Topic

Deserts

Where scarcity sets every rule.

3: in music
10:57: average
33 min: in total
45: across the network

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11:05

Deserter’s Songs

Mercury Rev · 1998

Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs (1998) is a chamber-pop reinvention built in the Catskills, where distorted guitars gave way to strings, horns and woodwinds. It is rooted in departure — of place, personnel and aesthetic — and anchored by collaborations with Garth Hudson and Levon Helm. Its sound is warm, acoustic, orchestrated and psychedelically tinged. Its themes are walking away, farewell and return. It is Mercury Rev’s most widely recognised work — not a rejection of their past, but its distillation.

10:56

Songs for the Deaf

Queens of the Stone Age · 2002

Songs for the Deaf is Queens of the Stone Age’s third studio album, released in 2002. It is structured as a loose concept record simulating a desert drive from Los Angeles to Joshua Tree, using faux-radio interludes. Dave Grohl’s drum parts were recorded twice per song — once with electronic cymbal pads and muted drums, once with live cymbals and dampened drums — then blended in a small, acoustically dead isolation booth to achieve a tight, punchy, claustrophobic sound. Several tracks are reworkings of earlier Desert Sessions recordings. The album was certified gold in 2003 with over 900,000 copies sold.

10:50

The Joshua Tree

U2 · 1987

A record made in two Irish houses. Guitar, bass, and drums played live through monitors. Open, ambient sound tied to the room. Antipathy toward US foreign policy held beside fascination with American space and ideals. Sequenced the night before delivery. Not ambient. Not experimental. Not American-made — but deeply, tensely, about America.

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8:58

Glassworks

Philip Glass · 1982

Glassworks is a six-movement chamber work Philip Glass wrote for the recording studio after his large concert and stage pieces, released by CBS in 1982 on LP and on cassette, each with its own mix. It was meant to bring his music to a wider audience, and it did: the album sold well and made his name widely known.

2:00

20 Golden Greats

Buddy Holly, The Crickets · 1978

20 Golden Greats was first issued in Britain in 1978, collecting recordings associated with Buddy Holly and the Crickets from 1956–58. It also circulated as Buddy Holly Lives. The release date belongs to the retrospective, not to a newly assembled performing group.

2:05

808s & Heartbreak

Kanye West · 2008

Released in 2008, 808s & Heartbreak followed the death of Kanye West's mother and the end of his engagement. His fourth studio album shifts much of its emphasis from rapping to singing. That change makes the handling of the voice the central question of the record.

2:10

A Nod Is As Good As a Wink... to a Blind Horse

Faces · 1971

Faces' third album was their second release of 1971. Glyn Johns shared production duties, helping shape a programme shorter and more concentrated than its predecessors. Rod Stewart's growing solo profile is part of the context, but Ronnie Lane's three lead vocals make the group's broader identity essential.