St. Elsewhere

Gnarls Barkley: Danger Mouse, Cee-Lo.Personnel: Doctor President (guitar, organ); Eddie Reyes (acoustic guitar); Chris Tedesco (trumpet); Daniele Luppi (bass synthesizer, mini-Moog synthesizer); Eric Bobo (drums); Tomika Walden, Menta Malone (background vocals).Audio Mixer: Danger Mouse.Recording information: 2003-2005.Illustrator: Kam Tang.Arrangers: David Costa; Daniele Luppi; Stephen Brown ; Barry Clarke; Celia Humphris.Gnarls Barkley--a collaboration between hip-hop/soul crooner and Goodie Mob founder Cee-Lo and DJ/mash-up kingpin Danger Mouse--sounds like it came from another planet; or what inhabitants of another planet might make of the elemental sounds of 21st-century pop music. Classically soulful R&B vocals, smart hip-hop/electronica beats and samples, and infectious hit-making melodies all serve to make the basic musical template familiar enough, but even a passing listen to the first single, "Crazy" (an Al Green-meets-Outkast groover that was a pre-release smash in the U.K. via downloads alone), illustrates that these fellas are definitely traveling some alternate spaceways.But if the warped summer jam "Who Cares" or the unsettling big-beat-cum-folkly suicide dirge "Just A Thought" isn't proof enough of the duo's extra-terrestrial originality, then check out the frenetic, almost sleazy, bubblegum-electro take on the Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone." (Um...say what?) Like the entire album itself, it's a bizarre, unexpectedly brilliant reconfiguration of what was once simply called pop music. Who knows what to call it now?Gnarls Barkley--a collaboration between hip-hop/soul crooner and Goodie Mob founder Cee-Lo and DJ/mash-up kingpin Danger Mouse--sounds like it came from another planet, or what inhabitants of another planet might make of the elemental sounds of 21st-century pop music. Classically soulful R&B vocals, smart hip-hop/electronica beats and samples, and infectious hit-making melodies all serve to make the basic musical template familiar enough, but even a passing listen to the first single, "Crazy" (an Al Green-meets-Outkast groover that was a pre-release smash in the U.K. via downloads alone), illustrates that these fellas are definitely traveling some alternate spaceways.But if the warped summer jam "Who Cares" or the unsettling big-beat-cum-folkly suicide dirge "Just A Thought" isn't proof enough of the duo's extraterrestrial originality, then check out the frenetic, almost sleazy, bubblegum-electro take on the Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone." (Um...say what?) Like the entire album itself, it's a bizarre, unexpectedly brilliant reconfiguration of what was once simply called pop music. Who knows what to call it now?

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