Editor Reviews:

Album Description:
Standard UK pressing of the debut album from Britpop supergroup The Good, The Bad And The Queen. TGTBTQ is a new album featuring Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz), Paul Simonon (The Clash), Tony Allen (Africa 70/Fela Kuti) and Simon Tong (The Verve). The Good, The Bad and The Queen began life in the Aphrodisia Studios in Nigeria in 2004 and traces a journey from the English music hall tradition, over to West Africa for Afrobeat, zigzagging through the West Indies and its reggae and dub, back to England and London's punk scene, all the while taking in a strand of British beat music from the '50s right through to Britpop. Produced by Brian ‘Danger Mouse’ Burton. EMI. 2007

Amazon.com:
To open this oddball supergroup's debut, Paul Simonon hints at "Guns of Brixton," and when Tony Allen's flex rhythms come in, there's a shadow of Fela Kuti, too. Then Damon Albarn's slow grit of a voice enters--framed by Simon Tong's flecked guitar. And collectively, The Good, the Bad, & the Queen is quickly sui generis, adamantly different than anything you think you've heard. A band with this much power has at least two options: to cut loose raucously or to mute their overt power for a more covert, dub-inflected atmospheric potency. Smartly, Albarn and his crew opt for the half-light of elastic bass lines, the clouds between the parentheses of drums--the covert. It's not until "Kingdom of Doom," the erstwhile 'single' of the album, that motion expands beyond the languorous. And even then, Tony Allen largely sits out. You get the full flush of Simonon and Allen on "Three Changes" shuffling time even while holding the tempo to a dubbish gait. It's not Blur, the Clash, Fela, the Verve, or Gorillaz. It's more than just names on albums. --Andrew Bartlett

Rating : - One of Albarn's Best
I was destined to buy this album, whether it was good or not. Since I discovered Blur back in High School, I've followed Damon Albarn from project to project, thoroughly enjoying every album he's released. The Good, the Bad & the Queen was the next stop on what has been a very interesting and exhilarating musical journey.

Blur and Gorillaz are all about immediacy. There are brilliant layers in the music if you should listen some more, but you'll still get a lot out of the first listen. TGTB&TQ are not. These are songs which require a patient ear, and a few listens before everything starts to sink in. There's an air of melancholy that permeates the whole piece, a uniquely British air. And the music is quietly superb. It does take a number of listens, but the layers are unbelievable, and the final impact of the songs is astounding.

Whenever you're hearing an album for the first few times, there's a high that can often make it seem better than it truly is. For a while, I listened to this album so much that it had worn out its welcome. My opinion of it lessened with each subsequent listen, so I put it away. I pulled it out just recently for the first time in almost eight months, and it blew me away. I had forgotten how truly, truly great it is. One of Albarn's finest accomplishments, and with a catalog like his own, that's truly impressive.