With the release of their latest and most upbeat album, El Camino, we’ve seen The Black Keys complete their transformation from a dirty garage blues band to major festival headline material.
It’s the latest stage of an evolution that seemed extremely unlikely back in the days of their 2002 debut Big Come Up (when the Black Keys were still cranking up the fuzz pedals and trying to shake off persistent comparisons with a certain other bluesy two-piece with a colour in their name). Of course The White Stripes have now called it quits and The Black Keys have inherited the crown as America’s favourite white boy blues band but the connection hasn’t been put to bed just yet. The White Stripes’ Jack White has decamped to Nashville, coincidentally the place where The Black Keys and their producer Danger Mouse recorded and honed last year’s El Camino, which peaked at number 2 in the US Billboard charts.
But while there are similarities with Jack White’s band, the remarkable ascent of the Black Keys is arguably more reminiscent of the rise of Nashville’s own, Kings of Leon, who themselves could have been mistaken for one trick retro ponies at the time of their emergence.
Kings of Leon’s brand of Southern fried, booze fueled party rock on their 2003 debut Youth and Young Manhood had the critics at the time swooning but few expected them to return with straightening tongs and stadium rock appeal.
The media have always delighted in bunching bands together and calling it a movement and this has never been more apparent than at that time. Kings of Leon found themselves at the centre of a transatlantic ‘movement’ of apparently similar bands but with the only real interesting similarity being that so many of them demonstrated an astute ability to do a one album impression (albeit a good impression) of their favourite retro bands.
The Strokes reveled in the Velvet Underground comparisons, the money men behind the Vines chose to push along an impression of Kurt Cobain, Franz Ferdinand seemed to fancy themselves as some kind of Scottish Kraut Rock throwbacks and The Libertines soaked up whatever flattery they could get but importantly, none of them really got over the second hurdle. Love them or hate them Kings of Leon have without a doubt proved themselves capable of leaping that with ease.
By the time Kings of Leon had finished touring their fourth album, 2008’s Only by the Night, the band found themselves capable of filling arenas normally reserved for Green Day or U2. The Black Keys duo, of guitarist and singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney, are not far off that kind of popularity even if they have had to trudge through the sludge for longer than Kings of Leon. Their 2012 tour includes some ambitious venues for the duo, including three sell out nights at London’s Alexandria Palace, the 17,500 seat US Bank Arena, Cincinnati, Ohio and most impressively a headline slot at Coachella 2012.
The increased size of the venues is testament in particular to a recent grueling period of work for the band, which has seen them been barely off the road or out of the studio since 2010’s Brothers, the album that won them three Grammy Awards, expanded their sound markedly and reached number 3 in in US Billboard charts.
Looking back at Brothers and listening to the equally ambitious El Camino it’s almost like they’re being groomed for the arenas, told that they’ve bled the blues dry and now it’s time to pick up more instruments and show what they can do.
There will be fans of The Black Keys who will be disappointed to see the band take the direction they have but it’s hardly Dylan plugging in or Metallica going through a hillbilly midlife crisis. I would argue the departure from their original sound is a completely necessary one. With the flourishing sound of El Camino they’ve taken a bold step out of the blues shelter and they should be commended for it. They’ve demonstrated over the last year that they can put their own spin on the blues and mould songs every bit as distinctive as their sound, which has never been in doubt.
By freelance journalist Joe Marren. More of his work can be found here.
(Neonfiller says: We hope The Black Keys embrace their stadium appeal with maturity rather than the type of childish arrogance that has blighted Kings of Leon in their most recent, successful years. So far so good for the Ohio lads. See Also: Kings of Leon – What a bunch of babies , Kings of Leon’s Caleb Followill Sinks To New Low With Cobain Comparison .)