Broken Boy Soldiers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Broken Boy Soldiers | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
|||||
| Studio album by The Raconteurs | |||||
| Released | May 16, 2006 | ||||
| Recorded | 2005 | ||||
| Genre | Hard rock, alternative rock, blues rock, folk rock | ||||
| Length | 33:42 | ||||
| Label | Third Man Records/ V2 Records |
||||
| Producer | Jack White III and Brendan Benson | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
|
|||||
| The Raconteurs chronology | |||||
|
|||||
Broken Boy Soldiers is the debut album of The Raconteurs, which was released on May 15, 2006 in the UK and May 16, 2006 in the U.S. to generally favorable reviews. It ranked No. 28 on Rolling Stone's year-end critic's list and No. 19 on Spin Magazine's year-end Top 40 albums.
The cover was photographed by Autumn de Wilde and designed by Patrick Keeler and Aleksey Shirokov.
The Raconteurs' first full-length contains the lead single "Steady, As She Goes", which became the band's first Top 10 hit in the UK.
Broken Boy Soldiers entered the UK charts at #2 and managed to reach #7 in the U.S. Since its release, it has sold approximately 425,000 copies in the U.S.[1] In December 2006, Britain's Mojo magazine made it their Album of the Year.
Contents |
[edit] Writing and recording process
The songs were written by Benson and White. "Steady, As She Goes" was the first song the pair worked on, followed by "Broken Boy Soldier". After the completion of these two songs and their demos, they called in Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler to work on the songs.
In an interview with Uncut magazine White said that "Store Bought Bones" originated from an outtake of The White Stripes album, Get Behind Me Satan. In the same interview, Benson also said that "Call It a Day" and "Together" were both songs he was working on for his next solo album. "Yellow Sun" was recorded live, according to an interview with the band on AOL Interface.[citation needed]
Benson said in an interview with Mojo magazine that the album feels like a demo because of how the band plays the songs live now. "Hands" features a "Back in Black" style outro, "Call It a Day" has been sped up (found on the Zane Lowe EP), "Store Bought Bones" has been merged with B-side "The Bane Rendition", and many other changes.
[edit] Response
[edit] Critical
Critics were generally favorable towards Broken Boy Soldiers. Rolling Stone said of the album "Expectations were sky-high, but the Raconteurs exceed them all."[2] People magazine gave the album three-and-a-half stars, making the album the Critic's Choice of the week; they commented "Broken Boy Soldiers incorporates just enough weirdness to show that he (White) hasn't completely changed his stripes."[3] More conservatively, Billboard remarked "No one is breaking any ground here, and White fanatics looking for a new White Stripes record should temper their expectations. But as far as side projects go, this is as good as it gets."[4]
[edit] Track listing
All songs by Brendan Benson and Jack White.
- "Steady, As She Goes" – 3:35
- "Hands" – 4:01
- "Broken Boy Soldier" – 3:02
- "Intimate Secretary" – 3:30
- "Together" – 3:58
- "Level" – 2:21
- "Store Bought Bones" – 2:25
- "Yellow Sun" – 3:20
- "Call It a Day" – 3:36
- "Blue Veins" – 3:52
[edit] Personnel
- Jack White - vocals, guitars, keyboards
- Jack Lawrence - bass guitar
- Patrick Keeler - drums
- Brendan Benson - vocals, guitars, keyboards
[edit] References
- ^ White Stripes looking for one-album deal, The Rock Radio, 2007-01-31
- ^ Sheffield, Rob (2006-05-18), "The Raconteurs: Broken Boy Soldiers". Rolling Stone. (1000/1001):226
- ^ Arnold, Chuck (2006-06-05), "The Raconteurs". People. 65 (22):41
- ^ B. G. (2006-05-20), "Broken Boy Soldiers". Billboard. 118 (20):33
 |
This 2000s rock album-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
|
||||||||||||||
