No One Knows
| "No One Knows" | |||||||||
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| Single by Queens of the Stone Age | |||||||||
| from the album Songs for the Deaf | |||||||||
| B-side | "Tension Head" (Live) (7") | ||||||||
| Released | November 26, 2002 | ||||||||
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| Recorded | 2001 | ||||||||
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| Length | 4:38 (Album version) 4:13 (Radio edit) |
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| Label | Interscope | ||||||||
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| Queens of the Stone Age singles chronology | |||||||||
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"No One Knows" is a song by American rock band Queens of the Stone Age written by band members Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan. It was the first single and second track from their third album, Songs for the Deaf, and was released on November 26, 2002. "No One Knows" was a chart success, becoming the band's only single to top the US Modern Rock charts. The song was also critically acclaimed, receiving a nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 2003 Grammy Awards.
According to Homme, "No One Knows" existed before the recording sessions for Songs for the Deaf:
We have patience with music, a year or five years down the road it may kind of rewrite itself and become what it's supposed to be. There's two songs on this record that are over five years old, you know? 'God is the Radio' and 'No One Knows'.
Recording for Songs for the Deaf began in March 2002 at three studios across California. Though the liner notes credit Homme and Eric Valentine with producing the majority of the album – including "No One Knows" – Homme credits Valentine with merely recording the beginning of the album for contractual reasons.
The critical response to "No One Knows" was generally positive. In The Guardian review of Songs for the Deaf, Dave Simpson said "'No One Knows' has killer riffs to spare".Playlouder were similarly enthused, calling the song "soulful, like the last gasp of the hero in an old western". Eric Carr of Pitchfork Media called it an "easy groove" and "four-to-the-floor slime of the highest quality".
"No One Knows" was awarded the number one position on Australian national radio station Triple J's annual Hottest 100 2002, with four other Queens of the Stone Age tracks also charting. The March 2005 edition of Q magazine placed it at number 70 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks, saying of the song, "Possibly the only full-on, legs akimbo guitar great to be based around a rhythm that goes oompah-oompah, here Josh Homme joined the ranks of the immortal." In September 2006, it was placed at number 13 on NME's list of the 50 Greatest Tracks Of The Decade.Rolling Stone placed "No One Knows" at number 97 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time, saying of the track, "QOTSA guitarist and overall mastermind Josh Homme found the sweet spot between hooky hard rock and the pulverizing metal he'd grown up playing." The song was listed at number eleven on the 2002 Pazz & Jop list, a survey of several hundred music critics conducted by Robert Christgau.
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Wikipedia