2-fo’-1 Geeky Music Review: Gnarls Barkley vs. Outkast
CD Review: Idlewild vs. St. Elsewhere
In a genre that’s floundering at best, the young newcomers and the proven vets are usually easy to distinguish. The vets usually know better than to stray from consistency, while the runny-nosed youngsters come in hot and bothered only connecting with a hit on rare occasions. Maybe that’s not a fair assumption anymore.
It used to be that ‘Dre 3000 and Big Boi of Outkast were the ones pushing the envelope. Although the changes from each album were markedly different, they knew just when to play the familiarity card and keep their listeners comfortable. Both Stankonia and, more notably, Speakerboxx/The Love Below made everyone’s life better. No matter how played out, “Hey Ya”, “I Like The Way You Move”, “Ms. Jackson”, and even “So Fresh, So Clean”, resonated in some pleasure center in us all that needed mindless, catchy dance music.
Given that history, their new Film/Double Disc Idelwild seems disingenuous from the start. There’s only one thing that could get us to fall for this double pop culture consumer tax: The music ACTUALLY could be good! We can breathe a collective money-saving sigh of relief. The music is awful. Boi’s contributions are mostly to blame. Where before, he held 3000’s wild musical tangents in check, it’s clear now he’s just holding Andre back. Doing his best Prince-with-less-Guitar impersonation, Big pours on the syrupy sludge. Any DJ playing this record would be wise to look under the turntable and see if it’s sticking. ThreeThouz’ provides the only redeeming qualities here with the soulful “Idlewild Blue”, synth-laced “Life Is Like A Musical”, and he even makes Macy Gray palatable in “Greatest Show on Earth”.
Flip side, you find Gnarls Barkley buddies Cee Lo and Danger Mouse. Where seemingly “Crazy”, their first single, is on a loop in every Top 25 station’s queue, you look deeper into St. Elsewhere and you find it chock full of interesting tracks that aren’t on every teenage girl’s iPod. The bombastic harmonizing “Transformer”, dubbed out “Who Cares?”, and genre-hopping Violent Femmes cover “Gone Daddy Gone” gives you every reason to believe that when the novelty wears off, Cee & Danger will be the music geek’s favorite bouncy staple. Gnarls are theee only act right now, styles aside, gaining as much mainstream adoration as they are underground allegiance.
If there’s to be a future in hip-hop, it’s plain to see Cee & Danger are it. They are ripping the individuality torch right out of Outkast’s hands with an unparalleled candor.
Check out Gnarls Barkley on 
Download OutKast's Idlewild also on
