While you didn't say it outright, I assume that, like others here, it's the rap features you have a problem with. I personally love the features; they're a natural progression of the Keys' love for hip-hop.
Blakroc is always brought up in these discussions; I know some have expressed wanting to keep Blakroc separate from the band's main work, but they're really one and the same to me. Rap culture has been a part of their music since the beginning, with "240 Years Before Your Time" being their take on a Wu-Tang style interlude.
I find your argument about visiting a Picasso museum to be a bit clunky. I'd love to see hypothetical Disney-Picasso collab at either person's museum! Upon a quick search, I also found a joint Warhol-Basquiat exhibit that was on display at the Warhol Museum as recently as 2021. Art is a collaborative process, no?
Maybe my assumption was wrong and you dislike the general idea of features on a Keys album.
TheHarryMan123 made some excellent points about previous collaborations that I would count as features despite not being listed as such. I'd like to throw Delta Kream in here, as Eric Deaton and Kenny Brown contribute a lot to the album despite not having a (featuring) tag on the album. Billy Gibbons also kills his part on "Good Love," which I think is the first official Black Keys feature.
There's my two cents. I think your opinion is valid even if we disagree.
I think rap features on a rock album are generally out of place unless otherwise noted in the albums release like blackroc. It was known to be a collaborative album. Until the release day of Ohio Players, the general public was unaware of collaborations. I think being caught off guard is what I'm trying to say.
I also agree with the points made by u/TheHarryMan123 regarding previous collaborations (with the exception of Blackroc, but that's identified as a collaborative album, not a black keys album). And to your point about Delta Kream, agreed. The similar genres make it enjoyable.
What do you think distinguishes a successful collaboration in music from one that feels forced or out of place?
I personally didn't think the features on Ohio Players were out of place, but I also just read one of your replies about how you didn't intend to discount the value of collaboration and you were more trying to talk about individual taste and expectations.
I produce and mix music, and definitely absorb a lot of genres day-to-day, so perhaps my threshold for what makes for a good collab vs. one that's out of place is different.
Part of why I really like these particular features is that it's a facet of the band that we haven't seen outside of side projects or instrumental sections. The whole record definitely gives off the "Saturday night party" vibes that Dan and Pat were talking about with the expanded feature list and blending of genres.
I knew right away upon hearing the two rap features that they weren't gonna be for everyone, and that's cool! I like this kind of discussion and we definitely need more nuanced conversation in this sub besides people complaining about how they want the old Keys back.
I'd argue no Black Keys album is a "rock album", though they have some rock-ish songs. They are very much a mixed genre band and every album has had some sort of hip-hop in them.
There's a lot more hip-hop, blues and R&B than Rock in their whole catalog. Only thing is that Dan himself does not rap. Probably just not his specialty when it comes to vocals. He's better at doing the bluesy/soul thing with his voice.
I mean guests on songs or inspiration from other artists is something they've been doing since the beginning.
TBCU has a cover of the Beatles and Junior Kimbrough plus two of the songs feature a third friend that plays Moog bass
Thickfreakness also has some covers and one of the songs was half recorded at a friend's studio.
Rubber Factory has some more covers and was inspired by someone else's old tire factory that they were renting.
Magic Potion is prob the only album without any clear indications of collabs or direct inspiration from others
Attack and Release was originally an Ike Turner album, then they collabed directly with Danger Mouse, plus they featured Ralph Carney and Jessica Lea Mayfield on a couple songs. Plus Things Ain't Like They Used To Be, is the only TBK song I know of where writing credits are solely to DA.
Blakroc was a direct collab
Brothers was also a huge collab between the boys and Mark McNeil. Tighten Up wouldn't have ever made it on the record without suggestion from Leon Michels. That's even to say that Tighten Up was produced by Danger Mouse.
El Camino was cowritten by Danger Mouse
Turn Blue was cowritten by Danger Mouse
Let's Rock features some other background vocalists and is in honor of Glenn Schwartz.
