Turn Blue is the eighth studio album by American rock duo the Black Keys. It was co-produced
by Danger Mouse and the band, and was released on Nonesuch Records on May 12, 2014. The record
was the group's fourth collaboration with Danger Mouse, following their previous studio
album, El Camino, which was their biggest commercial and critical success to that point.
For Turn Blue, Danger Mouse reprised his role from El Camino as an equal songwriting partner
alongside guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney.
The Black Keys recorded the majority of Turn Blue at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, California,
from July–August 2013, with additional recording taking place at Key Club in Benton Harbor,
Michigan, and Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, in early 2014. The
sessions coincided with Auerbach's divorce from his wife, which inspired much of the
album's lyrics. The resulting material was more melancholy and slower paced than the
uptempo, hook-laden songs from El Camino. The album exhibits influences from psychedelic
rock and soul, further departing from the raw, blues rock sound of the group's early
years. In addition to representing the record's moody tone, the title was selected as a homage
to the "turn blue" catchphrase used by 1960s horror host Ghoulardi.
The band announced the album in March 2014 via a tweet by retired boxer Mike Tyson and
a series of cryptic YouTube videos featuring a hypnotist. The song "Fever" was released
as the lead single in March. Turn Blue has received favorable reviews from critics, many
of whom commented on Danger Mouse's growing influence on the band. The album debuted at
number one in the United States and Australia, becoming the group's first record to top the
charts in either country. In May 2014, they embarked on a world tour in support of the
album.
Background In December 2011, the Black Keys released
their seventh studio album, El Camino. It was co-produced and co-written by the band's
frequent collaborator Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, who had previously produced the group's
2008 album Attack & Release and their 2010 single "Tighten Up". El Camino comprised mostly
uptempo, hook-laden tracks and featured a sound that drew from several popular genres
of the 1950s–1970s, such as rock and roll, glam rock, rockabilly, surf rock and soul.
The record was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, and bolstered by the popular singles
"Lonely Boy", "Gold on the Ceiling", and "Little Black Submarines", it helped the group attain
a new level of popularity. In the US, it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and sold
206,000 copies in its first week, the highest single-week sales and charting position the
group had achieved in the country. The album also reached the top five of the album charts
in Australia, Canada, Belgium, and New Zealand. Many publications, such as Rolling Stone and
Time ranked El Camino among the best albums of the year. The album was certified double-platinum
in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand; platinum in the US, UK, and Ireland; and gold in Belgium,
the Netherlands, and France. The group's subsequent concert tour, the El Camino Tour, was their
first playing arenas as a headlining act and lasted 129 shows, while grossing $12.7 million
in 2012. Speaking about the two-and-a-half-year gap
between the release of El Camino and Turn Blue, guitarist Dan Auerbach explained that
the group took longer for their eighth album because they were "this-is-your-brain-on-drugs
fried". Auerbach also spent time between the band's records producing albums for Lana Del
Rey, Dr. John, and Ray LaMontagne, among others. Writing and recording
The Black Keys began recording Turn Blue in January 2013 at Key Club in Benton Harbor,
Michigan, during a break from their El Camino Tour. The studio had a rare Flickinger recording
console custom built for Sly Stone that the band liked, and the location had been recommended
by fellow rock band the Kills. For Turn Blue, just as they did for El Camino, the Black
Keys entered the studio without having written any songs. Auerbach said, "Every morning we
got to the studio, we'd start from scratch and by the end of the day we'd have a new
song and that was really it." The group spent 12 days at Key Club, sleeping above the studio
and not once leaving the building. During these sessions, the songs "Gotta Get Away",
"It's Up to You Now", and the first half of "Fever" were recorded. Carney said that while
in Michigan, the group was still trying to write hooky songs like they did for El Camino:
"we were still on that singles thing. I wanted [Auerbach] to let the record just breathe,
and I think [he] wanted the songs to move along... There were some moments that got
a little tense." Carney added, "We were kind of playing it safe. So we put the sessions
on hold." After a South American leg of touring, the
band reunited with Burton in Nashville, Tennessee, for a planned two weeks of recording. However,
the session ended after just one day, as Auerbach grew frustrated trying to record a vocal part
and walked out. He told Carney and Burton, "I can't do this right now. I don't want to
waste our time," making them wonder whether he was fit to be working. Auerbach subsequently
took a vacation in North Carolina with friends. In July 2013, the Black Keys resumed recording
