Hard as it may be to throw together a good covers album – lest we forget the recent debacle of Puddle of Mudd’s unholy, mind-meltingly awful Re:(disc)overed – it’s difficult to argue that, at least within the realm of rock music, bands that perform in the pop-punk style have the best shot at album-length success. It’s a hard balance to strike – you have to fight the right tonal balance between sincerity and irony, never veering too far in either direction, […]
Posts tagged "Gnarls Barkley"
Spin Cycle: Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi’s “Rome”
I suppose that in a perfect world, producer/musician/all-around auteur Brian Burton—you know him as Danger Mouse, folks, or at least you should—would come to define the true sound of the past decade. In a sense, he kinda has: as one-half of Gnarls Barkley, his “Crazy” has become synonymous with the sort of insidious, viral, ubiquitous gross-genre smash that Outkast perfected a year prior with “Hey Ya!”, something so off-beat and yet so catchy that it couldn’t help but catch fire, […]
Spin Cycle: Cee-Lo’s “The Lady Killer”
Talk about unsung. For fifteen years, Cee-Lo has stood on the precipice of stardom, and he’s actually gotten there a time or two. Still, the guy’s nowhere as appreciated as he should be. He’s a great songwriter (do you know he wrote “Don’t ‘Cha” for The Pussycat Dolls?..OK, maybe that’s not the best example of great songwriting), he’s an intense singer (a throwback to the gospel-influenced vocalists of yore) and to top things off, he’s a top-shelf emcee. With all […]
My New Favorite Song: Cee-Lo Green’s “Fuck You”
Cee-Lo is kinda sorta one of music’s best kept secrets. Starting out as the nimble-tongued rapper/singer of Atlanta hip-hoppers Goodie Mob (and an obvious musical and sartorial influence on OutKast’s Andre 3000) and progressing through two excellent (though unheralded) solo albums through his brief turn in the pop sunshine as 1/2 of Gnarls Barkley, my man has been bringing heat for over fifteen years. And I think he has just recorded and released my favorite song of the year. Sure, […]