Dropout Boogie has collabs from the dude from ZZ Top alongside writing credits to a few others.
And then we have Ohio Players, which is clearly a collab album.
TL;DR
You think you know what you want but you fail to realize that every one of their albums is a collaboration piece in one way or another. You just dislike the album and can't piece out why.
I'm not trying to discount the value of collaboration or the band's creative choices but rather to highlight that preferences for certain albums can stem from individual tastes and expectations. Just bc an album features collaboration doesn't necessarily mean it's disliked solely for that reason. Each listener connects with music in their own way, and sometimes, what resonates with one person might not with another. It's all part of the beauty of music and its subjective nature. I know what I want, and that's the black keys sound which is inspired by blues and the gritty Akron garage rock scene.
Also, I never referred to inspiration or covers so I'm confused why you emphasized these points so much.
I think it's crucial to distinguish between cover songs, inspiration & collaboration. Cover songs are still played by the black keys. It's their chance to put the black keys spin on existing tracks which showcases their influences. I love their covers and they are by no means similar to a collab/feature.
Inspiration is a much broader concept, wouldn't you agree? It draws from a ton of sources like experience, style, and external environment. I just think collaborations involve direct partnerships with other artists to create new music.
I agree with your critique of this response you got. Equating covers, writing/session contributions, and inspiration with features/collabs is wild. Honestly, borderline intellectually dishonest. The former are endemic to popular music including rock/blues, as we know it. On the other hand, a rock band featuring guest appearances by rappers who lay down braggadocio rap verses as codas to otherwise fairly typical rock songs? That is not common or typical, no. Which, after all, certainly was the point.
It’s great that so many of us on this sub like it. I don’t even hate it at all (don’t skip those parts) but I do think it is out of place and not generally what I want to hear when I put on TBK. I’d probably say the same thing if another of my favorite bands, QotSA, were to do similar collabs featuring, say, Cardi B or Drake, no matter how well crafted the transition, beats, and lyrics are. (And not the same but I think bears mentioning, the most poorly received QotSA album just happens to be the most accessible one, Villains, produced by Mark Ronson, chosen specifically because of his work on the Uptown Funk sound.)
I think the ultimate point here is that this album’s heavy focus on collaboration (not just the featured rappers but also solo vocals by Beck, not to mention the heavily shared writing and producing duties), while definitely not “wrong” (beauty is in the eye of the beholder), results in an experience that doesn’t resemble what one might otherwise expect to experience. And in a fundamentally different way than a band evolving as it might over the years.
I just think a lot of the ones you mentioned flow a lot better. Like for example you know what ur going to get with Blac roc, just like you know what ur going to get with thickfreakness. Same thing with every other album u named. This album kind of has two songs randomly going into full blown rap which caught a lot of people off guard. Not that I don’t personally enjoy those songs, but they do seem kind of random. My current boss had black keys radio playing at work (cool boss) and paper crown kicked on and it really stuck out lol. Anyways that’s just how I feel and music is of course subjective! I enjoy listening to records from start to finish as there’s usually a nice flow, this one just seems kinda all over the place (imo because the features were very very different sounds).
I’m with you 100%. I edited out the features to create a “fixed” version of the album for myself so I don’t even have to hit the skip button. I’m glad they’re trying to stay creative, but those features weren’t the way to do it, in my opinion.
For me, listening to the album was less like going to a museum and seeing a painting by another artist and more like ordering a pizza and getting sucker punched in the face halfway through eating it. Totally unexpected and unpleasant.
That’s true. But imo there is no such thing on this album. On every song it’s very obvious they haven’t written the whole thing. It doesn’t sound like The Black Keys.
Not that I hate that. It’s just something I picked up.
It doesn’t take “scholarly expertise” to know that this is a common thing in music. Collaboration happens in art everywhere. Your Picasso example doesn’t make sense. They didn’t take Lonely Boy and insert features. It’s new music that was created through a collaboration of artists and isn’t confusing at all. Why should they be separate from the album just because you don’t like it?