with Burton at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, California. They traveled to accommodate Burton,
who lived in Los Angeles and had traveled for recording sessions on the group's previous
records. Working in Studio 2, the band recorded most of Turn Blue at Sunset Sound. During
the recording of the album's nearly seven-minute opening song "Weight of Love", Auerbach was
urged by Carney and Burton to continue playing the track's concluding guitar solo, despite
his reservations that it would be self-indulgent. He said that the song's completion set the
tone for the rest of the album and that instead of focusing on radio-friendly singles, they
would make a "headphone record". Carney said the month-long sessions at Sunset Sound were
more inspired: "That's where the record unfolded. The record is L.A. At that point there were
no rules. It's a more open, sprawling kind of album." As recording at Sunset Sound stretched
into August, Auerbach finalized the divorce from his wife, Stephanie Gonis; many personal
details of the separation were publicized in the press. Auerbach said that his emotional
state during the divorce imbued the album with a moody feeling: "I've never relied on
music to get me through anything like I did on this one. This past year, I realised how
fortunate I was to have this thing I can do: making music, and lyrically, saying things
that are personal." Additional recording took place at Auerbach's
Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville in February 2014, including all of Auerbach's vocals.
According to the band, they wrote 30 songs while recording the album, but were unable
to complete all of them. Carney spent about three-to-four days sequencing the album at
his studio before soliciting Auerbach's input. The only change made to the running order
was the addition of "Gotta Get Away" to the end; Carney had wanted "In Our Prime" to close
the record, but Auerbach thought the song was too sad and preferred a catchy, upbeat
track to conclude the album. Carney agreed with the change, saying, "Actually, I think
it works well at the end, too. It erases your brain from whatever heavy elements there are
in the record. I think maybe it encourages you to go back and listen to the record again."
Packaging and title The album title is a catchphrase used by Ghoulardi,
the 1960s horror host alter-ego of Cleveland television presenter Ernie Anderson. Carney
called the title "a shout-out to Ohio", the state in which he and Auerbach grew up. The
title also captured the despondent tone of the record. Auerbach said, "We liked the association
with Ghoulardi, this kind of weird freak from Ohio from the early 60s – that was a phrase
he used to use. And then so much of the album was lyrically melancholy and introspective
and personal, so it was very blue. I guess it just made sense." Carney explained the
original context in which Ghoulardi used the phrase: "It's [his] way of telling people
to fuck off." The cover art, which features an image of a blue and magenta spiral, was
designed by Michael Carney, the group's art director and Patrick's brother. After selecting
the title, Patrick said the group began "referencing early '60s sci-fi, shows like The Outer Limits
and Twilight Zone" for the art direction, due to Ghoulardi's association with the genre.
The album's artwork was influenced by Carney's interest in mind control; the subject drew
his attention after he feuded on Twitter with fans of pop star Justin Bieber. Director Harmony
Korine subsequently recommended Carney watch the 1985 film The Peanut Butter Solution,
in which a teacher uses mind control on students to make them build paintbrushes. The film
inspired the hypnotism wheel on the cover and in the album's promotional videos.
Promotion Turn Blue was announced on March 21, 2014,
via a tweet by retired boxer Mike Tyson; the "announcement" contained the album title and
a hyperlink to a series of cryptic YouTube videos featuring a hypnotist played by actor
Micah Fitzgerald. The idea to have Tyson unveil the album originated after he called the band
to thank them for licensing a song for use in a documentary he was making and he offered
to do them a favor. On March 24, the song "Fever" was released as the lead single, along
with the unveiling of the album's cover art and track listing. A second song, "Turn Blue",
was premiered on Carney's Sirius XM Radio program Serious Boredom on April 14. On May
5, one week prior to the release date, the album became available for streaming on iTunes
Radio. The group made their third appearance on American sketch comedy television show
Saturday Night Live three days prior to the album's release, performing "Fever" and "Bullet
in the Brain". Other promotional appearances including performances on Live on Letterman/Late
Show with David Letterman and The Colbert Report. Turn Blue was released on May 12,
2014. "Bullet in the Brain" was released as the album's third single in the United Kingdom
on June 30, 2014. "Gotta Get Away" will impact modern rock radio in the United States as
the album's fourth single on August 19, 2014. On May 8, the band announced the remainder
of the dates for their 2014 concert tour in support of the album. The Turn Blue World
Tour began with an appearance at the Hangout Music Festival on May 16, and will be followed
by a European leg of shows from June–July and a North American leg from September–December.
