Rated R

Rated R (also known as 'R' or 'Restricted') is Queens of the Stone Age's 2nd studio album, released June 6, 2000. Its singles are Feel Good Hit Of The Summer, Lost Art of Keeping a Secret and Monsters in the Parasol.

Development
After touring for the debut album, Queens of the Stone Age, the band started working on the second album. It was initially called Queens of the Stone Age II and a lot of the lyrics contained drug references (especially Feel Good Hit of the Summer). Avoiding the "Parental Advisory" sticker on the cover, Nick Oliveri came up with the idea of redesigning the cover and calling it after the MPAA rating system: Rated R - Restricted to Everyone, Everywhere, All the Time.

Fun Facts
A few songs were remakes. Monsters in the Parasol was originally called Monster in the Parasol, and was in Desert Sessions' Volume 3 and 4, and Tension Head is a remake from Mondo Generator's '13th Floor', off their debut album, Cocaine Rodeo.

Quick and to the Pointless had the drums, guitars, bass and vocals recorded on only one take, as a performance. The vocal's were inteded to be scratch vocals, but the band liked Oliveri's take so much they just left it as recorded. There are two lines in Dutch on the lyrics: "Het leven is hard / de mensen worden bang".

Josh Homme's favourite song off the album is I Think I Lost My Headache. He says it's about "Paranoia... when you think something strange is going on, and everyone around you is so adamant about telling you it's fine... but then you start thinking 'Wouldn't that be exactly what you say if you didn't want me to know, and there is something going on?' And so it's kind of about that paranoid mentality which maybe I have sometimes."

Rated R contains the first appearance of Mark Lanegan on QOTSA. He sings lead vocals for In Th

e Fade and backings for Auto Pilot, Leg of Lamb, and I Think I Lost My Headache.

Lightning Song is the only song to enter a QOTSA album that hasn't been written by Josh Hom



me or Nick Oliveri. It's a cover from Dave Catching's band, earthlings?

Reissue (Rated X)
On 2010, a anniversary reissue for Rated R was released. The reissue is called Rated R Deluxe Edition, Rx or just Rated X. The reissue included 2 CDs, the second one with live versions of tracks off Songs for the Deaf and the Self-Titled album and the b-sides for that era.'''

Tracklisting
No.         Title                                                           Lead Vocals             Length

Singles
Feel Good Hit of the Summer: released November 27, 2000.

Lost Art of Keeping a Secret: released August 16, 2000.

Monsters in the Parasol.

Never Say Never (promo).