How I Like Queens Of The Stone Age: The Playlists

Here’s a mea culpa about using Spotify (and YouTube!) in this post, if you need it.

Now that the handwringing about playlisting is out of the way…let’s handwring about the band I’m playlisting! Queens Of The Stone Age was extremely close to personal cancellation when head Queen Josh Homme and head Distiller Brody Dalle’s divorce led to mutual accusations of violence and harassment, particularly heartbreaking considering the length of their marriage and their three children. Dalle allowed a boyfriend to forge signatures and statements concerning the custody battle, which might have been the nail in the coffin from a legal standpoint. But I’m reticent to assume valor about either, despite decades of enthusiasm for their music before and after their union. Homme has had a dark history when it comes to drug abuse and macho aggression, and - whatever my sympathy for dependency issues and the stress of divorce on a family - it’s naive to assume the best of someone because they make good music and can be charismatic on a podcast. More than anything, I hope those kids are loved and safe. But two years after the last headline, my moral calculus doesn’t keep me from playing Queens Of The Stone Age or sharing a mix with you. Which I bet this caveat has you pumped to hear! 

Raised in the desert near Palm Springs, Homme spent his young adulthood as the most interesting quarter of early ‘90s stoner metal legends Kyuss, an undeniably badass combo, that was rather monochromatic aside from his licks. A brief stint touring with Screaming Trees on Lollapalooza followed, the experience inspiring Homme to envision a band that women would be more inclined to see (his words). It would be a little groovier, a little more melodic, a little catchier than what Kyuss got up to (he apparently can’t shriek for the life of him, anyway). Masters Of Reality, whose Chris Goss mentored that desert scene, was an obvious touchstone, particularly for Homme’s very poised, very Jack Bruce vocal style. The outcome intriguingly mixed early hard rock bravado, stoner fuzz, and a rigid, rhythmic discipline not unlike krautrock’s.

After a promising, mostly self-recorded debut on a Pearl Jam vanity label, Homme roped in early Kyuss bassist Nick Olivieri as a shrieking second vocalist and moved to Interscope. Their profile raising quickly, 2000’s R and 2002’s Songs For The Deaf inverted the Blue Oyster Cult ratio of Eric Bloom wild-ass camp and Buck Dharma croon. Screaming Trees chanteur Mark Lanegan provided vocals as well, giving QOTSA a pseudo-supergroup grandeur (Dave Grohl drumming on Deaf helped, too). “No One Knows” made the band surprise MTV stars, Homme and Olivieri coming off like a butch Hall & Oates despite the song’s King Crimson bridge. If there was a band in the early ‘00s more likely to impress multiple generations of freedom rockers, I’ve probably blocked them out.

After a whole lotta touring, Olivieri was fired, either over rumors of physical abuse or because Homme didn’t want to share the limelight (despite publicly expressing a desire to return, Olivieri only provided backing vocals on occasion since). With Lanegan merely delivering a brief intro, 2005’s Lullabies To Paralyze suffered slightly from the lack of vocal novelty, despite some serious pop-rock highlights (first single “Little Sister” was an almost comically compressed redux of “Roxanne”). 2007’s Era Vulgaris remains their career peak; the sound never having been more scabrous, more grody, but always with a sly, spooky wit. The relentless strafescape of “Misfit Love“ is easily one of my favorite rock songs this century.

Though the band’s line-up had coalesced around Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen (Failure/A Perfect Circle), Dean Fertita (Waxwings/Dead Weather) and Michael Schuman (Wires On Fire/Mini Mansions), side projects and Homme’s chemically induced health woes meant a follow-up didn’t arrive until 2013, the wryly titled and unapologetically swanning …Like Clockwork. The band was now signed to Matador Records, which is funny if you remember the ‘90s.

Mark “Uptown Funk” Ronson produced 2017’s Villains and the band handled 2024’s In Times New Roman… themselves, but QOTSA’s virtues have been remarkably consistent despite the changing circumstances and long gaps between albums (the line-up also hasn’t changed since Jon Theodore replaced Joey Castillo on drums over a decade ago). Despite his shameless, sexed-up swagger, Homme is right there with Jack White and Britt Daniel as an audio auteur committed to rock flair and rigid fundamentals in equal order, lyrical sentiments and gifts sometimes hidden under the louder love of studio craft & musical dynamics. All these guys are at least Voodoo Lounge years into the biz, but so confident in their aesthetics and indifferent to fashion that there’s seemingly little chance of losing the script entirely. Considering their predecessors, I’m a little in awe.

The audio playlist below is focused on album tracks rather than radio hits, while the video playlist mixes some smashes with concert clips and TV appearances. Though the latter is in chronological order and the former isn’t, both have two songs each from the albums I own (a.k.a 8’s) and one song each from the albums I’d buy if I was less picky (a.k.a. 7‘s). The last video is actually a medley from their new short Alive In The Catacombs, filmed in the guess-whats of Paris and now on the Criterion Channel. The arrangements are cool, though I could do with less of Homme preening amid close-ups of skulls.

Content warning: these guys are awfully fond of half-naked go-go dancers and bawdy lyrical peacocking. Heteronormativity abounds, however nuanced.

How I Like Queens Of The Stone Age: The Videos

1. "If Only (Live At The Bizarre Festival '98)" (Queens Of The Stone Age, 1998)
2. "The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret" (R, 2000)
3. "In The Fade (Live In Ljubljana '03)" (R, 2000)
4. "No One Knows" (Songs For The Deaf, 2002)
5. "Go With The Flow" (Songs For The Deaf, 2002)
6. "Little Sister" (Lullabies To Paralyze, 2005)
7. "Burn The Witch (Live on The Tonight Show)" (Lullabies To Paralyze, 2005)
8. "Misfit Love" (Live on MTV Live Gonzo)" (Era Vulgaris, 2007)
9. "3's & 7's" (Era Vulgaris, 2007)
10. "I Sat By The Ocean (Live On The Late Show)" (...Like Clockwork, 2013)
11. "The Way That You Used To Do" (Villains, 2017)
12. "Negative Space (Live In Lyon '23)" (In Times New Roman..., 2023)
13. "Running Joke/Paper Machete" (Alive In The Catacombs, 2025)

1. "Regular John" (Queens Of The Stone Age, 1998)
2. "I'm Designer" (Era Vulgaris, 2007)
3. "Tangled Up In Plaid" (Lullabies To Paralyze, 2005)
4. "If I Had A Tail" (...Like Clockwork, 2013)
5. "Misfit Love" (Era Vulgaris, 2007)
6. "Un-Reborn Again" (Villains, 2017)
7. "What The Peephole Say" (In Times New Roman..., 2023)
8. "In The Fade" (R, 2000)
9. "Emotion Sickness" (In Times New Roman..., 2023)
10. "Tension Head" (R, 2000)
11. "God Is In The Radio" (Songs For The Deaf, 2002)
12. "Broken Box" (Lullabies To Paralyze, 2005)
13. "Song For The Deaf" (Songs For The Deaf, 2002)

If you have a hot take or an act you'd like my hot take on, let me know at anthonyisright at gmail dot com. In particular, I could use a heads up on where to start with Clutch. I'm overdue.