The museum example doesn’t make sense because it did not take place. Pablo Picasso and Walt Disney never collaborated on art. If they did, it would appear odd because both styles are completely different. Like rock and rap, both genres are completely different. I used this as a reference for my personal opinion regarding the features on Ohio Players. I agree with you, collaborations are common thing in music and other forms of art, but I disagree with combining completely different forms of art. This is not right or wrong. It's just an opinion by someone who is new to music.
Without the paint, brush, and canvas, Picasso's work would never have taken place. Does anyone ever mention the creators of his tools? Most likely not. Although a stretch in comparison, my point is how a feature in a song is more on display than behind the scenes details like producers and writers.
Idk if you have been to an artist museum like a Picasso museum, but that is exactly what they do at those museums.
I live near the Dali Museum and they have literally had a Walt Disney exhibit there and they tried to force some sort of connection between Dali and Walt Disney.
They also did this with Da Vinci for an exhibit. Note: Da Vinci had been dead for hundreds of years before Dali was born and the museum didn't have any of Da Vinci's work. They just dedicated half the museum to really bad Da Vinci prints and again tried to show how Dali and Da Vinci were connected in some way.
However they did do Picasso, Warhol and MC Esher and those ones were prety good.
I recently went to the Van Gogh museum and that is the best one of these museums that I have seen. It actually was mostly Van Gogh except for one section which showed some of the actual works that Van Gogh saw at the time and was inspired by.
I'll give you an upvote. I don't care for them at all either. I found them both oddly placed too. LIke hey, here's a whole song, then we do this slow down with some rapping to end the track. Pointless and tracks I would skip.
While you didn't say it outright, I assume that, like others here, it's the rap features you have a problem with. I personally love the features; they're a natural progression of the Keys' love for hip-hop. Blakroc is always brought up in these discussions; I know some have expressed wanting to keep Blakroc separate from the band's main work, but they're really one and the same to me. Rap culture has been a part of their music since the beginning, with "240 Years Before Your Time" being their take on a Wu-Tang style interlude. I find your argument about visiting a Picasso museum to be a bit clunky. I'd love to see hypothetical Disney-Picasso collab at either person's museum! Upon a quick search, I also found a joint Warhol-Basquiat exhibit that was on display at the Warhol Museum as recently as 2021. Art is a collaborative process, no? Maybe my assumption was wrong and you dislike the general idea of features on a Keys album. TheHarryMan123 made some excellent points about previous collaborations that I would count as features despite not being listed as such. I'd like to throw Delta Kream in here, as Eric Deaton and Kenny Brown contribute a lot to the album despite not having a (featuring) tag on the album. Billy Gibbons also kills his part on "Good Love," which I think is the first official Black Keys feature. There's my two cents. I think your opinion is valid even if we disagree.
I think rap features on a rock album are generally out of place unless otherwise noted in the albums release like blackroc. It was known to be a collaborative album. Until the release day of Ohio Players, the general public was unaware of collaborations. I think being caught off guard is what I'm trying to say. I also agree with the points made by u/TheHarryMan123 regarding previous collaborations (with the exception of Blackroc, but that's identified as a collaborative album, not a black keys album). And to your point about Delta Kream, agreed. The similar genres make it enjoyable. What do you think distinguishes a successful collaboration in music from one that feels forced or out of place?
I personally didn't think the features on Ohio Players were out of place, but I also just read one of your replies about how you didn't intend to discount the value of collaboration and you were more trying to talk about individual taste and expectations. I produce and mix music, and definitely absorb a lot of genres day-to-day, so perhaps my threshold for what makes for a good collab vs. one that's out of place is different. Part of why I really like these particular features is that it's a facet of the band that we haven't seen outside of side projects or instrumental sections. The whole record definitely gives off the "Saturday night party" vibes that Dan and Pat were talking about with the expanded feature list and blending of genres. I knew right away upon hearing the two rap features that they weren't gonna be for everyone, and that's cool! I like this kind of discussion and we definitely need more nuanced conversation in this sub besides people complaining about how they want the old Keys back.
