Musical Style
Throughout its career the band has been described as hard rock, alternative rock, art rock, heavy metal, desert rock, psychedelic rock, and several other genres. Queens of the Stone Age have also been labeled as stoner rock, but Homme himself rejects the term, saying, "If I had a choice, I would take that away. Stoner rock, to me, is like saying the crucial element is drugs. And I don't believe that that's the case. I'm not an AA guy or anything, but at the same time I don't need any of that to make music." He also often describes the band style as "robot rock" referring to the band's solid and repetitive riffs in the band's song structures. Homme has described the band's self-titled debut album as driving music, angular and recorded dry. Rolling Stone magazine also noted a "connection between American meat-and-potatoes macho rock of the early 1970s, like Blue Cheer and Grand Funk Railroad, and the precision-timing drones in German rock of the same period". The band's following album - Rated R - contained a wider variety of instruments, several recording guests and lead vocals shared by Homme, Oliveri and Lanegan. Homme has also commented that "Our first record announced our sound. This one added that we’re different and weird." The band continued to experiment on their third album Songs for the Deaf, which also featured a line-up including three lead vocalists, many guest appearances and wide range of instrumentation including horn and string sections. Lullabies to Paralyze was in comparison to the band's previous releases a darker record, lacking the band's distinct "driving" sound, much due to the departure of longtime member Nick Oliveri, with lyrics inspired by The Brothers Grimm folk and fairy tales. The band also almost exclusively used semi hollow body guitars during the making of the record. With Era Vulgaris the band continued to evolve their signature sound with more dance-oriented elements and electronic influences, while Homme has currently gone back to being the only lead vocalist in the band and uses more distinct vocal melodies.
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