British supergroup proves to be too boring, British

By Nate Adams
Collegian Staff
January 31, 2007

There are a lot of things that I could say about The Good, The Bad & The Queen’s eponymous debut that would give you a sense of what it sounds like. I could tell you that it is distinctly British in its nature, calling to mind all sorts of modern UK pop artists, from The Gorillaz to The Arctic Monkeys to Babyshambles to Muse. I could comment on the ethereal and polished nature of the production, which gives the record a grand, if somewhat unfriendly feel, and makes the songs seem formulaic and similar.

However, I think that the best way for me to explain to you, the reader, how The Good, The Bad & The Queen sounds is to use a metaphor.

Imagine that, after a 40-minute wait on an empty stomach, the Chinese food you ordered finally arrives. You pay the delivery man and thank him. You rip open the packaging and bask in the golden brown goodness of your General Tso’s chicken. You dip your cheap plastic fork into one of the large, saucy nuggets, swirl it around in your white rice and lustfully plunge the chicken into your mouth. And man, oh man, that first bite (opening track “History Song”) is out of this world. It’s obviously chicken, a dish you’ve had before, but this is chicken in a whole new way — it tastes fresh and different and exotic. You could eat this for the rest of your life.

It doesn’t last; sadly, it never does. As you continue to gorge yourself on your hot, tasty meal, the euphoria starts to fade. The sauce (and songs like “80’s Life” and “Northern Whale”) is suddenly a little less appealing, the brown goodness of the fried meat cools, and all of a sudden, all you have is a cold plate of leftover chicken bits. So, you put the food down, and you watch TV. You don’t throw the food out, however. Something about it makes you keep it. A few minutes later, it’s positively calling your name.

So you go back and have a few more bites. Unfortunately, Chinese food and The Good, The Bad & The Queen share the same problem: they’re never as good the second time as they are the first time. It still tastes good, and it reminds you how much you liked it, but it can’t reproduce that first magic (“Herculean” and “Behind the Sun” are both good, but not as good as “History Song”).

After the second good, but not great, helping of food, you take your Styrofoam tray to the kitchen and hold it over the trash can. You are stuffed and groggy; a nap is going to happen in your immediate future. As you dangle the last few pieces of the once glorious chicken over the bottomless, all consuming trash can, you take one last piece of chicken out of the tin and pop it into your mouth. And it’s almost, almost good enough to make you want to save the chicken for tomorrow. Five minutes later, you’re asleep in your bed and leftovers are in the trash.

This is exactly what listening to The Good, The Bad & The Queen is like. At first, it sounds like it’s going to take its Brit pop influences and expand upon them in a really interesting way, but then it just leaves you bored and unfulfilled. After listening to the record, like after eating a big Chinese food dinner, you’ll be full for a little while, but two hours later you’ll be hungry all over again.

adamsn1@lasalle.edu