![]() ![]() Lo's wriggling and struggling underneath the weight of these yawnworthy moments is evident, as is his helplessness in righting the Goodshippe Gnarls when it slips off course. Mouse's pedestrian arrangements often trap Lo under a mediocre muddle of ramshackle rhythms and contrived sound clippings. Unfortunately, we must take the good with the bad. The scintillating samplery of "Necromancing," which finds synth lines and other digital diversions mingling and separating like the chew-path of a pack of hungry termites, also sees D. The funtime-y, all-that-and-a-stack-of-flapjacks feel of "Smiley Faces," complete with mid-song dolphin calls and opulent organ lines, can be directly attributed Mouse's production savvy. When Mouse comes through with a flattering arrangement, Cee Lo's prose spring to life, prancing, dancing, and spinning like the animated plane wheels from a particularly rousing episode of Amazing Stories. He's not exactly shaking his spear at Shakespeare (in the words of Bobby Digi), but when juxtaposed by the cavalier verbal cow-tipping of his genre peers, Lo seems downright poetic.Īnd to be sure, though this is Lo's show to run, the weight of Gnarls' successes and failures rests squarely on the pixilated shoulders of Danger Mouse. Laying sparse acoustic guitar over a messy bulge-beat circa The Grey Album's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," Danger Mouse lays the groundwork for Cee Lo's best soul thread to date, his earnest delivery adding an emotional heft many hip-hop heads might not be ready for. Elsewhere that honor is bestowed upon "Just a Thought," a pure example of two disparate musicians complimenting each other perfectly. It's difficult to imagine dill pickles like "Gone Daddy Gone," "Storm Coming," and "Who Cares" revolutionizing contemporary hip-hop it's even more difficult to fathom the rap mogul that didn't soil his/her bling when "Crazy" first made its rounds on peer-to-peer sites and the odd radio station.īut "Crazy" isn't even the pinnacle of St. They bounce to hip-hop and sway to soul, and their unpredictable nature may just cause a shift in the template of their genre. What keeps Gnarls Barkley from succumbing to flawed side-project fluff is their hot flashes of genius, whisks of wonderment that couldn't have been yielded within the rigid confines of a full-time gig. Elsewhere's harrowing pretzel twists and sharp, darting turns culminate in plenty of deadwood. Danger Mouse doesn't have its share of cloying quirks. To summarize, Cee never dropped his needle into a true-blue groove. Truth is, the guy is so far ahead of the game he's almost behind if you defended Andre 3000's The Love Below to your friends, you still found yourself unwilling to stand behind the hoarse-whisperer soul extravaganza Cee Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections and its follow-up. Elsewhere's "Who Cares," "I have a hard time takin' the easy way," an understatement if there ever was one. All the right ingredients seemed to be in place: He embraced his inner soul-singer and had the artistic freedom to stretch his legs outside of his Goodie Mob, a group that somehow never transcended the popularity of "Soul Food" despite the success of their many imitators.īut as Lo laments on St. Cee Lo's solo albums worked so much better on paper than they did vaulting from speaker cones. ![]()
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