10,000 Days

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Professional reviews
10,000 Days

Studio album by Tool
Released	May 2, 2006
Recorded	August - December 2005 at O'Henry Studios in Burbank, California, The Loft and Grandmaster Studios in Hollywood, California
Genre	Alternative Metal Progressive Rock
Length	75:45
Label	Volcano II/Tool Dissectional: U.S.
Producer(s)	Tool
All Music Guide link Glide Magazine (positive) link IGN (8.5/10) link Kerrang! NME(8/10) Sputnikmusic link liveDaily (NR) link PopMatters (6/10) link Pitchfork Media (5.9/10) link RockReviews (9/10) link Rolling Stone link Stylus Magazine (D+) link Winnipeg Sun link Blender link somethingFM (98/100) link Tunelab Music (9/10) link
Tool chronology
Lateralus (2001)	10,000 Days (2006)

10,000 Days is the Grammy Award-winning fourth full-length studio album by Tool. It was released on April 28, 2006 in parts of Europe, April 29 in Australia, May 1 in the United Kingdom and May 2 in North America.

1 Singles
2 Recording
3 Artwork
4 Internet leak
5 Critical reception
6 Track listing
7 Track information and miscellanea
8 Personnel
9 Charting
- 9.1 Album
- 9.2 Singles
10 Notes

[edit] Singles

On March 27, 2006 Billboard.com posted an article about 10,000 Days,^[1] which mentioned that "Vicarious" would be the album's first single. "Vicarious" was officially released to radio on April 17, and entered the Modern Rock Tracks chart at #2. A music video for the song was tentatively scheduled to premiere in early July 2006.^[2] However, it has not been officially released.

The second single from the album is "The Pot", which peaked at #5 on the Modern Rock chart. It was the band's first #1 single on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. A video for "The Pot" was scheduled to shoot over the 2006 holiday season.^[3] Industry news site FMQB states that "Jambi" will be the third radio single and should receive airtime on both Modern^[4] and Mainstream Rock^[5] formats.

[edit] Recording

The album was recorded at O'Henry Studios in Burbank, California as well as at The Loft and Grandmaster Studios in Hollywood, California. It was mixed at Bay 7 in North Hollywood and mastered at Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland, Maine. The May 2006 issue of Guitar World (released April 11, 2006) featured an interview with guitarist Adam Jones discussing the new album. Jones explained that recording techniques for the album involved the use of a "pipe bomb microphone" (a guitar pickup mounted inside a brass cylinder), and a talk box guitar solo on the song "Jambi." Drummer Danny Carey triggered many of the sound effects on the album using electronic drums called Mandalas.

[edit] Artwork

The CD packaging for 10,000 Days consists of a thick cardboard-bound booklet partly covered by a flap holding a pair of stereoscopic eyeglasses, which can be used to view a series of images inside (including, for the first time since Undertow, an individual portrait of each band member). Viewed with the glasses, the artwork produces an illusion of depth and three-dimensionality. Alex Grey, who created a majority of the album art for Lateralus and its accompanying video "Parabola", reprised his role for 10,000 Days. The artwork's 3D modeling is credited to Ray Zone while the illustration and CGI concepts are credited to Grey (including several adaptations of his painting "Net of Being"). The CD face itself is decorated with stylized eyes, arranged in a seemingly logarithmic spiral towards the center (adapted from a previous Alex Grey painting, "Collective Vision"). As with Tool's other albums, the lyrics are not printed within the artwork; vocalist Maynard James Keenan has instead released lyrics for previous Tool albums online following their respective releases; however, it is unknown if this trend will continue. As of January 2007, only the official lyrics of "Rosetta Stoned", "The Pot", and "Wings For Marie Pts. 1 & 2" have been released.

On May 5, 2006, the band's official webmaster hinted that "the four individual photos [of the band members] can be used as the pieces of a kind of puzzle", but the puzzle and its meaning "will just be another nut to crack."^[6]

On February 11, 2007, Adam Jones, Art Director received the Grammy Award for Best Recording Package for his work on the 10,000 Days packaging.

[edit] Internet leak

On April 14, 2006, a 30-second clip from "Vicarious" aired on Pittsburgh radio station "105.9 The X". Subsequently, the entire song was leaked in WAV format when a private FTP server (used to distribute the song to radio stations) was left open without password protection for a few minutes.^[7] The entire album was later leaked to the Internet, despite heavy security and strict conditions regarding media previews. Exactly how the album came to be leaked is unknown. Some rumors had led fans to believe that the band leaked it as an attack on their record company,^[8] yet statements from Keenan in interviews expressing his distaste for internet leaks seem to contradict this.

