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The Black Keys
American rock duo
The Black Keys are an American rock duo formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. The group consists of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney (drums).
The duo began as an independent act, recording music in basements and self-producing their records, before they eventually emerged as one of the most popular garage rock artists during a second wave of the genre's revival in the 2000s. The band's raw blues rock sound draws heavily from Auerbach's blues influences, including Junior Kimbrough, R.L.
labels: Alive Naturalsound Records, Warner Records, Nonesuch Records
genres: garage rock, blues rock, indie rock
awards: MTV Video Music Awards, BRIT Awards, Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album, Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Grammy Award for Best Rock Album, Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance
Facts from Wikidata and Discogs, free to use.
blues rockrockbluesgarage rockalternative rockgarage rock revival
The Broken RecordExtra
Early history
Guitarist and vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney first met when they were nine years old and were casual friends while living in the same neighborhood of Akron, Ohio, a couple of houses down from each other. Auerbach and Carney both come from musical backgrounds. Auerbach is the cousin of guitarist Robert Quine, a "veteran of New York's avant-rock scene." Carney is the nephew of saxophonist Ralph Carney, who performed on several Tom Waits albums. While attending Firestone High School, they became friends again, though they were part of different crowds—Auerbach was captain of the high school soccer team, while Carney was a social outcast. Encouraged by their brothers, the duo began jamming together in 1996, as Auerbach was...
Formation, The Big Come Up, and Thickfreakness (2001–2003)
Auerbach attempted to make a living from performing at small bars in town, but realized he would not be able to book shows in other cities without a demo. To record one, he asked for help from Carney, who agreed to provide recording equipment and allow his basement to be used if Auerbach recruited the other musicians. However, none of Auerbach's backing band showed up on the recording date. Instead, Carney and Auerbach jammed, eventually leading to the duo forming a band in mid-2001. Together, they recorded a six-song demo consisting of "old blues rip-offs and words made up on the spot" with minimal equipment. After sending the demo to a dozen record labels, they accepted an offer in 2002 from a small indie label in Los Angeles named...
The Black Keys have been described as blues rock, garage rock, punk blues, indie rock, lo-fi, and alternative rock. According to Paste, "they've bounced from the blues to psychedelia to classic, good ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll, and so many of their most interesting tunes bring all those elements together".
"Tighten Up" is a song by American rock band the Black Keys. It is the third track on their 2010 album Brothers and was released as the record's first single on April 23, 2010.
Music video
The original music video for the song was a low-budget clip starring a puppet dinosaur named Frank who is standing beside a plant. The video shows him dancing and miming the words a little, whilst subtitles go on saying different facts about the video, the band, and Frank; e.g. "Frank has a profile on eHarmony..." "He is a puppet, not a real dinosaur." This goes along the same direction of using sort of "obvious" or "simple" ways to say things like the album cover does; e.g. "This is a song by the Black Keys", "It's from an album called Brothers", etc. The video was made by director Chris Marrs Piliero as the label asked them to do a placeholder video for "Tighten Up" as a teaser for Brothers. Piliero was inspired by both "stupid kid shit...
Reception
"Tighten Up" is widely considered to be one of the Black Keys' greatest songs. In 2012, Complex ranked the song number one on their list of the 15 greatest Black Keys songs, and in 2019, Paste ranked the song number three on their list of the 10 greatest Black Keys songs. In 2011, Rolling Stone put the song on its list of the 15 Best Whistling Songs of All Time.
"Lonely Boy" is a song by American rock band the Black Keys. It is the opening track from their 2011 studio album El Camino and was released as the record's lead single on October 26, 2011.
The song is also the A-side of a promotional 12-inch single that was released in commemoration of Record Store Day's "Back to Black" Friday event. The single was accompanied by a popular one-shot music video of a man dancing and lip-synching the lyrics.
Composition
"Lonely Boy" is 3:13 in length. The song was written by Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney with producer Danger Mouse. The song is played in the key of E minor, with only three chords used throughout the song. "Lonely Boy" is set in the time signature of common time with a tempo of 168 beats per minute. According to Auerbach, the guitar riff was inspired by Johnny Burnette's cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'". The guitar line features a dive bomb, although Auerbach uses a Boss Super Shifter pitch shift pedal to achieve the effect.
Music video
The promotional music video for "Lonely Boy" features actor, musician and part-time security guard Derrick T. Tuggle dancing and lip-syncing to the song in front of the Pepper Tree Motel in North Hollywood, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The video, shot in a single take, went viral and garnered more than 400,000 views on YouTube within 24 hours. The video originally had a script and a cast of more than 40 people, but the group was not pleased with the results. Auerbach said, "A couple of weeks after we shot it they sent us the edit and it was awful. We sent it back... they sent us another edit and it was terrible. That's when we said 'what about that one guy, the extra who had that one dance scene' and that's the video – the...