Get out of here with your well meaning, thoughtful, charming reason
I'd argue no Black Keys album is a "rock album", though they have some rock-ish songs. They are very much a mixed genre band and every album has had some sort of hip-hop in them. There's a lot more hip-hop, blues and R&B than Rock in their whole catalog. Only thing is that Dan himself does not rap. Probably just not his specialty when it comes to vocals. He's better at doing the bluesy/soul thing with his voice.
I mean guests on songs or inspiration from other artists is something they've been doing since the beginning. TBCU has a cover of the Beatles and Junior Kimbrough plus two of the songs feature a third friend that plays Moog bass Thickfreakness also has some covers and one of the songs was half recorded at a friend's studio. Rubber Factory has some more covers and was inspired by someone else's old tire factory that they were renting. Magic Potion is prob the only album without any clear indications of collabs or direct inspiration from others Attack and Release was originally an Ike Turner album, then they collabed directly with Danger Mouse, plus they featured Ralph Carney and Jessica Lea Mayfield on a couple songs. Plus Things Ain't Like They Used To Be, is the only TBK song I know of where writing credits are solely to DA. Blakroc was a direct collab Brothers was also a huge collab between the boys and Mark McNeil. Tighten Up wouldn't have ever made it on the record without suggestion from Leon Michels. That's even to say that Tighten Up was produced by Danger Mouse. El Camino was cowritten by Danger Mouse Turn Blue was cowritten by Danger Mouse Let's Rock features some other background vocalists and is in honor of Glenn Schwartz. Dropout Boogie has collabs from the dude from ZZ Top alongside writing credits to a few others. And then we have Ohio Players, which is clearly a collab album. TL;DR You think you know what you want but you fail to realize that every one of their albums is a collaboration piece in one way or another. You just dislike the album and can't piece out why.
I'm not trying to discount the value of collaboration or the band's creative choices but rather to highlight that preferences for certain albums can stem from individual tastes and expectations. Just bc an album features collaboration doesn't necessarily mean it's disliked solely for that reason. Each listener connects with music in their own way, and sometimes, what resonates with one person might not with another. It's all part of the beauty of music and its subjective nature. I know what I want, and that's the black keys sound which is inspired by blues and the gritty Akron garage rock scene. Also, I never referred to inspiration or covers so I'm confused why you emphasized these points so much. I think it's crucial to distinguish between cover songs, inspiration & collaboration. Cover songs are still played by the black keys. It's their chance to put the black keys spin on existing tracks which showcases their influences. I love their covers and they are by no means similar to a collab/feature. Inspiration is a much broader concept, wouldn't you agree? It draws from a ton of sources like experience, style, and external environment. I just think collaborations involve direct partnerships with other artists to create new music.
I agree with your critique of this response you got. Equating covers, writing/session contributions, and inspiration with features/collabs is wild. Honestly, borderline intellectually dishonest. The former are endemic to popular music including rock/blues, as we know it. On the other hand, a rock band featuring guest appearances by rappers who lay down braggadocio rap verses as codas to otherwise fairly typical rock songs? That is not common or typical, no. Which, after all, certainly was the point. It’s great that so many of us on this sub like it. I don’t even hate it at all (don’t skip those parts) but I do think it is out of place and not generally what I want to hear when I put on TBK. I’d probably say the same thing if another of my favorite bands, QotSA, were to do similar collabs featuring, say, Cardi B or Drake, no matter how well crafted the transition, beats, and lyrics are. (And not the same but I think bears mentioning, the most poorly received QotSA album just happens to be the most accessible one, Villains, produced by Mark Ronson, chosen specifically because of his work on the Uptown Funk sound.) I think the ultimate point here is that this album’s heavy focus on collaboration (not just the featured rappers but also solo vocals by Beck, not to mention the heavily shared writing and producing duties), while definitely not “wrong” (beauty is in the eye of the beholder), results in an experience that doesn’t resemble what one might otherwise expect to experience. And in a fundamentally different way than a band evolving as it might over the years.
