medical complications after a routine surgery made him incapable of getting out of bed for four months’ time. Still, Queens of the Stone Age eventually managed to get …Like Clockwork out the door, though the band’s sense of humor can be seen in how the title is a reference to their pattern of making great progress before running into some kind of issue. As for how it sounded, well, suffice to say that it sounded better than what a lot of interested individuals would have expected based on its production process. The studio album is very well-put-together, which is very surprising considering how it came to be.

2. Rated R

 

As mentioned earlier, Queens of the Stone Age seemed like it was still finding itself on its self-titled debut studio album. By the time that Rated R had come out, that had changed. Simply put, it was a very confident, very impactful release. As such, one might even say that Rated R was the band’s true introduction to the world, particularly since it was the studio album that enabled it to break through. The studio album did have some issues, but they were just minor when compared with everything else.

1. Songs for the Deaf

 

Music isn’t a perfected science. Otherwise, bands would be able to repeat their most remarkable successes again and again. For Queens of the Stone Age, said success would be the band’s third studio album Songs for the Deaf, which is particularly precious because the line-up that made it no longer exists. If Rated R was the band’s breakthrough release in the U.S. market, then this was the studio album that made the band famous on the world stage. Something that was well-deserved because of it.