Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere

Hey guys! Do you remember when, do you remember, you remember, when you lost your minds a few years ago when this album came out? I don’t, as I tend to forget this album more often than I should. So, as I burn through lots of new music that I’m not quite ready to write about, let’s re-visit an album that you might have already heard, enjoyed, and then forgotten about:

This is the debut project from one of the few rappers I legitimately enjoy, Cee-Lo Green, and a dude who I am very ambivalent about, “multi-instrumentalist” Danger Mouse (any similarity between the artist and a David Jason-voiced cartoon mouse spy is coincidence). It is what is known to us doctors as a “crazy popular debut”, having charted just about anywhere it can, and being a healthy online download as well. The big hit single from the album, “Crazy”, was mercifully deleted from all those charts it was topping at the behest of the group themselves, because they didn’t want it to get stale. For this, I applaud the group loudly and sincerely, because there’s nothing more annoying than a song that just never goes away.

The other reason I’m glad they deleted “Crazy” from the charts is because there are some other really excellent songs on this album that should not have the light taken away from them. The album even starts with a wonderful gospel/hip-hop/electronic hybrid containing one of my favorite titles in music: “Go-Go Gadget Gospel”. It’s a high-pitched, high-energy track containing Cee-Lo’s unique and splendid vocals, on top of a rather excellent melody containing horn-sounding arpeggios. It’s practically a perfect “start of album” song, not least for its rather short length.

Then we have, right there on track 2, the “hit” of the album, the Rorschach-tastic “Crazy”. It’s hard to tell you what is so great about this song that it’s one of the best songs I can think of, but what does it for me is the clean electric guitar driving the simple rhythm, what might do it for everyone else is the sea of expertly-placed backing vocals backing up Cee-Lo’s majestic voice, or maybe it’s the very clever and introspective lyrics that touch on the obvious theme of insanity and some more subtle themes of existentialism. Either way, this song is one I always take my hat off to as one of the best pop songs ever written, and I think the charted and uncharted sales of just this single will back me up on that.

The actual title track of the album is next, and despite being a really cool track, it kind of falls off the face of the planet, perhaps because it’s sandwiched by two singles? Either way, I always tend to forget this song is here, but that’s all right because it’s a pleasant surprise whenever it does come on, because as I said, it’s a really cool song. I’m particularly impressed by the production of this album, and how many interesting and subtle bits are inserted into the song, so thath you notice something different every time. This is an element I particularly like in hip-hop, it’s just the actual songs that get on my nerves.

Next we have a cover of the Violent Femmes’ minor hit “Gone Daddy Gone”. When I listen to the song within the flow of the actual album, I realize I am being a little unfair calling it an inferior cover, because it actually is a pretty good cover, just not as good as the original, as far as I’m concerned, despite the fuzz bass, which I love. Incidentally, in response to this song and its success, the Femmes put aside their petty personal differences long enough to record their own cover of “Crazy”, which is not as good as the original but solid nonetheless (thus returning the favor in full).

Utilizing a very motown kind of beat, the next song “Smiley Faces” is another personal favorite of mine, mainly for the amazing melody and the array of clever instrumentation, incorporating a rather dirty synthesizer and higher-register bass-line, only to have it all drop out except for the beat to bring in the most profound lyrics sung against only the catchy drum beat. Pop magic, my friends.

“The Boogie Monster” is a goofy piece about a monster in one’s closet, and it’s worth it just to hear the (clearly ad-lib) final line.

The song “Feng Shui” is one of the songs that most remind me of the fact that Cee-Lo is involved in this project, as it practically sounds like a song off one of his own albums. This is not a bad thing, of course, I am a big fan of Cee-Lo, but I will say that it’s good that this song is incredibly short, because otherwise it might derail the understatedness of the hip-hop elements of this album.

Possibly my personal favorite song on this album is “Just A Thought”. It’s a melancholy song reflecting on the dark moods that come with depression, and even a chorus that directly talks about suicide. It is sung as only Cee-Lo can sing it against a pair of acoustic guitars and some lovely sounding keyboards, but all of that is overshadowed by the overbearing beat of the song, which clips in and out almost sporadically. It’s exactly the kind of beat that I would expect from Radiohead at their craziest, and I can’t stop listening to it. That beat is so amazing, it manages to make an already great song into a favorite, by introducing that much-needed element of chaos and distortion to the proceedings.

