James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 17: The Good, the Bad and the Queen

‘Q’ is always one of the most challenging letters in an A-Z challenge. Most years I’ve had to expand the parameters a little in order to crowbar something in and this year I’ve had to outright cheat.

But it was all in a good cause, because the album in question is definitely worth revisiting.

Q is for The Good, the Bad and the Queen

Ok, so the album title doesn’t actually begin with a ‘Q’ but there is, at least, a ‘Q’ in there somewhere.

Which is a flimsy rationale for including it, but the debut album by a supergroup that, at the time didn’t actually have a name, but which subsequently did adopt the name of the album in order to release a follow-up record, is definitely worth a listen.

The album was initially going to be a solo project for Damon Albarn, of Blur and Gorillaz fame, but he ended up collaborating with a few other people from little known acts such as The Clash and The Verve (though in truth most of the collaborators have been associated with Gorillaz at one time or another). The end result is an album that is certainly Albarnesque without sounding too much like either Blur or Gorillaz. But as neither of the aforementioned groups managed to make the cut for this year’s A-Z (both could have had I been in a different mood when compiling my list), I am pleased I was able to get at least one Damon Albarn album into the mix. Even if I had to cheat.

It was never the intention of the band to bother the charts, though it performed respectively enough as a commercial entity, in spite of a fairly downbeat sound.

Definitely not one to get the party started, but a great album to listen to at more introspective times. Kingdom of Doom sums up the sound pretty well.