Lullabies to Paralyze

Lullabies to Paralyze
Lullabies to Paralyze
	; Cover for the CD. Vinyl below.
Studio album by Queens of the Stone Age
Released	March 21 2005
Recorded	August - September 2004 at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California, USA
Genre	Stoner Rock, Alternative Rock
Length	59:26
Label	Interscope
Producer	Josh Homme, Joe Barresi
Queens of the Stone Age chronology
Alternative Cover

Lullabies to Paralyze is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Queens of the Stone Age, released on 21 March 2005.^[1] The album debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200,^[2] and sold 97,000 copies in America during its first week of release.^[3] Eventually the album would sell over 342,000 copies as of March 2007 according to Nielsen Soundscan.^[4] The album would sell over 100,000 copies in the UK where it would earn a gold certification,^[5] along with going gold in three other countries.^[6]^[7]^[8]

It is also the band's first album to be released after bassist Nick Oliveri was fired from the band.^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12] Singer/guitarist Josh Homme and singer Mark Lanegan are the only members from the previous album, Songs For The Deaf, to play on this album.^[13] Lullabies would be the first album to feature drummer Joey Castillo and guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen.^[14] Notably, Lullabies would feature several recurring collaborators such as Alain Johannes, Chris Goss and Dave Catching, alongside guests such as Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top),^[15]^[16] The Main Street Horns,^[17] Jesse Hughes (Eagles of Death Metal), Brody Dalle (The Distillers), Shirley Manson (Garbage) and Jack Black (Tenacious D, Probot).

Background[]

to be added

Recording and Development[]

The album title Lullabies to Paralyze was intended to bridge Lullabies with its predecessor Songs for the Deaf by naming it after a line in "Mosquito Song", the final track on Songs for the Deaf. The "deluxe limited edition" of the album includes a bonus track and a bonus DVD containing "a look behind the scenes and special bonus footage". Videos were produced for singles "Little Sister", "In My Head" and "Burn the Witch", and the song "Someone's in the Wolf". The video for "Someone's in the Wolf" was featured on the bonus DVD of Lullabies to Paralyze.

The album was delayed during 2004 because of some changes to the line-up: bassist, vocalist, and co-songwriter Nick Oliveri was fired and on-off vocalist Mark Lanegan went on tour with his own band. Lanegan can still be heard singing on several songs of the album as well as contributing lyrics. Because of this turmoil, there had been rumors that Lanegan had left the band, which Josh Homme eventually clarified in several interviews was never the case. Nevertheless, he encouraged these rumours to draw the attention off the band by giving the press "something to focus on while I was just making the record". In a 2007 interview with Pitchfork, Homme would note the writing process, stating the following: And at the time, I was like, "Fuck, no one's even listening to this. It's too much about other stuff." And it would have been easy to make Songs for the Deaf 2, which is basically all I heard in my own head. But I can't do that. You've got to shake all that shit away.^[18] By the time of release a new lineup would be established, with Homme stating that the new lineup was working out "fantastic".^[19]

The "Hidden Outro" later appears as the main riff in the song "Running Joke", a b-side that appears on Era Vulgaris.

The final item on the track list, "The Fun Machine Took a Shit and Died" (located behind the CD in the normal version, or inside the booklet in the deluxe edition), below "Long Slow Goodbye" reads; "The Fun Machine took a shit and died – Was lost or misplaced. (There is a reward for the return of said tapes)". During that time, the band assumed that the tapes of that song were either lost or stolen. A live version of this song can be found on the DVD release Over the Years and Through the Woods. Homme commented, "The tapes got lost. Actually, they were just at another studio, but we falsely accused everyone in the world of theft." The song was later rerecorded as a single and featured as a bonus track on Era Vulgaris.^[20]

Release and Singles[]

Little Sister would be the first single released for Lullabies to Paralyze. It was first issued as a promotional single in December 2004, but was later released as a commercial single on 7 March 2005. The song was recorded live in the studio in one take. The song had been in the works for quite a while. An early version was recorded with Dave Grohl in 2002 for the album Songs for the Deaf, but was scrapped. The unfinished recording was later distributed on a bootleg recording compilation. According to Josh Homme, the song was inspired by the "sort of sexual twist" of Doc Pomus's song of the same name, which is probably best known as recorded by Elvis Presley: "I like the amalgam of imagery that it puts forward, that throwing a little pebble at the girl's windows late at night, you know, trying to creep in the back door, you know. And I also love the Elvis song 'Little Sister' because I like the sort of sexual twist that's put on by 'little sister don't you do what your big sister done."^[21] Along with charting in several countries, "Little Sister" would peak at #88 on The Billboard Hot 100,^[22] #13 on the Mainstream Rock charts,^[23] #5 on The Canada Top Rock 30^[24] and #2 on the Alternative Airplay Charts.^[25]

