Catching Up With The Black Keys
b'It is so hard to have a hit record these days\\u2026hell, with all the music out there it\\u2019s nearly impossible to attract any kind of attention\\u2026all the noise and distractions and competition\\u2026\\n\\nIf you\\u2019re a new band with a debut record, you\\u2019ve got anywhere from six to thirteen weeks to make an impression once that first single comes out\\u2026.if you fail to achieve significant traction with radio and retail and with fans during that short window, you\\u2019re in trouble\\u2026and if your record label doesn\\u2019t make it happen for you with the second single\\u2014well, I hope you didn\\u2019t quit your day job\\u2026\\n\\nIt wasn\\u2019t always like this\\u2026back in the day when music was harder to come by, a record label could afford to wait for a band to develop and mature through two, three, four, five albums\\u2026\\n\\nLook at U2\\u2026they stumbled through their first two records before settling down with \\u201cWar\\u201d\\u2026\\n\\nLook at the Red Hot Chili Peppers\\u2026warner brothers let them discover themselves through three albums before they could deliver the a little breakthrough with \\u201cMother\\u2019s Milk\\u201d and then the big breakthrough with \\u201cBlood Sugar Sex Magick\\u201d\\u2026\\n\\nAnd look at REM\\u2026they released five indie records, each better than the last, before they were signed to a big major record label deal\\u2026that was hard\\u2026they were on a treadmill of recording and touring and recording and touring with little downtime\\u2026but they wanted it bad, so they did what they had to\\u2026it\\u2019s a long way to the top if you wanna rock\\u2019n\\u2019roll, y\\u2019know?...\\n\\nYou can say the same of the Black Keys\\u2026a lot of people might think that these guys have what, three records in their catalogue\\u2026nope\\u2026\\n\\nThey have eight full albums, two eps, one live album and close to two dozen singles\\u2026and unless you\\u2019re a longtime or hardcore fan, you may not know about some of the stuff they\\u2019ve done\\u2026\\n\\n\\xa0Let\\u2019s fix that for all the latecomers\\u2026this is catching up with the Black Keys\\u2026\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'