The album was written and recorded after Greg Dulli, the band's lead singer and rhythm guitarist, underwent treatment for clinical depression.[2] The Afghan Whigs recorded primarily at Daniel Lanois' Kingsway Studios in New Orleans,[3] with additional recording done at Ocean Way and Larrabee North in Los Angeles, The American Sector in New Orleans, and London Bridge in Seattle.[4] Dulli produced the album and wrote most of its songs.[4] For the cover, a photograph was used showing astronaut Ed White on the first American space walk as part of the Gemini 4 flight which took place in June 1965.[5]
Music and lyrics
The album incorporates jazz,[6]R&B, and soul music influences in its mainly rock sound.[7] The lyrics feature erotic narratives and paeans to sexuality.[8][9] Music journalist David Stubbs writes that the album's subject matter "reconciles lust for women with respect for women", abandoning the "ironic self-loathing" of the band's 1993 album Gentlemen (1993) and the "down in the dumps" lyrics of Black Love (1996).[9]
Reviewing for the Los Angeles Times in November 1998, Marc Weingarten regarded songs like "Somethin' Hot" and "Neglekted" as "the ugliest sort of come-ons, full of innuendo and whispered imprecations", but concluded that "Dulli's velvety vocals and the band's sharp, punchy melodies win you over every time."[13]Entertainment Weekly reviewer Matt Diehl called Dulli "one of rock’s finest lyricists: His noir vignettes read like a Jim Thompson novel, their erotic narratives expertly skewering the male psyche."[8] Stubbs, in NME, hailed 1965 as "a triumph against the grain of post-grunge",[9] while Jason Ankeny of AllMusic called it "the gritty soul record just always out of The Afghan Whigs' reach—seamlessly integrating the R&B aspirations which have textured the band's sound since the beginning".[10]
Some reviewers were less receptive. Robert Christgau assigned 1965 a "neither" () grade in Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s (2000), indicating an album that "may impress once or twice with consistent craft or an arresting track or two. Then it won't."[17] In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Joe Gross considered the album's upbeat tone and healthier thoughts on sexual relationships to be "a mild letdown from the previous trilogy's relentlessness".[2]
Track listing
All tracks written by Greg Dulli except where noted.[4]
