Keep on Your Mean Side

Keep on Your Mean Side
Studio album by The Kills
Released April 1, 2003
Recorded November 2002 at Toe Rag Studios, London[1]
Genre Indie rock, garage rock, post-punk revival
Length 42:23
Label Domino
The Kills chronology
Black Rooster EP
(2002)		 Keep on Your Mean Side
(2003)		 No Wow
(2005)

Keep on Your Mean Side is the debut album by UK based indie rock band The Kills. Originally released on April 1, 2003, through Domino Records, it was later reissued on May 4, 2009, with five additional bonus tracks.

The song "Wait" was featured in the film Children of Men (2006), while the song "Monkey 23" was featured in the French film The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) and in Adam Curtis' BBC Documentary, "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" Part 1 (2011).

Contents

Reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source Rating
Metacritic (70/100) [2]
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [3]
Drowned In Sound (9/10) [4]
Mojo [5]
Pitchfork (7.8/10) [6]
Playlouder (negative) [7]
PopMatters (negative) [8]
Rolling Stone [9]
Stylus C+[10]
Uncut [11]
Yahoo! Music [12]

Reviews for Keep on Your Mean Side were wide-ranging but mostly positive with a few exceptions. It has a normalized rating of 70 out of 100 on MetaCritic based on 18 professional reviews.[2] Rolling Stone was complimentary saying the music was "dark, kick-ass garage rock" and the album was "a bruising disc of post-modern blues"[9] echoed by Allmusic's "sneering, sexy blues-punk" that's "relatively fresh and distinctive"[3].

Track listing

No. Title Length
1. "Superstition"   4:40
2. "Cat Claw"   3:32
3. "Pull a U"   3:23
4. "Kissy Kissy"   5:02
5. "Fried My Little Brains"   2:08
6. "Hand" (incorrectly labeled as "Gypsy Death & You" on original album sleeve) 0:50
7. "Hitched"   4:02
8. "Black Rooster"   4:24
9. "Wait"   4:47
10. "Fuck the People"   4:17
11. "Monkey 23"   3:06
12. "Gypsy Death & You" (incorrectly labeled as "Hand" on original album sleeve) 2:11
2009 Reissue Bonus Tracks
No. Title Length
13. "Gum"   1:21
14. "Jewel Thief"   2:47
15. "Sugar Baby"   4:20
16. "The Search for Cherry Red(Jonathan Fire Eater cover)"   2:58
17. "Dropout Boogie" (Captain Beefheart cover) 4:07

Chart performance

Charts (2003) Peak
position
UK Albums Chart 47
French Albums Chart 75

References

  1. ^ "The Kills Keep on Your Mean Side (reissue + bonus tracks) > promotional copy". Domino USA. http://dominorecordco.us/usa/albums/06-08-09/keep-on-your-mean-side-reissue--bonus-tracks/. Retrieved 29 April 2010. 
  2. ^ a b "Keep on Your Mean Side - The Kills". metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/music/keep-on-your-mean-side. Retrieved 17 June 2011. 
  3. ^ a b Phares, Heather. Keep on Your Mean Side at Allmusic. Retrieved 28 June 2006.
  4. ^ Irvine, Michael (March 9, 2003). "The Kills Keep on Your Mean Side > Staff Review". drownedinsound.com. http://drownedinsound.com/releases/3258/reviews/6312-. Retrieved 11 December 2007. 
  5. ^ Mojo: 89. May 2003.  Cited at "Keep on Your Mean Side - The Kills > Critic Reviews". metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/music/keep-on-your-mean-side/critic-reviews. Retrieved 28 February 2008. 
  6. ^ Reid, Brendan (March 31, 2003). "The Kills Keep On Your Mean Side > Album Review". Pitchfork. Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/reviews/albums/4424-keep-on-your-mean-side/. Retrieved 28 June 2006. 
  7. ^ Harrison, Elizabeth (04 March 2003). "Keep on Your Mean Side The Kills > Review". playlouder.com. Archived from the original on 19 November 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20061119084005/http://www.playlouder.com/review/+712thekills/. Retrieved 28 June 2006. 
  8. ^ Horning, Robert (23 May 2003). "The Kills: Keep on Your Mean Side > Album Review". PopMatters. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/kills-keep. Retrieved 22 September 2011. 
  9. ^ a b Relic, Peter (May 15, 2003). "The Kills Keep on Your Mean Side > Album Review". Rolling Stone (922): p. 130. Archived from the original on 2 October 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071002063514/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/thekills/albums/album/316482/review/5942575/keep_on_your_mean_side. Retrieved 12 August 2007.  Posted on April 22, 2003.
  10. ^ Murphy, Kilian (2003-09-04). "The Kills Keep on Your Mean Side > Album Review". Stylus. http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=1287. Retrieved 28 June 2006. 
  11. ^ "The Kills - Keep on Your Mean Side > Album Review". uncut.co.uk. IPC Media. http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/the_kills/reviews/5134. Retrieved 22 September 2011. 
  12. ^ O'Connell, Sharon (March 13, 2003). "The Kills 'Keep On Your Mean Side' > Album Review". Yahoo! Music. Archived from the original on 15 May 2011. http://web.archive.org/web/20110515221214/http://uk.launch.yahoo.com/l_reviews_a/28640.html. Retrieved 24 May 2007. 
The Kills
Alison "VV" Mosshart · Jamie "Hotel" Hince
Studio albums
Keep on Your Mean Side · No Wow · Midnight Boom · Blood Pressures
EPs
Black Rooster EP · Fried My Little Brains · Run Home Slow
Singles
"Fuck the People"  · "Fried My Little Brains"  · "Pull a U"  · "The Good Ones"  · "Love Is a Deserter"  · "No Wow"  · "U.R.A. Fever"  · "Cheap and Cheerful"  · "Last Day of Magic"  · "Tape Song"  · "Satellite"  · "Future Starts Slow"
Compilation contributions
"Restaurant Blouse" (If the Twenty-First Century didn't Exist it Would be Necessary to Invent It)  · "I Call It Art" (Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited)
Related