CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Review of Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere

Saturday, November 11, 2006

this entry brought to you by system of a down, "b.y.o.b."





I was on Yahoo! Music looking for the excellent video for "Crazy", Gnarl's Barkley's genius first single, a soaring, soul-freeing hip-hop song that, like the best blues songs, is about painful memories put together in such a way, with its thick, maple-syrup bass line, that the end result makes the listener feel uplifted. I found it under the top 10 videos-- under the "rock music" category. This wasn't the first time I'd seen it qualified as such, either. What amused me about this is that Gnarls Barkley, although unconventional, is definitely hip-hop. Cee-Lo Green, the Al Green admiring soul singer, used to rap for Goodie Mobb, and Danger Mouse, Barkley's beat-maker, got famous for mixing the Beatles with Jay-Z of all people, with shockingly delicious results (and, consequently putting the term "mash-up" in the modern hipster's lexicon). St. Elsewhere is ostensibly hip-hop, with old-school-meets-new-school beats punctuated by jazzy samples.

Yet, with its themes, as Cee-Lo puts it, of emotional freedom, it is obvious why Gnarls Barkley would be so embraced by rock radio. With nary any bravado, parts of St. Elsewhere find Cee-Lo soul searching, spilling his half-thoughts on his darkest memories as if on a therapists' couch ("I've tried everything but suicide/ but it's crossed my mind", he admits on "Just a Thought"), and elsewhere, he notes that he could ramble on and on about his problems ("Who Cares?"); but then, with a grinning sense of humility he disregards his mind wandering into darker places, assuring listeners "--But I'm fine!", and later asking who in the world would care about his mental instabilities.

The sense of wanting to tap into his mind but never letting that get in the way of having a good time seems to be the main theme of the album-- even at its darkest moments the beats are still snappy and head-bopping, and thoughtful songs are immediately replaced with a just-for-fun Screamin' Jay Hawkins homage ("The Boogie Monster") or a giddy cover of the Violent Femmes ("Gone Daddy Gone"). In fact, the opening track, the awesomely titled "Go-Go Gadget Gospel", finds Cee-Lo in his best Sunday Service mode, shouting "I'm freeeeee! Look at me!" as if compelling the members of the Church of Cee-Lo to boogie in the pews, clapping their hands in praise of the Lord. It seems to be a good metaphor for the album as a whole. This isn't a block party like on other hip-hop albums, but a celebration of life-- it's got its confessionals, but St. Elsewhere is mostly about putting on a smiling face (as the feel-good bounce of "Smiley Faces" recommends), and having a good time for the sake of feeling alive. If you think about the smiling, head-bopping, boogie-down rock n' rollers of decades ago, it starts to make a little sense how rock stations have embraced Gnarls Barkley-- it's just as influenced by feel-good hip-pop like latter day Outkast as it is British-invasion era teeny bopper rock music, all hips swinging, heads thrown from side to side. In a way, Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse's collaboration comes across as the ultimate mash-up, yet without anything directly stolen from any one source. Gnarls works on rock radio because it's got rock music in its DNA, even if it's not immediately recognizable, and it mixes it, reinvigorates it with hip-hop that it makes some of the most refreshing, original pop music heard in years.
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on this day last year why do we think eating boogers isn't sanitary? really, what's so damn bad about it?
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with love from CRS @ 5:11 PM 

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