A music podcast where we discuss our favorite albums, song by song. New episodes every other Tuesday.

162: Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R (2000)

“I wanted to wean our audience onto the idea that we were gonna play everything. We were introducing the strange. I wanted to add a weird quirk. I was interested in bridging the gap between the audience and the weird, like ‘Come touch the weird.’”

—Josh Homme

Discord & Rhyme kicks June off with a feel good hit of the summer. Join Dan, Mike, and Rich for a ride through Queens of the Stone Age’s 2000 sophomore release Rated R, an album that seemed like a refreshing antithesis of mainstream rock trends at the turn of the millennium. Building off the desert rock DNA of Josh Homme’s previous band Kyuss and infusing elements of psychedelia, pop, and punk with a healthy sense of creative, quirky arrangements, Rated R endures as one of the most exciting hard rock albums of the 2000s. 

Miscellany

• Queens of the Stone Age have just released Alive in the Catacombs, an audiovisual document of the band’s performance in June 2024 in the tunnels of the famed Catacombs of Paris. Dan has already watched it, and he reports that it’s really cool and not at all what he was expecting. The intimate song arrangements reveal that Josh Homme’s voice is sounding better than ever. 

• Rich misspoke twice in this episode: The song we clipped from Lullabies to Paralyze is called “Someone’s in the Wolf,” not “Something’s in the Wolf,” and the 1972 synthpop classic “Popcorn” is by Hot Butter, not Hot Chocolate. (Mike would have corrected Rich in the moment, but he thought he said “Hot Butter.”) 

Other links 

• The official Queens of the Stone Age website

• “Auto Pilot” live with Mark Lanegan on vocals (YouTube)

• Interludes by Lincoln the Lawyer (Samply)

• Discord & Rhyme’s Rated R playlist (Spotify)

• Discord & Rhyme’s merch store (TeePublic)

• Discord & Rhyme’s Patreon

Discord & Rhyme Roll Call 

• Dan Watkins (host)

• Rich Bunnell (moderator)

• Mike DeFabio 

Rated R tracklist 

1. Feel Good Hit of the Summer

2. The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret

3. Leg of Lamb

4. Auto Pilot

5. Better Living Through Chemistry

6. Monsters in the Parasol

7. Quick and to the Pointless

8. In the Fade

9. Tension Head

10. Lightning Song

11. I Think I Lost My Headache 

Other clips used 

Queens of the Stone Age:

• Avon

• No One Knows

• Little Sister

• 18 A.D.

• I Was a Teenage Hand Model

• I'm Designer

• Do It Again

• Auto Pilot (Live at Hultsfred 2003)

• Monsters in the Parasol (The Desert Sessions)

• Go with the Flow

• I Appear Missing

• Someone's in the Wolf 

Others:

• Battles - Ice Cream

• Pink Floyd - Candy and a Currant Bun

• The Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)

• Spinal Tap - Cups and Cakes

• Kelis - Milkshake

• Led Zeppelin - Custard Pie

• Richard Harris - MacArthur Park

• Ween - Polka Dot Tail

• Primus - Pudding Time

• Frank Zappa - Muffin Man

• The Archies - Sugar, Sugar

• Sting - Desert Rose

• Kyuss - Green Machine

• Neil Cicierega - Floor Corn

• Yes - Starship Trooper

• Bjork - Crying

• Pink Floyd - Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

• The Jimi Hendrix Experience - I Don't Live Today

• Screaming Trees - Nearly Lost You

• The Police - Walking on the Moon

• Mondo Generator - 13th Floor

• Led Zeppelin - Black Mountain Side

• Sparks - Equator

• Edvard Grieg - In the Hall of the Mountain King

• Melvins - Charmicarmicat

• Mahavishnu Orchestra - The Dance of Maya

• Rockabye Baby! - I Think I Lost My Headache

• Nickelback - How You Remind Me

• Kyuss - Demon Cleaner

• Them Crooked Vultures - Gunman

• Everything But the Girl - Missing (Todd Terry remix)

Band/album personnel 

• Josh Homme – lead vocals (1–3, 5, 6, 11), guitars (1–3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11), percussion (3, 8), lead guitar (4, 7), backing vocals (4, 8), drums (4), piano (10), producer, mixing, concept

• Nick Oliveri – bass (1–3, 5–11), backing vocals (1, 2, 5, 6, 11), lead vocals (4, 7, 9), guitar (4), percussion (8), concept

• Gene Trautmann – drums (1, 6, 7, 9)

• Dave Catching – electric piano (1, 2, 8), lap steel guitar (1, 11), guitar (6, 7), B3 (4), piano (5), 12-string guitar (10)

• Nick Lucero – drums (2, 3, 5, 8, 11), percussion (3, 4)

• Chris Goss – backing vocals (4, 5, 6), grand piano (1), percussion (1), noise piano (2), bass (4), producer

• Mark Lanegan – backing vocals (4, 11), lead vocals (8)

• Barrett Martin – vibes (2, 5), percussion (5, 10), steel drum (11)

• Mike Johnson – backing vocals (3)

• Pete Stahl – backing vocals (2)

• Rob Halford – backing vocals (1)

• Nick Eldorado – backing vocals (1, 7)

• Wendy Rae Fowler (Wendy Ray Moan) – backing vocals (1, 7)

• Scott Mayo – baritone sax (2), horns (11)

• Fernando Pullum – flugelhorn (7), horns (1)

• Reggie Young – horns (11)

• Bradley Cook – engineer

• Martin Schmelzle – engineer, sequencing, assembly

• Trina Shoemaker – engineer, mixing

• Dan Druff – guitar technician

• Marek – noise (8), mixing

• Robert Brunner – pre-production assistant

Credits 

“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of: 

• Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf

• Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste

• The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...

• Faith No More - Midlife Crisis

• Herbie Hancock - Hornets

• Kraftwerk - Autobahn

• Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen

• Queens of the Stone Age - Better Living Through Chemistry (this episode only) 

You can buy or stream Rated R and other albums by Queens of the Stone Age at qotsa.com, your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Editing is by Rich Bunnell, and special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for production and original music. See you next album, and keep as cool as you can.