| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| speedy_m |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 07:32:51
First of all, Gnarls Barkley is easily the greatest name for a band, ever. Secondly, this song is just incredible. I've listened to it about 50 times in that last 2 days.
For those wondering, the band is a collaboration between mash-up specialist Danger Mouse (of Grey Album fame) and "Soul Machine" Cee-Lo Green.
and you are ill prepared to fight
living in a world of soft and white
in air conditioned battle zones
I pity you!
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| 24 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Levitated |
Posted - 05/12/2007 : 20:26:56
The first time I saw the video of "Crazy" I thought it was like the perfect Pixies song, the bass line, the voice, even the video! I thought "man, this could be the Pixies", it would've been a tremendous hit, they would've been really back with a great album and selling tons of records. Does that make me crazy? possibly  |
| speedy_m |
Posted - 05/11/2007 : 15:12:40
quote:
Originally posted by Newo
listening to St. Elsewhere right now, tis great. thankee for the recommendation mike!
--
Allen Ginsberg says you got no soul. The ancient Egyptians say you got seven of these bastards, and Pharaohs got fourteen, what they get for being Pharaohs.
For a fun party album, it's repeat value is very high. My latest confection is Peter Bjorn and John. Great album.
maybe I'll kick it
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| shineoftheever |
Posted - 05/11/2007 : 13:46:56
sorry for the derail, st. elsewhere only has about 5 listenable songs. i like the violent femmes cover (gone daddy gone) and does the boogie monster song remind anybody of an episode of the powerpuff girls (i believe the episode was called "boogie frights") i think they got their inspiration from that, just way too similar.
The waxworks were an immensely eloquent dissertation on the wonderful ordinariness of mankind. |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 05/11/2007 : 13:43:46
quote:
Originally posted by Homers_pet_monkey
....., The Organ.....
 I'd walk her everyday, into a shady place
ahhh, a great girl band from vancouver. i've had their album for over a year now and i still play it quite often, for some reason i think of it like a girl version of the smiths. is that just me?
The waxworks were an immensely eloquent dissertation on the wonderful ordinariness of mankind. |
| Newo |
Posted - 05/11/2007 : 09:24:58
listening to St. Elsewhere right now, tis great. thankee for the recommendation mike!
--
Allen Ginsberg says you got no soul. The ancient Egyptians say you got seven of these bastards, and Pharaohs got fourteen, what they get for being Pharaohs. |
| Daisy Girl |
Posted - 07/01/2006 : 11:03:13
I do like the song crazy it has that cool british sort of house beat to it. It makes you want to dance. I not totally "crazy" about crazy though. |
| mr.biscuitdoughhead |
Posted - 07/01/2006 : 10:59:34
Did anyone see Gnarls Barkley at the Mtv awards? He did 'Crazy' which I think is a sweet song, and they were all dressed up like people from Star Wars. It was scary.
 "Join the Cult Of Evil Salad / Or else!!!! Mwah hah hah hah!!!!" |
| Carl |
Posted - 04/30/2006 : 23:28:04
I've never heard them, but I posted some news from NME.com about Gnarls Barkley at Coachella here:
http://forum.frankblack.net/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15352
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1808601,00.html
'We're at war with the system'
Chart phenomenon Gnarls Barkley tell Laura Barton what makes them tick
Friday June 30, 2006
The Guardian
'Gnarls Barkley isn't anything, and yet is everything at the same time' ... Brian Burton aka DJ Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green
"What's that, my soft-spoken angel?" The great hulk of Cee-Lo Green leans forward in his lazy chair. One half of Gnarls Barkley, he is today sitting in the canopied shade backstage at California's Coachella festival, musing on the Wizard of Oz costumes the band will be wearing for their performance. "We have a war-drobe," he says, his voice rattling over the general hubbub of the VIP tent, like a stick run along iron railings: clanking and rusty and shrill. Stationed quietly beside him is the lithe-framed Brian Burton, better known as the DJ Danger Mouse. "I call it a war-drobe," says Green. "Because we're waging war against the industry, against the system."