Cover art
The cover of the single release features an image of a bulldozer sitting on an empty tract of land. The lot was previously filled by the factory at which the group's 2004 album Rubber Factory was recorded. Michael Carney, the group's art director, went to take a photo of the factory but found that it had been demolished. Auerbach joked about the cover's significance: "We keep stumbling into these profound artistic expressions. That's how we roll though."
"Gold on the Ceiling" is the third track from El Camino (2011), the seventh studio album by American rock band the Black Keys. It was released as the record's second single on February 25, 2012.
The song was certified platinum in Australia and Canada, and is tied with "Fever" as the band's highest-charting song in the UK.
Music videos
Two videos were shot for the song. The first, directed by Reid Long, features footage from the band's concerts, as well as candid shots of them on tour.
Reception
Will Hermes of Rolling Stone called the song's keyboards "a serrated organ growl backed up with a SWAT team of hand claps" and cited it as an example of Danger Mouse's prowess as a producer and co-writer. Summarizing the song, Hermes wrote, "It's Sixties bubblegum garage pop writ large, with T. Rex swagger and a guitar freakout that perfectly mirrors the lyrics, a paranoid rant that makes you shiver while you shimmy."
Single cover
The cover art for the single is a photo of the dilapidated south entrance to the former Kaufmann's/Macy's in Rolling Acres Mall in Akron, Ohio.
"Howlin' for You" is a song by The Black Keys from the band's sixth album, Brothers. The song was influenced by Gary Glitter's 1972 song "Rock and Roll".
Music video
An official video was released for the song. The music video—a parody of a sexploitation film trailer—was directed by Chris Marrs Piliero, starring Tricia Helfer, Diora Baird, Sean Patrick Flanery, Christian Serratos, Corbin Bernsen, Todd Bridges, and Shaun White, as well as Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of the band in the role of "Las Teclas de Negro" (translated from Spanish as "The Keys of Black").
Critical reception
"Howlin' for You" is widely regarded as one of the band's best songs. In 2012, Complex ranked the song number ten on their list of the 15 greatest Black Keys songs, and in 2021, American Songwriter ranked the song number four on their list of the 10 greatest Black Keys songs.
"I Got Mine" is the second single from The Black Keys' album Attack & Release. It was released in June 2008.
The song was number 23 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2008.
Critical reception
Corey Irwin of Ultimate Classic Rock chose "I Got Mine" as the best song from the album Attack & Release, praising its "earworm chorus and emphatic guitar". Complex Magazine considered it to be the 10th best song by the Black Keys. Both articles highlight the song as a focal point for the band, between their indie rock phase of "unrefined and somewhat coarse sound" and a "much fuller and more realized" music of their rock phase.
In popular culture
The song "I Got Mine" has been used in HBO's sports reality series 24/7: Pacquiao-Hatton as well as background music for the 2009 American League Championship Series. The song is also used as the opening theme music for the CTV/CBS Canadian police drama The Bridge. The song has been performed many times live on television, including the Late Show with David Letterman in April 2008. The band Illinois has been regularly performing this song at shows as part of their setlist. It was also sampled by Ski Beatz on the song "I Got Mines" on the album 24 Hour Karate School. It appears in the films The A-Team, The Watch, Homefront, and Tomorrowland. "I Got Mine" is also featured in the video game Tony Hawk: Ride. I Got Mine has been used while the...
"Wild Child" is a song by the Black Keys, released on March 10, 2022, as the first single from their album Dropout Boogie.
Composition and lyrics
"Wild Child" is a funk track where the narrator longs for "some vaguely sketched unattainable girl", as Pitchfork critic Stuart Berman describes it.
Critical reception
American Songwriter reviewer Hal Horowitz wrote the duo were "off wading into the banks of the muddy Mississippi, grinding out tough, tensile licks and gritty, committed vocals" with the track. writing for AllMusic, critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine states it "is one of the few songs that feels relatively self-contained on Dropout Boogie, as if they were consciously channeling the spirit of "Lonely Boy". "Wild Child" was nominated for Best Rock Performance at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, but lost to "Broken Horses" by Brandi Carlile.
Music video
The song's music video, directed by Bryan Schlam, shows the duo at a school, initially inside of the staffroom being roasted by the teachers and later that day, the duo quit the school, walking away from the kids while flipping them off.
"Hard Row" is a single by American blues-rock duo the Black Keys from their second album Thickfreakness. The song, along with the rest of Thickfreakness, was recorded in drummer Patrick Carney's basement on a 1980 "8-track recorder".
In June 2003, it peaked at No. 86 in UK Charts.
Critical reception
Corey Irwin of Ultimate Classic Rock chose "Hard Row" as the best song from the album Thickfreakness, praising its "simple but effective guitar progression". Irwin favorably compared the song to the Black Keys' debut album, saying it much improved: "the vocals were crisper, the guitar bolder, the drums louder, yet all without losing that unfiltered energy of their debut effort". He felt it fused the vibes of Nirvana and ZZ Top.
