In 2006, Danger Mouse is King Midas of the music world. He has an uncanny knack for creating jagged, dense, frenzied beats and odd, eerie, vivid soundscapes that never compromise the music's natural flow. Meanwhile, rapper and singer Cee-Lo, a veteran of Atlanta's Dirty South scene, has never been one to be constrained by hip-hop conventions, and is a willing partner in adventure. The result is an intrepid psychedelic blend of pop, hip-hop, soul, and rock that consistently challenges and delights. It's no wonder that "Crazy," with its modest riff, irresistible hook, and disarming opening line ("I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind") became a worldwide Internet sensation a full six months before the official release of St. Elsewhere. But that relatively simple soul-pop gem is the tamest track on this wide-ranging, often dark and introspective collaboration. (In fact, the duo considers Gnarls Barkley to be a wholly new creation, as opposed to a collaboration of existing artists.) "Everybody is somebody, but nobody wants to be themselves," Cee-Lo croons on "Who Cares?" He and Danger Mouse try very hard not to be their old selves as they creatively and confidently break down boundaries, but the brilliant cores of their musical personae--Cee-Lo's eccentric spiritual soul man and Danger's bold sonic explorer--remain. --Marc Greilsamer
Review by John Bush
Who is Gnarls Barkley, and how did he ascend to the top of the British charts with a song that brings an eerie clarity to the cloud of mental illness? (Hint: It wasn't just the fact that Britain began factoring download data into its chart equations.) If St. Elsewhere sounds like one of the best rap-based pop productions since the second Gorillaz album, then look no further than the common link, producer Danger Mouse. And if the vocal performances are twisted with the type of unbalanced wisdom not seen in pop music since Sly Stone (or at least OutKast), credit Cee-Lo Green, the former Goodie Mob seer/sage/freak. A pop album straight through, St. Elsewhere is as good as Danger Mouse's two earlier landmarks (Gorillaz's Demon Days and Danger Doom's The Mouse and the Mask), but not because of any inherent similarities in the three records. The reasons for greatness here include DM's uncommon facility for writing (or sampling) simple hooks that stick, his creation of productions that entertain but don't detract from the main action, and his ability to coax a parade of enticing vocal performances from Green. The hit "Crazy" and the title track are perfect examples. Over detached backings, Green croons, growls, scats, and generally delivers a fine neo-soul vocal while Danger Mouse blankets the tracks with choruses of disembodied harmonies and a well-placed string section or crackling organ to conjure an appropriately minor chord atmosphere. The focus on instability doesn't end there -- paranoia, suicidal tendencies, and multiple personalities are all in the cards, and there's also "Necromancer": "She was cool when I met her, but I think I like her better dead." Then, just to make sure listeners understand this is a concept album and not a message from a mind playing tricks on itself, they drop "The Boogie Monster" (although even the lyrics here can give pause: "I used to wonder why he looked familiar, and then I realized it was a mirror"). With the help of Danger Mouse's platinum ear and intricate vocal productions, Green is revealed as a top-notch post-millennial soul singer; even when he's floating another mass of wise, serene gibberish, DM simply drops another production trick to keep things tight. Much like DJ Shadow's Private Press, Danger Mouse relies on samples from the downcast end of '60s pop music -- prog, psych, and Italian soundtrack music (his most valuable lieutenant here, Daniele Luppi, has the requisite Italian connection). Although Gnarls Barkley topping the charts was a slight fluke, the excellence of St. Elsewhere could have been seen coming a mile away.
Gnarls Barkley
St. Elsewhere
[Downtown; 2006]
Rating: 7.7
After the sound of a film projector whirring to life and a little hip-hop fanfare, this album starts with "Go Go Gadget Gospel" glee: soul horns kicking, hand-clapping breakbeats with the speed and stutter of jungle, and Cee-Lo Green shouting, "I'm free" like he's up in church. It's the most exciting thing I've heard this year. At the tail end of the disc, there's "The Last Time", where the beat splits the difference between disco-era funk and roller-skating jam, and Cee-Lo sings like he borrowed some time-traveling platform shoes from the Delfonics' closet and wound up on mid-1970s Soul Train. You shouldn't fixate on those details-- I may be exaggerating-- but the main thing about those two tracks are that they sound awfully fresh. Play this when people are over and they'll almost certainly ask the question: "So who is this, anyway?"
