The Black Keys Dropout Boogie LP

Rated One of the Best Rock Albums of 2022 by The Absolute Sound!

As they've done their entire career, The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney wrote all of the material for their 2022 album, Dropout Boogie, in the studio, and the album captures a number of first takes that hark back to the stripped-down blues rock of their early days making music together in Akron, Ohio, basements.

"That's always been the beauty of the thing Pat and I do. It's instant," Auerbach says. "We've never really had to work at it. Whenever we'd get together, we'd just make music, you know? We didn't know what we were going to do, but we'd just do it and it would sound cool. It's the natural chemistry Pat and I have. Being in a band this long is a testament to that. It was a real gift that we were given. I mean, the odds of being plopped down a block-and-a-half from each other in Akron, Ohio - it just seems crazy."

After hashing out initial ideas at Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville, the duo welcomed new collaborators Billy F. Gibbons (ZZ Top), Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound) and Angelo Petraglia (Kings Of Leon) to the sessions, marking the first time they've invited multiple new contributors to work simultaneously on one of their own albums.

The Black Keys have been called "rock royalty" by the Associated Press. Cutting their teeth playing small clubs, the band has gone on to sell out arena tours and has released 10 previous studio albums: the debut The Big Come Up (2002), followed by Thickfreakness (2003) and Rubber Factory (2004), along with their releases on Nonesuch Records, Magic Potion (2006), Attack & Release (2008), Brothers (2010), El Camino (2011), Turn Blue (2014), "Let's Rock" (2019), and Delta Kream (2021). The band has won six Grammy Awards and a BRIT.

...Dropout Boogie feels open and lively in a way the Black Keys haven't in a while.