The rest of the album slows down somewhat for me after this point, though there’s some good stuff here. We start with a song that seems like it’s stuck in fast-forward called “Transformer”. It’s catchy, but runs the risk of being hated I’m sure. I personally like it.

“Who Cares” is a very blunt series of self-contradictions that is broken up by a very catchy one-line chorus:

It’s deep how you can be so shallow
I’m afraid because I have no fear
And I didn’t believe in magic
Until I watched it disappear
(I wish you were here)

And I can go on and on and on (but who cares?)

Ok, actually the song is very clever. I guess I think I’m so cool because I could easily pick out the formula.

Then we have a quick minute and 50 seconds called “Online”, which I don’t really get. Sorry!

There’s another distortion-happy track called “Necromancer” which is pretty good, but I typically miss out on half the things that are said because both the vocals and the beats and some of the synthesizers are all distorted. It’s unfortunate, because the lyrics are twisted and very clever, just my cup of tea! There’s another song after that called “Storm Coming”, which takes a while to get up off the ground, but is quite fun once it does.

Finally we have “The Last Time”, which is another criticism of how most people live their lives. It’s a good song as long as you don’t get distracted by the guitar-noodling sound in the right channel that appears for most of the song. Still, by this time you might have skipped the whole back part of the album to get back to that good part at the front, if not, you aren’t not missing much.

So yes, Gnarls Barkley is quite a group with quite a debut album. After this album, Danger Mouse went on to produce an album for The Black Keys, Beck, and a second album from Gnarls Barkley, all of which have roughly the same sound, which is hugely diminished from the sounds of this album. I don’t know why that is, but I will surely be exploring that phenomenon in later entries. Until then, stay crazy!

Violent Femmes – Hallowed Ground

I spoke yesterday of a band that is considered “stuck in the 90′s”, and on my usual whim, I decided to write about another band that fits that same description. The Violent Femmes, at least according to people more pretentious than myself, are considered “so 90′s”, and surprising for people existing in this decade to still listen to, but I can’t help it, I had never heard The Violent Femmes until about 3 years ago. Even then, I had heard the same album as everyone else, the self-titled debut. Little did I realize that an even better album came right after that:

Why do I like Hallowed Grounds more than the first album? Well, for one it doesn’t have any songs that have been butchered to death by the radio (though I have made my peace with “Blister In The Sun”, the radio still needs to die), and for two… well… there’s no real reason, I guess. I consider this album put together a bit better, and I like the presence of a full drum kit. I still love Violent Femmes, though, and will probably talk about it sometime.

There’s a prevailing theme in at least the later parts of Hallowed Ground, and it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s religion, and what better way to start an album that deals with religion than with a murder ballad?

The first track, “Country Death Song” is a delightfully sick song, from its twisted country-bass opening to the actual story of the song. It’s a song about a father living in the country who goes completely nuts from the boredom and decides to kill his daughter. The instruments are really well arranged here, and includes a banjo being plucked in a minor key, which is always a good thing.

The theme of death carries onto the next track, “I Hear The Rain”, which opens up with 3-part harmony, and after 3 distinct vocal parts, ends with the same 3 different vocal parts being sung by each band member simultaneously, which is dash clever. I always love a Violent Femmes song that features the vibrophone as well. At 1 minute and 32 seconds, however, the song may be considered a bit “short”, but at least it never runs the risk of outdoing its welcome, and anyway the next song makes up for it.

Hey sister, have ya heard? Some people stand like trees without a word
And what that means is… some people don’t…
…talk.