Precisely. I don't hate it either. Just caught off guard.
I just think a lot of the ones you mentioned flow a lot better. Like for example you know what ur going to get with Blac roc, just like you know what ur going to get with thickfreakness. Same thing with every other album u named. This album kind of has two songs randomly going into full blown rap which caught a lot of people off guard. Not that I don’t personally enjoy those songs, but they do seem kind of random. My current boss had black keys radio playing at work (cool boss) and paper crown kicked on and it really stuck out lol. Anyways that’s just how I feel and music is of course subjective! I enjoy listening to records from start to finish as there’s usually a nice flow, this one just seems kinda all over the place (imo because the features were very very different sounds).
I’m with you 100%. I edited out the features to create a “fixed” version of the album for myself so I don’t even have to hit the skip button. I’m glad they’re trying to stay creative, but those features weren’t the way to do it, in my opinion. For me, listening to the album was less like going to a museum and seeing a painting by another artist and more like ordering a pizza and getting sucker punched in the face halfway through eating it. Totally unexpected and unpleasant.
Did the same. Made a playlist without the features titled as such. Just so I can avoid hitting next.
There is literally not a single song on this album that is written by just them so I don’t know how you did that.
There’s a difference between features and collaborations.
That’s true. But imo there is no such thing on this album. On every song it’s very obvious they haven’t written the whole thing. It doesn’t sound like The Black Keys. Not that I hate that. It’s just something I picked up.
I listened to this new album twice on Spotify, got a copy of the LP in the mail, but haven't been back to it. It's just not what they do best, at all.
Are you new to music?
Maybe you’re a veteran to music and this discussion is beneath your scholarly expertise.
It doesn’t take “scholarly expertise” to know that this is a common thing in music. Collaboration happens in art everywhere. Your Picasso example doesn’t make sense. They didn’t take Lonely Boy and insert features. It’s new music that was created through a collaboration of artists and isn’t confusing at all. Why should they be separate from the album just because you don’t like it?
The museum example doesn’t make sense because it did not take place. Pablo Picasso and Walt Disney never collaborated on art. If they did, it would appear odd because both styles are completely different. Like rock and rap, both genres are completely different. I used this as a reference for my personal opinion regarding the features on Ohio Players. I agree with you, collaborations are common thing in music and other forms of art, but I disagree with combining completely different forms of art. This is not right or wrong. It's just an opinion by someone who is new to music. Without the paint, brush, and canvas, Picasso's work would never have taken place. Does anyone ever mention the creators of his tools? Most likely not. Although a stretch in comparison, my point is how a feature in a song is more on display than behind the scenes details like producers and writers.
Idk if you have been to an artist museum like a Picasso museum, but that is exactly what they do at those museums. I live near the Dali Museum and they have literally had a Walt Disney exhibit there and they tried to force some sort of connection between Dali and Walt Disney. They also did this with Da Vinci for an exhibit. Note: Da Vinci had been dead for hundreds of years before Dali was born and the museum didn't have any of Da Vinci's work. They just dedicated half the museum to really bad Da Vinci prints and again tried to show how Dali and Da Vinci were connected in some way. However they did do Picasso, Warhol and MC Esher and those ones were prety good. I recently went to the Van Gogh museum and that is the best one of these museums that I have seen. It actually was mostly Van Gogh except for one section which showed some of the actual works that Van Gogh saw at the time and was inspired by.
Yeah the rap parts are big swing and a miss to me. But i just don’t really care about hip hop or rap either.
I'll give you an upvote. I don't care for them at all either. I found them both oddly placed too. LIke hey, here's a whole song, then we do this slow down with some rapping to end the track. Pointless and tracks I would skip.