Josh Homme is a big guy with a very specific, very strange sense of timing. If you’ve ever tried to play along to "The Way You Used To Do," you probably realized within about twenty seconds that your internal clock is lying to you. It’s a swing. It’s a shuffle. It’s also a jagged, robotic piece of dance-rock that sounds like it was recorded in a garage that happens to be on fire. When Queens of the Stone Age dropped this as the lead single for Villains back in 2017, the fanbase basically split in half. Half of them wanted the sludge of Songs for the Deaf, and the other half were ready to put on dancing shoes.
Mark Ronson produced it. That’s the detail that still makes people do a double-take. The guy who did "Uptown Funk" working with the guy who wrote "Feel Good Hit of the Summer." It sounds like a disaster on paper. In reality, The Way You Used To Do is a masterclass in how to strip a rock band down to its skeletal remains and make those bones clatter.
Why the rhythm feels so "off" (on purpose)
The song is built on a clap-heavy, stomping beat that feels more like ZZ Top than Nirvana. But look closer. It’s in 4/4 time, yet it feels like it's tripping over its own feet. That is the "swing" Josh Homme obsesses over. He has famously talked about how rock music lost its "roll." To him, if you can’t dance to it, it’s just noise.
The guitar work is bone-dry. There’s almost no reverb. No delay. It’s just the sound of a pick hitting a string and an amp being pushed to the edge of its life. Most guitarists try to hide behind a wall of sound. Here, there's nowhere to hide. Every mistake is audible. That’s the secret sauce. It’s "the way you used to do" things before digital perfection ruined the vibe. It’s messy. It’s human.
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The Mark Ronson factor
People blamed Ronson for the "thin" sound of the record. They’re kinda right, but they’re also missing the point. Ronson didn’t make them pop; he made them tight. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Homme mentioned that he wanted the album to sound like it was jumping out of the speakers. He wanted it "tight as a snare drum."
If you listen to the track on high-end headphones, you’ll notice the layers. There isn't just one guitar part; there are three or four interlacing lines that create a rhythmic mosaic. It’s not about power chords. It’s about the spaces between the notes. That silence is where the tension lives.
A shift in the QOTSA DNA
Queens has always been a shapeshifting beast. From the desert rock stoner vibes of the self-titled debut to the dark, orchestral depression of ...Like Clockwork, they never stay put. The Way You Used To Do represents the band's "party" phase, even if the party is happening in a haunted ballroom.
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- The lyrics are actually quite romantic, which is weird for Homme. He wrote it about his then-wife, Brody Dalle. It’s a song about a long-term connection, about the history two people share.
- The music video is a tribute to Cab Calloway and old-school jazz dance, featuring Josh doing some surprisingly fluid footwork.
- It was recorded at United Recording Studios in Los Angeles, a place where Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles tracked some of their biggest hits. You can hear that history in the room sound.
The gear behind the "clack"
If you’re a gear nerd trying to replicate this sound, good luck. Homme is notoriously secretive about his signal chain. We know he uses his signature Maton guitars, but the actual "honk" of the tone comes from mid-range boost and a very specific type of distortion that sounds more like a failing radio than a Marshall stack.
There's no "fuzz" here in the traditional sense. It’s a "cocked wah" sound—where you park a wah-pedal halfway down to get that nasal, biting frequency. It cuts through a mix like a serrated knife. It’s annoying to some, but to others, it’s the most interesting guitar tone of the last decade.
Honestly, the way most people try to play this song is too heavy. You have to play it light. You have to let it breathe. If you dig in too hard, the swing disappears and it just sounds like a mediocre bar band trying to play blues.
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Facing the backlash
Let's be real: when this came out, a lot of people hated it. They called it "Queens of the Disco Age." They missed the heavy, low-tuned C-standard riffage that defined the early 2000s. But rock music dies when it becomes a museum piece. By leaning into the "Way You Used To Do" style—this frantic, hand-clapping energy—the band stayed relevant.
They didn't want to be a legacy act playing the hits. They wanted to be the band that made you feel uncomfortable on the dance floor. And it worked. The song became a staple of their live sets, usually placed right in the middle to give the audience a break from the crushing heaviness of songs like "Song for the Dead."
How to actually appreciate the track
Stop looking for the "heavy." Start looking for the "groove." If you listen to "The Way You Used To Do" expecting a metal song, you’ll be disappointed. If you listen to it as a descendant of 1950s rock-and-roll filtered through a dystopian desert lens, it clicks.
- Focus on the drums: Jon Theodore is a monster. His precision here is what allows the guitars to be so loose.
- Listen to the lyrics: "Is love mental disease or a cure?" It’s classic Homme—darkly cynical but ultimately devoted.
- Watch the live versions: The song evolves on stage. It gets faster, grittier, and less "polished" than the Ronson-produced studio version.
Actionable Takeaways for Musicians and Fans
If you want to understand the DNA of this track or apply its lessons to your own listening or playing, start here:
- Strip the Reverb: Try listening to or recording music with zero room ambience. It forces the performance to be perfect because there's nothing to blur the edges.
- Study the Shuffle: "The Way You Used To Do" is all about the "triplet" feel. Practice tapping out three beats with your right hand for every two with your left. That’s the "swing" that gives the song its limp.
- Embrace the Mid-Range: Most modern music is "scooped" (lots of bass and treble). This song is all "mids." It’s boxy. It’s weird. It’s why it stands out on the radio.
- Analyze the Structure: Notice how the song doesn't really have a traditional "bridge." It just builds and builds until it collapses.
The brilliance of Queens of the Stone Age isn't that they are the loudest band in the world. It’s that they are the most unpredictable. They took a simple blues shuffle and turned it into a jagged, neon-lit fever dream. Whether you love the "Villains" era or wish they’d go back to the desert, you can't deny that they know how to make an entrance.