Reception Critical reaction
Turn Blue received generally favorable reviews from music critics. According to review aggregator
Metacritic, the album has an average critic review score of 72/100, based on 38 reviews.
Andy Gill of The Independent gave the album five stars, saying it "employs much the same
formula of catchy, hook-laden melodies harnessed to tank-tread riffs that made its predecessor
so irresistible". Gill praised the record's "ever-expanding diversity of appeal... that
should win new fans and please the faithful." Bud Scoppa of Uncut gave the record four stars;
contrasting his judgment of El Camino as a collection of "in-your-face, one-listen rockers",
he called Turn Blue "largely midtempo, moody, lush in places, and deeply soulful". Scoppa
opined that despite the risk in following up El Camino with "something more challenging"
with "nuanced soundscapes", Turn Blue "turns out to be their sneakiest, subtlest and most
seductive" album. In a four-and-a-half-star review, David Fricke of Rolling Stone called
Turn Blue the "best, most consistently gripping album the Keys have ever made". In addition
to praising Danger Mouse's production, Fricke was complimentary of the band for expanding
its musical palette, saying the album is a "genuine turning point – into a decisively
original rock, with a deeper shade of blues". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian rated the
album four stars, saying that the Black Keys "have matured into a band capable of drawing
all kinds of music into their own orbit" without "sound[ing] incoherent". He believed that
the interplay between Auerbach and Carney was unaffected by their musical aspirations
and said "the result is polished and commercial, without feeling craven or compromised, an
impressive stunt to pull off." Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly gave
the record a B+ and judged it to be more psychedelic than previous records by the group due to
the influence of Danger Mouse; Anderson said the album "sounds more like an extension of
Burton's Broken Bells side project... than the follow-up to the Keys' muscular, arena-ready
2011 best-seller, El Camino." Summarizing the album, he said, "it's meticulously executed
but slightly monochromatic". Keith Cameron of Mojo rated the album three stars, criticizing
the release for its "diminishing returns" and believing the duo "eschewed a blank reiteration...
with mixed results", but he still believed they "know which notes to hit". Barry Nicolson
of NME, scoring the album a six-out-of-ten, was critical of Danger Mouse's growing influence
on the band, writing "there's a nagging sense that their collaboration – beneficial though
it's been for all involved – has run its course". Nicolson said that although he enjoyed
parts of the album, "it's a cruel irony that the heaviest hand in Dan Auerbach's warts-and-all
confessional sometimes seems to belong to his producer". Larry Fitzmaurice of Pitchfork
echoed these sentiments, saying that Burton's "reign of boredom continues here in typical
fashion." Fitzmaurice said the music "sounds distant and subdued, a murky-sounding collection
of '70s stoner-rock facsimiles and swirling gray tones that, for the most part, are indistinguishable".
The review questioned "how invested these guys actually are in the music they're making."
Commercial performance Turn Blue debuted at number one on the Billboard
200, selling 164,000 copies in its first week to narrowly beat Michael Jackson's posthumously
released Xscape; it was the Black Keys' first number-one album in the United States. Likewise,
it debuted at number one in Australia to become the group's first record there to top the
album chart. In Canada, the album debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart,
selling 21,000 copies. As of June 29, 2014, Turn Blue has sold 328,000 copies in the United
States. Track listing
All songs written and composed by Dan Auerbach, Patrick Carney, and Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton.
Personnel Charting and certifications
References