In December 2010, SPIN magazine very cleverly voted The Black Keys their Artist of the Year and it was in that interview (probably one of the best interviews I’ve read in a while) that I only really appreciated them for the first time.

The reception they garnered from their last album ‘Brothers’ – that was on almost every list of Top Albums of 2010 – was insane and also earned them 2 much-deserved Grammy Awards at the beginning of this year.

Below is one of my favourite quotes from the drummer, Patrick Carney, that details when he knew shit had taken off.

“The thing that really made me realize things were different [in 2010] was at Lollapalooza,” Carney recalls. “There were, like, 50,000 people watching us, and I went into this weird panic mode that lasted through the middle of September. I melted down onstage. I didn’t fuck up or play poorly, but the whole time I felt like I was going to pass out. For six weeks after, I stopped picking up my phone and had this really weird stage fright every time we played.”

And I don’t blame him. Check out the photo of the crowd they attracted at Lollapalooza below.

Yoh

Their first single, ‘Lonely Boy’ off their soon-to-be-released album, is fabulous. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve jammed it in the last 24 hours. The entire video below is basically this dude dancing. And it’s fabulous. And I really hope this guy was some random they asked to do this because really, it’ll just make things that much sweeter.

Their new album, ‘El Camino’ (which translates from Spanish as ‘The Way’) hits shelves on 6 December, which means it’ll only get here a week or so later unless you pre-order it, which I’d suggest you do.