[edit] Critical reception

On average, 10,000 Days received generally favorable critical reception, albeit with less enthusiasm than previous Tool albums. While most critics praised the album as another example of Tool's musicianship, some noted that the album is a "love-it-or-hate-it" affair.^[9] Critics who gave 10,000 Days a relatively low score questioned the merits of its ambient interludes, which Tool have also used on their previous releases. In addition, the song "Vicarious" was nominated for the "Best Hard Rock Performance" Grammy. Rolling Stone magazine named it the 38th best album of 2006. The album received a 2006 Grammy for Best Recording Package.

[edit] Track listing

"Vicarious" – 7:06
"Jambi" – 7:28
"Wings for Marie (Pt 1)" – 6:11
"10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)" – 11:13
"The Pot" – 6:21
"Lipan Conjuring" – 1:11
"Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)" – 3:46
"Rosetta Stoned" – 11:11
"Intension" – 7:21
"Right In Two" – 8:55
"Viginti Tres" – 5:02

[edit] Track information and miscellanea

Jambi is an Indonesian Province in Sumatra, which was once part of the powerful Melayu Kingdom. Legends state that it was ruled by a rich sultan who lived an opulent lifestyle; this legend may be the one referred to in the song's lyrics. In addition, Jambi is Finnish for iamb, a metrical foot where an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one. Jambi is also the name of a character from Peewee's Playhouse.^[10]
'Marie' is the middle name of Keenan's deceased mother, Judith Marie Garrison. As Keenan explains in his commentary on A Perfect Circle's aMOTION DVD, she suffered a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. The length of time between the paralysis and her death was 27 years, or approximately 10,000 days.^[11] Prior to her death, on their 2002 tour, the band debuted an instrumental portion of "Wings for Marie"; the finished song contains lyrics referring to a funeral service.
In a Guitar World interview, Jones confirmed that the title of "The Pot" was a reference to an idiomatic term for hypocrisy (i.e., the "pot calling the kettle black").
The Lipan are an Apache band, also known as the "tall grass people".
On April 7, 2006, the official Tool website specifically mentioned Albert Hofmann, the "father" of LSD, and stated that he first synthesized the drug on that date in 1938. Past communiqués from the same source used the words "blame Hofmann" as a catch phrase, and report that "Lost Keys" was the working title for "Wings for Marie/10,000 Days".^[10]
The Rosetta Stone is an archaeological artifact of carved granite that was used as a key to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
'Intension' is commonly defined as 'intensification'; however, it may also mean "a strenuous exertion of the mind or will". In Logic, it means "the sum of all possible attributes in a term". In the study of evolution, it can refer to the process of interbreeding In language, words lose all meaning unless 'intension' of some sort is applied.
'Viginti tres' means 'twenty-three' in Latin; the number holds some historical, mathematical, and occult significance. 23 is also the length in minutes of a super-song on Lateralus (consisting of three tracks: Disposition, Reflection and Triad) but there is no known link between the two.
The wine in Maynard's glass on his album photo is a 1963 Burmester port.^[12]
Despite the album's use of profanity, it did not feature a "parental advisory" sticker, unlike past Tool albums that did.
The band's website has alluded to there being a puzzle using the album's artwork as pieces.

[edit] Personnel

Danny Carey - Drums, Tabla, Percussion
Justin Chancellor - Bass guitar
Adam Jones - Art Direction, Guitar, Sitar
Maynard James Keenan - Vocals
Joe Barresi - Engineering and Mixing (credited as "Evil Joe Barresi")^[13]
Bob Ludwig - Mastering
Lustmord - Weather effects on "10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)"
Bill McConnell - Vocals on "Lipan Conjuring"
Alex Grey - Illustrations

[edit] Charting

10,000 Days entered the U.S. Billboard 200 chart at number one, selling 564,000 copies in its first week. In Australia, 10,000 Days debuted at #1, selling 39,278 in its first week. In the UK, the album debuted at #4, the highest chart position they have ever managed in that country. It was certified platinum in the U.S. by the RIAA on June 9, 2006. As of December 2006 10,000 Days has sold 2.5 million albums worldwide. [1]

[edit] Album

Country	Chart (2006)	Peak position
U.S.	Billboard Top 200	1
Canada	Billboard Top 200	1
Australia	Australian Record Industry Association	1
New Zealand		1
Austria	Austria Top 40 Longplay Charts	1
Denmark	Album Chart	2
Finland	Top 40 Album Chart	2
Germany	Media Control	2
Ireland	IRMA	6
Israel		1
Netherlands		1
Norway	VG/GGF	1
Poland		1
Czech Republic		23
United Kingdom	Top 40 Albums	4
Sweden	Grammofonleverantörernas förening (best selling albums)	2

[edit] Singles

Year	Single	Chart	Peak Position
2006	"Vicarious"	Billboard Hot 100	#55
2006	"Vicarious"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	#2
2006	"Vicarious"	Modern Rock Tracks	#2
2006	"The Pot"	Billboard Hot 100	#94
2006	"The Pot"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	#1
2006	"The Pot"	Modern Rock Tracks	#5
2007	"Jambi"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	#12