One of my pet projects is keeping track of which major multi-platinum recording artists have withheld their catalog from subscription streaming services and how long it takes them to cave and put their albums on Spotify and Apple. Over the last few years, a lot of dominoes have fallen: AC/DC, then The Beatles, then Def Leppard, then Peter Gabriel, then Bob Seger. And this summer, two bands from different generations that are known for dense albums full of long, technically accomplished songs, King Crimson and Tool. Tool are releasing their 5th album at the end of August, and recently brought their previous albums and platinum-selling early EP to streaming services for the first time (like Chance The Rapper more recently, Tool is probably wise to give everyone a reason to revisit their old music for a few weeks before a new album comes out). All four albums re-entered the top 20 of the Billboard 200, and I'm not even sure who's left anymore that could make as big a splash doing that now.

Tool deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Jimmy
2. The Grudge
3. Lipan Conjuring
4. Intolerance
5. Pushit
6. Opiate / The Gaping Lotus Experience
7. Eon Blue Apocalypse
8. Bottom
9. Eulogy
10. The Patient
11. Wings For Marie (Pt. 1)
12. 10,000 Days (Wings Pt. 2)

Track 6 from the Opiate EP (1992)
Tracks 4 and 8 from Undertow (1993)
Tracks 1, 5 and 9 from Ænima (1996)
Tracks 2, 7 and 10 from Lateralus (2001)
Tracks 3, 11 and 12 from 10,000 Days (2006)

I'll never forget the first time I heard Maynard James Keenan's voice: squealing "not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!" in Green Jelly's novelty video hit "Three Little Pigs." But soon after that, Keenan's own band's much darker stop motion video for "Sober" also entered MTV rotation, a song that still holds up as an utterly unique and indelible breakthrough hit. As a kid who watched too much MTV in the '90s, I think of Tool as one of a handful of bands who were played regularly on both 120 Minutes and Headbanger's Ball, who straddled that dividing line between alternative rock and metal that would never be so narrow as it was around 1993.

On Tool's first EP and first album, the band was mostly writing verse/chorus songs that ran 5 minutes or so. But starting with Ænima, their songs got longer and more structurally complex, while the band continued to get more popular and build a more diehard audience. And that's something I've always respected about Tool, that they could get as dark and proggy and weird as they want and people were willing to follow them there. Nearly every single they've released since 1996 has been at least 6 minutes long (even the one that was shortened for radio, "Lateralus," was cut down from 9:24 to 5:47). And the 10-minute title track to their upcoming album Fear Inoculum just became the longest song to ever appear on the Hot 100.

I've never been the biggest Tool fan -- I still kind of think the first songs I heard, "Sober" and "Prison Sex," are still my favorites, and I'm partial to the Undertow deep cut "Bottom" that features a guest vocal by Henry Rollins. As a drummer I tend to really enjoy hearing complex rhythms and non-standard time signatures, and occasionally Tool does those really exhilaratingly, but sometimes it feels like an endurance trial to get through the dense weird groove and break through to the big satisfying 4/4 choruses. Tool's mostly dark, somber albums are occasionally offset by some really puerile, silly comedic elements, but I've never particularly shared their sense of humor and tended to avoid that stuff, other than "The Gaping Lotus Experience," the hidden track that appears after a brief silence after the end of Opiate's title track. That said, they grew on me quite a bit more than they had before while I was revisiting the albums on Spotify and making this playlist.

Since I limit these deep cuts playlists to 80 minutes, that means fewer tracks for bands with longer songs. And this playlist ties my Yes deep cuts playlist for the fewest tracks I've ever fit into that space, even moreso because 2 of the 12 tracks here, "Lipan Conjuring" and "Eon Blue Apocalypse," are just a couple of the many 1-minute interstitial tracks that appear on Tool's albums. Most of the tracks I used range from 7 to 11 minutes, and that was even just focusing on fan favorites and live staples without being able to fit some of them, like the 13-minute "Third Eye." There's something about the length of Tool's records that feels like it's seeped into their long hiatuses between records as well. It's believed that the title of 10,000 Days is a reference to Maynard James Keenan's mother and the length of time that she spent paralyzed before she passed away (10,000 days equal about 27 years). When Tool releases Fear Inoculum later this month, it will have been 4,869 days since their last album.

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes
Vol. 66: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf
Vol. 81: AC/DC
Vol. 82: Bruce Springsteen
Vol. 83: Pearl Jam
Vol. 84: Green Day
Vol. 85: George Michael and Wham!
Vol. 86: New Edition
Vol. 87: Chuck Berry
Vol. 88: Electric Light Orchestra
Vol. 89: Chic
Vol. 90: Journey
Vol. 91: Yes
Vol. 92: Soundgarden
Vol. 93: The Allman Brothers Band
Vol. 94: Mobb Deep
Vol. 95: Linkin Park
Vol. 96: Shania Twain
Vol. 97: Squeeze
Vol. 98: Taylor Swift
Vol. 99: INXS
Vol. 100: Stevie Wonder
Vol. 101: The Cranberries
Vol. 102: Def Leppard
Vol. 103: Bon Jovi
Vol. 104: Dire Straits
Vol. 105: The Police
Vol. 106: Sloan
Vol. 107: Peter Gabriel
Vol. 108: Led Zeppelin
Vol. 109: Dave Matthews Band
Vol. 110: Nine Inch Nails
Vol. 111: Talking Heads
Vol. 112: Smashing Pumpkins
Vol. 113: System Of A Down
Vol. 114: Aretha Franklin
Vol. 115: Michael Jackson
Vol. 116: Alice In Chains
Vol. 117: Paul Simon
Vol. 118: Lil Wayne
Vol. 119: Nirvana
Vol. 120: Kix
Vol. 121: Phil Collins
Vol. 122: Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Vol. 123: Sonic Youth
Vol. 124: Bob Seger
Vol. 125: Radiohead
Vol. 126: Eric Church
Vol. 127: Neil Young
Vol. 128: Future
Vol. 129: Say Anything
Vol. 130: Maroon 5
Vol. 131: Kiss
Vol. 132: Dinosaur Jr.
Vol. 133: Stevie Nicks
Vol. 134: Talk Talk
Vol. 135: Ariana Grande
Vol. 136: Roxy Music
Vol. 137: The Cure
Vol. 138: 2 Chainz
Vol. 139: Kelis
Vol. 140: Ben Folds Five
Vol. 141: DJ Khaled
Vol. 142: Little Feat
Vol. 143: Brendan Benson
Vol. 144: Chance The Rapper
Vol. 145: Miguel
Vol. 146: The Geto Boys
Vol. 147: Meek Mill

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 11:50 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.