The band was sporadically active throughout the years, and has released two albums The Good, the Bad & the Queen in 2007 and Merrie Land in 2018, before disbanding in 2019, with Allen passing away in 2020 ruling out the possibility of a third album.
Discography
- The Good, the Bad & the Queen (2007)
- Merrie Land (2018)
The Good, the Bad & the Queen provide examples of:
- Concept Album: The self-titled album tackles the lives of the population of London in the present day, and Merrie Land revolves around Britain's reflection and uncertainty after Brexit.
- Epic Rocking / Longest Song Goes Last: The Title Track for The Good, the Bad & the Queen, clocking in at seven minutes.
- Ethereal Choir: The ending of "Lady Boston", courtesy of the Côr y Penrhyn Choir.
- Genre Mashup: Their sound combines elements of rock, folk, Afrobeat, reggae, psychedelia, and world music.
- Miniscule Rocking: The 13-second introduction track from Merrie Land, titled...well, "Introduction".
- No Name Given: An unusual example with the group. In interviews, the band members said that "The Good, the Bad & the Queen" was the name of their first album and the band was nameless, with the credits given to the individual members. The name was kind of adopted later on by the time they started promoting Merrie Land, feeling so they didn't need to start it from scratch.
- Record Producer: Danger Mouse for their self-titled and Tony Visconti for Merrie Land.
- Shout-Out: Firstly, we can cross out the fact that the band name is a nod to the 1966 Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
- "Kingdom of Doom" from the self-titled album references William Blake's poem "London" through the line "You'll be falling off the palace wall". "The Poison Tree" from Merrie Land also references another William Blake poem, this time, by the title of the same name.
- "Herculean"'s opening lines references The Pogues' "Dirty Old Town".
- "The Bunting Song" gives a small nod to Where the Wild Things Are.
- Merrie Land's cover art is a photo of Michael Redgrave's character from the "The Ventriloquist's Dummy" segment in 1945's Anthology Film Dead of Night.
- "Drifters and "Trawlers" end with an excerpt from Floyd on Hangovers by the British celebrity cook Keith Floyd.
- "The Truce of Twilight" namedrops the singer-songwriter Demis Roussos and his song "Forever".
- Merrie Land's introduction track contains a dialogue sample from the 1944 film A Canterbury Tale.
- The Something Song: "History Song" and "The Bunting Song".
- Spiritual Antithesis: A few critics were quick to compare the self-titled debut to Albarn’s earlier project, Blur's Parklife, due to both albums being a reflection of living in "modern day" London. Whereas Parklife took a more sardonic approach, with lyrics portraying the common daily lives of the British middle class in The '90s accompanied with brighter pop melodies that reflect the tone of that decade's popular music, The Good, the Bad & the Queen is more direct, with melancholic and dour songs with lyrics depicting the common British citizen trying to live amidst a social climate engulfed by fear and tension, a recurrent landscape felt by the Turn of the Millennium.
- Studio Chatter: On the last forty seconds of "The Good, the Bad & the Queen"’s title track, a snippet outtake of its recording plays after the song has properly ended.
- Title Track: Both The Good, the Bad & the Queen and Merrie Land have one.
- Token Minority: Tony Allen.
- Viewers Are Geniuses: Albarn's lyrics in both albums contain a lot of historical and cultural references of the United Kingdom.