Gnarls Barkley befuddled many, and certainly battled the system. Their debut single, Crazy, a disturbing yet danceable account of one man's descent into madness, scuttled straight to No 1 and remained there for nine weeks before the duo had it deleted. At the time, no one knew who Gnarls Barkley was - many thought it was one man, and even when Green and Burton stepped into the limelight they did so in superhero costumes, protecting their identity. Green, formerly of the southern rap troupe Goodie Mob, and an overlooked solo artist (he has won a new solo deal in the wake of Crazy), was responsible for writing the Pussycat Dolls' hit Don't Cha. Burton, meanwhile, is celebrated for stitching together the Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album to create The Gray Album. More recently he was drafted in to produce tracks for both Gorillaz and the Rapture's much-anticipated second album. He also works on countless underground hip-hop projects, such as Danger Doom, with the rapper MF Doom, making him the rare artist who appeals to both the experimental music heads and the chart kids.
And Gnarls Barkley? Think of them as a 21st-century re-creation of Sly and the Family Stone, the black and white, male and female band that created psychedelic funk in the late 1960s. Like the Family, Gnarls Barkley will throw anything into their musical stew, from stark funk, to garage rock, to deep soul. And, like the Family, their live performances feature a multitude of black and white musicians of both sexes. But Burton and Green are what fascinates about Gnarls Barkley - both in their stark physical contrasts, and in the disparity between Danger Mouse's draughtsmanlike approach to music, and the swarming, guttural warmth of Green. The success of Gnarls Barkley lies at their intersection.
"It's not like the English to be into something without being able to know who it is," Burton, an anglophile who briefly lived in London, observes of the runaway success of Crazy in the UK charts. Despite the fuss made about Crazy being the first song to reach No 1 on download sales alone, the pair attribute its popularity to something more traditional: radio. "Radio is the gatekeeper between the product and the people," says Green. "All they have to do is hear it, and when it's quality, when it's sincere, it resonates. It's immediate in its instant gratification." Burton, meanwhile, is perplexed: "People in England don't generally relate the song with our faces, do they?"
The Gnarls persona and the attendant costumes might well appear like some kind of Snap, Crackle and Pop gimmick, but they are Green and Burton's attempt to deflect attention away from themselves and towards the music. "Gnarls Barkley isn't anything, and yet is everything at the same time," says Green. "Being Cee-Lo Green or being Danger Mouse is a lot more formal, a lot more personal. Gnarls was able to generalise and involve so many more others than just being ourselves." He says people react to the songs as if they had written them themselves, "and that's better, because we want people to be concentrating on themselves more than us."
While Burton speaks with the sparse precision of nouvelle cuisine, Green's conversation performs almost Dickensian contortions. "With that in mind," he says apropros the Wizard of Oz get-up, "the attention that we draw away even further from ourselves, with the wardrobe, it's actually kind of a grand act of humility." He rolls on. "It's not taking ourselves too seriously, about being optimistic, about being encouraged, and empowered and expressive and progressive. So when people see themselves in Gnarls Barkley it's like a mirror image of their potential, and I think it's just a battle to make the world a better place, to be thinking a lot more optimism and each of those intentions is in double. We could create a beautiful landscape together, but it would take more than these two hands or these four hands or these two feets - because we're walking the walk as well. It's music for the people by the people. We are the people, we're just as flawed as you, we showcase virtue and vice. That's what it is, which in laymen's terms is just human nature. But something is definitely supreme about the music, so don't focus on us. The music is something that passes through us. If you can help clear up some of that confusion and help clear a path, good things can only come from that ... but that's me, philosophically. And we may just be the seed that sparks the tree, that begets the tree, and the tree is the oxygen, and we all have a chance to share the oxygen and share a little shade." He slumps back into his chair. "Take a breath," smiles Burton.
