Queens Of The Stone Age - Rated R

Most at home in a loose, collaborative atmosphere, where his songs can evolve under the competing attention of several uninhibited musicians, for 2000’s Rated R Josh Homme assembled a group of refugees from California’s decaying desert rock scene. By turns ear-splittingly loud, whimsical, meditative and calculatedly disposable, the result made a virtue of its scattershot eclecticism, anchoring everything to a finely-tuned sense of social irony and an abiding pop sensibility. A revolutionary rock record, Rated R gave genuine form and depth to the frustrations of a suburban generation bereft of opportunity and idealism. (Conor Nagle)