I don't mean to spin any big theories on you-- this isn't that kind of record-- but let's stop for a second and notice the context. Now that hip-hop has nearly three decades under its belt, every major genre of American pop music is more or less "mature." You know how rock geeks, after nine or 10 years immersed in the genre, start looking elsewhere for surprises-- hip-hop, dance, bluegrass, anything they haven't already figured out? Well, these days we can read Public Enemy producer Hank Shocklee telling Tape Op that rap is all repetitive big business now, and claiming that alternative rock is where the innovation is-- in other words, sounding not unlike an old rock guy wondering why bands still sound like the Velvet Underground. This kind of uneasiness isn't new, of course, but it's interesting: It seems like there's a big itch out there right now, everyone looking for ways to make the music feel as new and free as it did when they first came across it.
Two guys interested in scratching that itch, hip-hop-wise, are both associates in Atlanta's Dungeon Family. Andre 3000, of Outkast: It might seem like he's just trying to be weird, but the guy has spent the last decade visibly searching for some new way to be-- not just new music, but a whole new model of identity for the black male musician. (Avenues he's tried include futurism, mysticism, Baduism, sincerity, dandified couture, genre-less chart hits, and close study of Aphex Twin.) The same goes for Cee-Lo, one half of the Gnarls Barkley duo-- a Goodie Mob rapper turned funk freak and soul-shouting faux preacherman.
Who does Gnarls Barkley pair him with, the two of them dressed up like Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange droogs, or Wayne and Garth? DJ Danger Mouse, a guy known by undie-rap geeks for his own beats but read-about-in-Entertainment Weekly for mashing up Jay-Z and the Beatles. The two of them: They're trying something new here, you know. Even the lyrical themes of this album-- madness, depression, monsters, visionaries, being yourself-- seem like conscious attempts to be arty. And that's before you get to the tossed-off Violent Femmes cover. Which is only track four.
Don't get me wrong: This is not some grand genre-busting mission statement. For the most part, it sounds like two guys playing around and having fun, sometimes more fun than the listener. DM's production aesthetic-- "if it's enjoyable for more than 2 minutes and 10 seconds, then that's the song to me"-- means the beats come out like candies in a box, a line of little treats and mini-ideas. (Pick some samples, make them bump a little, move on.) Cee-Lo sounds like he's writing in the vocal booth, just hopping in and singing his takes until something good develops. But as scattershot and weirdly limp as parts of this are-- two guys just knocking things together, seeing what happens-- well, it feels better to hear someone trying.
And the treats are real treats. The single, "Crazy", has been found atop UK charts (and on U.S. television dramas), for all the same reasons that Outkast's "Hey Ya" hit big-- it's a big, brash pop song that sounds retro and modern at the same time. "Transformer" is a tweaked-out jumble with the pace and clatter of English grime, plus flutes. There's traditional r&b bump, "cinematic" darkness for the monster stories, DM's dusty-sample boom-bap. "Just a Thought" has Cee-Lo experiencing crisis over classical guitar and bursts of overdriven drums: "I've tried/ Everything but suicide/ And it's crossed my mind/ But I'm fine."
Imagine: Two guys fooling around with whatever sticks, musically, and yet here's Cee-Lo, sounding as convincing as possible in his best reverend soul-voice, writing serious and sincere about life. It's a joy, and in this context, where unselfconscious freshness can feel strangely hard to come by, it'll charm the hell out of a whole lot of people-- whether or not it'll really stand up to more than a season's listening.
-Nitsuh Abebe, May 8, 2006
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