“Never Tell” is a song that had to grow on me a bit, as I kind of considered it a spiritual successor to the song “Confessions” from the previous album, and I didn’t like that song. However, “Never Tell” is a good song, and considerably better than its predecessors. It takes a special kind of music fan to appreciates Gordon Gano’s edge-of-sanity stuttering delivery in some of the Femmes’ songs, but I’ve grown to appreciate it. The stuttering is in full effect in this song, as well as Brian Ritchie’s slightly indulgent bass solos, which brings the song down to a bass-and-vocals only part which contains one excellent “sting” with the other instruments when Gano says the line “I will find you… and I will cut you up (screeches)”.

So where does the actual “religion” in this album come in? Right the hell after “Never Tell”, with the song “Jesus Walking On The Water”, a song so completely Baptist-hymn-like that the first reaction might be to crack up laughing at it like “Oh, you guys!”, but check this out: It’s real. Yep, Gordon Gano, the guy who JUST sang about cutting up someone for telling secrets and 2 songs ago sang about killing his youngest daughter, is a gol’dern Baptist Christian. Bet you weren’t expecting THAT, and that’s why Hallowed Grounds is so great. The pure, unadulterated dichotomy of a band who sings about mentally unbalanced violence mixed with some really genuine praise & worship.

However, the next song, “I Know It’s True But I’m Sorry To Say”, uses neither of those themes. It’s more of a regretful love-lost song and is about as slow as a Kindergartner doing math in slow-motion. I get kind of distracted by just how slow this song plods along, so I kind of forget to pay attention to what the lyrics are trying to say, so I might even be wrong about what this song is about. Did I even hear the whole thing? I don’t know. It’s a good thing I’m not a real reviewer, eh?

Then we go back to religion with the song “Hallowed Ground”, which opens with a passage from the Bible itself, and if I were more of a Biblical scholar (or looked at the liner notes) I would probably be able to tell you which verse. I guess it’s the one about making a really good minory rock song, as that’s what this song is. I particularly enjoy the almost baroque-sounding yet simple piano part.

The title of the next song, “Sweet Misery Blues” is pretty much the best thing ever, and I can’t place my finger on why, but it sets up an unrealistic expectation that the song better be nothing short of awesome. The song fully lives up to the challenge. It’s a jaunty blues number featuring wind instruments and amazing lyrics, particularly the catchy recurring lines:

Could I buy you a dress or something?
Could I buy you some jewelry or something?
Would you go out with me or something?
Would you sleep with me… or something?

That’s 4 lines that explain perfectly why I love The Violent Femmes, no-one does “subversive” like these guys. Speaking of which, the best is yet to come:

I dig the black girls, oh so much more than the white girls…

With an old-style swing beat, the band’s arguably greatest song “Black Girls” comes in with a ya-cha-cha attitude and lyrics about black girls. This is one of the craziest songs I’ve ever heard as far as making instruments sound so weird they no longer sound like instruments. There’s an entire horn section that seemed to be put there to give the song that big-band swing feel, but then by the song’s mid-point, they sound as if they are being operated by escaped convicts, one of which got a hold of a Jew’s Harp, and they trade off bizarre solos with the bassist. I absolutely love the break-down, it sounds like one is running through a swingin’ jungle, which I hope is not a dig on black people, but it might be! The whole thing could very well had been the soundtrack to one of those old racist cartoons of the 30′s, or maybe that’s just my experience with such cartoons talking. Either way, more bizarre than any of the crazy instrumental solos in the song is the stanza sung right after:

You know I love the Lord of Hosts
Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
I was so pleased to learn that He’s inside me
In my time of trouble, He will hide me

I have nothing to say to that, just… well done, guys.

The album closes out with a good ol’ hymn that could appear in any hymnal, “It’s Gonna Rain”. It’s a song that, like “Jesus Walking On The Water”, would be such a great bit of satire if it weren’t for the fact that it’s genuine.

All in all, this album serves as a testament to the talent of a band considered by everyone to be a one-hit wonder. Sure, they have the one hit that gets played on the radio every day until we all die, but it’s a real shame that practically no-one cares about the OTHER songs they wrote that are so much better. Though the band went on to make really terrible albums (which I will be talking about, believe me), Hallowed Ground is worth listening to for anyone who liked the debut album for any reason other than that it contains the version of that song Gnarls Barkley covered that is actually good.

 

Like Album Du Jour? Why not make it official on Facebook!