In My Head would be the second single, released 27 June 2005. The song originally featured as a track from The Desert Sessions, appearing on Volume 10: I Heart Disco in 2003 where it was named "In My Head...Or Something". The version of the song on Lullabies to Paralyze first appeared in November 2004, on the soundtrack of the racing video game Need for Speed: Underground 2. The song is available as downloadable content for Rock Band 3 and also appears in the end credits during the Entourage episode "The Release". A music video for the song was released that was later castigated by guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, stating "...It just happened to be the only time we listened to the record label and it was such a fuck up on our part. The video we ended up with for that song is so lame! It was three of us against a green screen with effects added later. It was like a fucking Gap commercial. It was terrible. Just terrible. We were on the road so we weren't in control of it.".^[26] It would peak at #44 on the UK charts,^[27] #39 on the Mainstream Rock chart^[28] and #32 on the Alternative Airplay chart.^[29]

Lastly, Burn The Witch would be released on 10 January 2006. Many of its lyrics run parallel with the dark, folkloristic theme for this album. Along with "You've Got a Killer Scene There, Man...", it borrows heavily from the blues. ZZ Top's guitarist and singer Billy Gibbons appears on lead guitar and backup vocals. Gibbons also plays on a cover of his own band's "Precious and Grace", a bonus track on the album. The song involves an exchange of vocal lines between the falsetto of Homme and the twin baritones of Gibbons and Mark Lanegan. Gibbons does not regularly tour with the band, so the other vocal was performed by Lanegan, until he stopped touring with the band. Currently, Josh Homme sings alone with backing vocals from the rest of the band. In the previous line-up, Homme played bass and Alain Johannes played a quite different version of Gibbons' solo. This song (its remix by UNKLE) was also featured in and on the soundtrack of Saw II. This song is also featured in the trailer to the fourth season of the HBO series True Blood and also featured in Peaky Blinders. The music video features Josh Homme, Brody Dalle, Troy Van Leeuwen, Joey Castillo, Chris Goss, Wendy Rae Fowler, Jesse Hughes, Alain Johannes, Natasha Shneider, Billy Gibbons and Serrina Sims. "Burn The Witch" would peak at #40 on the Alternative Airplay Chart.^[30]

Lullabies to Paralyze would be released on 21 March 2005., debuting at #5 on the Billboard 200, and sold 97,000 copies in America during its first week of release.^[31]^[32] To precede the album a surprise gig would be hosted at The Viper Room on 8 February, premiering "Little Sister", "Burn The Witch", and "The Long Slow Goodbye".^[33] Ultimately, Lullabies to Paralyze would chart in several countries at the time and at the end of the year:

Australian Albums (ARIA) (#2)^[34]
Australian Albums Year-End (ARIA) (#76)^[35]
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) (#5)^[36]
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) (#2)^[37]
Belgian Albums Year-End (Ultratop Flanders) (#31)^[38]
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) (#17)^[39]
Canadian Albums (Billboard) (#5)^[40]
Danish Albums (Hitlisten) (#12)^[41]
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) (#4)^[42]
Dutch Albums Year-End (Album Top 100) (#98)^[43]
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista) (#8)^[44]
French Albums (SNEP) (#10)^[45]
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) (#8)^[46]
Italian Albums (FIMI) (#19)^[47]
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) (#6)^[48]
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista) (#1)^[49]
Portuguese Albums (AFP) (#16)^[50]
Scottish Albums (OCC) (#3)^[51]
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE) (#64)^[52]
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan) (#2)^[53]
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) (#4)^[54]
UK Albums (OCC) (#4)^[55]
US Billboard 200 (#5)^[56]

LP Version[]

The album has three LP pressing runs. The first pressing was released by AntAcidAudio and contains a different cover to the CD version. The sides are named Once, You, Were & Lost, after a line from "Someone's in the Wolf", with each containing a mixture of the CD's album and bonus tracks (with the exception of Once, only the standard tracks are present).

The second pressing is a reissue by Dutch record label Music On Vinyl, released on 22 September 2011. The reissue is different from the first pressing in that it does not have its sides named after the line from "Someone's in the Wolf," and it uses the cover art from the CD release. The reissue omitted bonus tracks "Infinity" and "Precious and Grace" from the track listing, and listed "Like a Drug" as the last track. Side four contains an etching of one of the album's artwork.^[57]

The third pressing would be released in November 2019 and features the tracklist from the original 2005 LP release and the cover art from the original CD release.

Critical Reception and Accolades[]

The album received generally positive reviews, although slightly lower than its predecessor, the average score being 78 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 31 professional reviews.^[58] Notable reviews would come from the likes of AllMusic (4.5/5),^[59] Entertainment Weekly (B),^[60] The Guardian (4/5),^[61] The Los Angeles Times (Four Stars),^[62] NME (8/10),^[63] Pitchfork (7.5/10)^[64] and SPIN (B)^[65] among others.^[66]^[67]

Kevin Forest Moreau awarded it 3rd best album of the year 2005, Billboard magazine ranked it 7th best album, Magnet magazine ranked it 9th, and Filter magazine considered it 10th best album of the year 2005.^[68] Stonerrock.com would rank the album #2 on their 25 Top Albums of 2005.^[69] JustPressPlay ranked it #31 on its list of the Top 100 Albums of the 2000s and named "Tangled Up in Plaid" the 19th best song of the decade.^[70]

Lullabies to Paralyze would go Gold in four different countries: Australia,^[71] Belgium,^[72] Canada^[73] and The United Kingdom.^[74]

Tracklist[]

All tracks written by Joshua Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen and Joey Castillo, except where noted.