That seems to be the way Gnarls Barkley work: Green waxing lyrical, Burton listening hard, taming his excesses and providing the structure. For each track on their album, St Elsewhere, Burton crafted the music first, and Green worked on top of it "[Danger Mouse's] music has a lot of feeling," says Gabe Andruzzi of the Rapture. "He's very good at capturing a mood - that's what I'm impressed with, and what I identify with, but it's the way he works: he strips things down a lot, simplifies things, he's very smart about the organisation of a song, not in the traditional sense, with a middle eight and whatever, but about the amount of time something has been playing. He's a record nerd and uses samples a lot, so he's really good at finding those special moments."
"I kinda just want people to leave their world and come into mine," says Burton of his own production techniques. "The band has to consciously leave what they're doing and let me be the puppeteer." Was it very different working with Green? "It was very subtly puppeteering," Burton laughs cautiously. "I dictated his way by whatever I gave him, but it was two artists collaborating."
Both Burton and Green hail from Atlanta, though Burton has since re-located to LA. Is Green ever tempted to follow suit? "No," he says, gruffly adamant. "Just the spirit of Atlanta, it's so lived-in. I couldn't really describe it formally, but it is truly everything that I am. Like a melting pot of sorts. Everything comes through Atlanta: soul, rock, jazz, punk, R&B, and of course down-home blues and just southern, southern music. There's even a hospitality applied to the way we do music, like it's very considerate the way we wish to feed and wish to nourish lyrically and musically and make you dance. The south, man. How could I leave it? I wanna be taking it with me." Burton nods to one of Green's many tattoos. "What's that say?" Green looks down: "It says 'Southern pride', right here. I mean it baby, I'm devoted."
Burton, meanwhile, says geography is not so important. "I listen to music all over, wherever I'm at," he says. "I'm no way near good enough to be inspired musically by my setting. I'm just making sure it doesn't sound bad. I'm not really able to channel my raw emotions through my music yet." Does he hope that one day he might? He laughs. "If I ever feel how my music sounds that could be pretty hard."
"Do I feel how my music sounds?" Green wades in. "I'm almost certain that it goes deeper. Deeper than I can even fathom. But it would be too heavy to even be entertaining, so just what I have been able to grasp I write down. But music, it's a product of the environment, the beat is like territory, it's where you are, it's where it takes you. And I was able to converse with someone who was there with me," he says, with a nod to Burton. "If I was alone, who would know how I felt? It helps me define my take. The things we have in common we record."
· Gnarls Barkley plays Hammersmith Apollo on Thursday. Box office: 0870 606 3400.
Four others who did the mix'n'match
Outkast: Stankonia (2000)
Stankonia saw the Atlanta duo happily throwing together whatever sounds appealed, then fermenting the mix with studio trickery. The result was an album that refused to be hidebound by genre and was acclaimed as a classic. The Guardian went so far as to describe it as "a cyberdelic, future-rap masterpiece".
Funkadelic: Maggot Brain (1971)
The more outre half of George Clinton's P-Funk empire opened their third album with the warning: "Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, for y'all have knocked her up." Maggot Brain is funk at its most psychedelic and the record where the band's demand that you "free your mind and your ass will follow" came to fruition.
Sly and the Family Stone: Stand! (1969)
The paranoia-riven There's a Riot Goin' On is the one the critics tell you to buy, but Stand! is the album that captures the band at their most fun and funky. The title track is the horn-laden anthem, Everyday People, the perfect ballad, and I Want to Take You Higher - the song that stopped the show at Woodstock - is arguably the definitive mix of funk, soul, gospel, psychedelia and hard rock.
Prince: Purple Rain (1984)
Fifteen years of being a laughing stock have rather diminished Prince's reputation, but this sounded like nothing else when it came out. Its ability to appeal across boundaries - remember John Turturro's racist in Do the Right Thing saying Prince and Bruce were his two favourite singers, before remembering Prince is black - made Purple Rain and its many singles worldwide hits. |
| Homers_pet_monkey |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 14:31:57
I have no idea about Pink Mountaintops live, i'm afraid, but I must say that the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album is on repeat. Brilliant stuff. Less chaotic, but better songwriting for it IMO.
