The Black Keys – El Camino: 10th Anniversary Edition (Super Deluxe 4-LP Vinyl)
Review
In 2011, The Black Keys' sixth album, Brothers, hit No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and yielded the band multiple Grammy nominations. The story goes that, after a Saturday Night Live appearance, a snowstorm forced them to cancel a few live dates. Instead of hibernating, they teamed with Danger Mouse and promptly started banging out the tracks that would make up El Camino, arguably the band's most accessible record in their now-extensive catalog. For the 10th anniversary edition, the band culls together a few different versions, with the "super deluxe" offering a robust collection of live tracks recorded in 2011-2012. First up is a complete show from the band's tour stop in Portland, Maine—20 tracks that capture the group energized by new cuts like "Gold on the Ceiling," "Little Black Submarines," and "Next Girl." The term "garage rock" has always been thrown around when discussing the Keys—but this night's performance was truly an assault on the blues, with Dan Auerbach's guitars thrashing throughout. The other two performances draw from more intimate settings—a BBC taping and a session at the famed Electro-Vox studio in Hollywood. Both gigs find the Keys performing at another intensely high level, with short and punchy versions of "Howlin' for You" and the smash single "Lonely Boy" showing off just how good this band was at creating compacted, yet transformative rock moments.
— Mike Ayers, Relix
Product Details
Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney recorded El Camino in just ten days in 2011, channeling decades of garage rock, glam, and soul into one of the tightest records of their career. The album broke the duo wide open commercially without softening the raw, two-piece attack that built their reputation in Akron, Ohio clubs a decade earlier.
Original remastered album, previously unreleased full live concert and BBC Session Recorded in 2012, 2011 Electro-Vox Session, limited-edition poster and lithograph, “new car scent: air freshener, 100-page photo book.
The Black Keys release a special tenth anniversary edition of their landmark seventh studio album El Camino via Nonesuch Records on November 5, 2021. El Camino (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) will be available in several formats including a Super Deluxe edition of five vinyl LPs or four CDs, featuring a remastered version of the original album, a previously unreleased Live in Portland, ME concert recording, a BBC radio Zane Lowe session from 2012, a 2011 Electro-Vox session, a limited-edition photo book, poster, and lithograph, and a “new car scent” air freshener. A three-LP Deluxe edition, which includes the remastered album and the live recording, also will be available.
The Black Keys won three awards at the 55th annual GRAMMY Awards for El Camino— Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Rock Album—among other worldwide accolades. In the UK, the band was nominated for a BRIT Award (Best International Group) and an NME Award (Best International Band).
El Camino was produced by Danger Mouse and The Black Keys and was recorded in the band’s then-new hometown of Nashville during the spring of 2011. In the UK, the record gave the band their first top 10 hit, and in the US it debuted at # 2 on the Billboard Top 200. The band was also the # 1 most played artist at Alternative and AAA radio formats for 2012 in the US. The album’s first single, “Lonely Boy,” reached # 1 on the Alternative and AAA charts; it also entered the top 10 at Rock radio. The second single, “Gold on the Ceiling,” also reached # 1 on Alternative radio and the third single, “Little Black Submarines,” reached the top 3 at Alternative radio. El Camino has been certified Double Platinum in the US, Australia, and New Zealand; Platinum in the UK, France, Ireland, and Belgium; Quadruple Platinum in Canada; and Gold in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. Of the album’s singles, "Lonely Boy" was certified nine-times platinum in Canada, triple-platinum in Australia, platinum in New Zealand, and gold in Denmark. "Gold on the Ceiling" was certified platinum in Australia and Canada.
Rolling Stone hailed El Camino for bringing “raw, riffed-out power back to pop’s lexicon,” and called it “the Keys’ grandest pop gesture yet, augmenting dark-hearted fuzz blasts with sleekly sexy choruses and Seventies-glam flair.” The Guardian said, “They sound like a band who think they've made the year's best rock'n'roll album, probably because that's exactly what they've done.”
Tracklist
Side A
Side B
Side C
Side D
Side E
Side F
Side G
Side H
Side I
Side J
UPC: 075597914368
Label: Nonesuch
Release Date: 11.5.21
Format: LP Vinyl