100 Greatest Songs of the 00’s #88 Cage The Elephant – In One Ear

Released: 2008

Since the 1960’s British groups have stood accused of appropriating American ones, a list of perpetrators that runs from Mick to Bobby to beyond with impersonation ever the sincerest form of flattery.

That this caricaturing has at times been so successful means when the reverse happens it feels inevitable rather than ridiculous. The mid-00’s saw the coming of would-be impostors like The Vines and The Datsuns, but Cage The Elephant did eveything better than most.

Centered around the Shultz brothers Matt and Brad, the Kentuckians were wrong side of the tracks kids who saw making music as a way to not become self fulfilling prophecy. Their brand of southern fried rock and blues was however served up in a tougher skin than before, one cooked up for a younger generation of older music lovers.

By the time their eponymous debut album was released the band – including a 16 year old Lincoln Parish, who had to be legally transferred into their custody – were living in East London and In One Ear was making them famous. Shultz had the look of Brian Jones and sang like he’d been dousing his vocal chords in rye and his brain with microdots. The track was the sort of fuck you to the haters most bands never earn the right to make, a squall of swagger and defiance. Pretending was never an option.