Also been listening to Giant Drag, The Longcut (my god I am proud of this band from Manchester), and Polytechnic (also very proud of this one, especially as my mate is the lead guitarist).
Oh and Tapes n Tapes.
I'd walk her everyday, into a shady place
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| speedy_m |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 14:26:31
Should I go see Pink Mountaintops? Convince me. Perhaps I should just listen to Axis of Evol. Sunset Rubdown I just downloaded but haven't digested yet. I'm listening to a lot of Beatles and Paul McCartney. As for new stuff: the new YYYs, the new Loose Fur. That's about it. Band of Horses... the lead singers voice will have to grow on me, but the Shins did, so I'm sure this will too.
he's back jack smoking crack find him if you want to get found
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| Homers_pet_monkey |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 14:20:56
Loooooads. I am really enjoying Two Gallants at the moment, but also discovering more electronic music for my club night. Just bought a couple of Chicks On Speed's albums, very Le Tigre. Also Polysics, a crazy Japanese band (aren't they all?).
Who else? Erm....Celebration, Pink Mountaintops, Band Of Horses, Sunset Rubdown, Oneida, Klaxons, The Presets, The Organ, Envelopes, The Primitives (old school) blah blah blah.
You?
I'd walk her everyday, into a shady place
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| speedy_m |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 12:06:08
Avoiding studying for finals can really drag a man back to a forum. That and I had to share my jam. So whare you listening to lately M1?
and you are ill prepared to fight
living in a world of soft and white
in air conditioned battle zones
I pity you!
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| Homers_pet_monkey |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 12:04:40
Sorry mate, on another note, it's great to see you back.
I'd walk her everyday, into a shady place
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| speedy_m |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 11:59:24
I am literally crushed by the valued opinions of my esteemed UK forum mates. I am really obsessed with this song. Which likely means I will be sick of it in a week or two. But for now, it is my summer jam.
and you are ill prepared to fight
living in a world of soft and white
in air conditioned battle zones
I pity you!
|
| Homers_pet_monkey |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 11:47:05
I am not that keen. We often agree on new music too (unlike a lot of the dinosaurs here ; ))
I'd walk her everyday, into a shady place
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| Llamadance |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 11:42:07
Sorry speedy m, I hate it.
The video's interesting though.hguoht gnitseretni s'oediv ehT
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
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| speedy_m |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 11:24:34
and you are ill prepared to fight
living in a world of soft and white
in air conditioned battle zones
I pity you!
|
| BLT |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 11:20:29
I see they've got the milk-plus goin' on. |
| speedy_m |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 11:06:28
That's the spirit, BLT.
Gnarls Barkley:
and you are ill prepared to fight
living in a world of soft and white
in air conditioned battle zones
I pity you!
|
| BLT |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 11:03:08
quote:
Originally posted by speedy_m
Seriously people, this song is gold. Respond, damn you.
 |
| speedy_m |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 11:02:54
Yes, their album is called "St. Elsewhere" and is either about to come out or just came out.
http://www.gnarlsbarkley.com/
and you are ill prepared to fight
living in a world of soft and white
in air conditioned battle zones
I pity you!
|
| kelladwella |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 10:38:50
Ok, after three four listens I have to say this is a damn catchy and funky poptune! Had me headnodding and grinning from the second time.
Is there more of them? |
| speedy_m |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 10:22:09
Seriously people, this song is gold. Respond, damn you.
and you are ill prepared to fight
living in a world of soft and white
in air conditioned battle zones
I pity you!
|
| speedy_m |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 07:33:28
Oh, and check the (first) video for the single to above mentioned song "Crazy":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nekInx7DV0o&search=gnarls%20barkley
and you are ill prepared to fight
living in a world of soft and white
in air conditioned battle zones
I pity you!
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