The Black Keys - The Big Come Up

Long before the arenas and the Grammys, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney were two friends from Akron, Ohio, with a basement, a pair of microphones bought on eBay and a 16-track recorder. The Big Come Up, released on Alive Records in May 2002, is what came out of those sessions: a debut so raw and immediate it still sounds like it was cut last night.

The sound is stripped to the bone, just Auerbach's fuzzed-out guitar and wounded voice against Carney's pounding drums, steeped in the hill country blues of Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. The duo tear through Burnside's "Busted," Kimbrough's "Do The Rump" and Sleepy John Estes' "Leavin' Trunk," and even bend the Beatles' "She Said, She Said" into a swampy garage stomp. Originals like "I'll Be Your Man," later chosen as the theme song for HBO's Hung, and "Them Eyes" show the songwriting instincts that would take them much further.

The album sold modestly at first but built a devoted cult following, caught the attention of Fat Possum Records and launched one of the great American rock success stories of the century. It remains the purest distillation of the band's punk blues roots.

The vinyl edition from Alive Records features fourteen tracks, including a vinyl-only cover of the Stooges' "No Fun" that does not appear on the CD.