Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple Review
Posted by Mitch Michaels on 04.14.2008
Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse return quickly with another taste of their neo-soul sonic experiment…
My Story
Ah, the ol’ “bought it for one song” album. In the age of iTunes and digital downloading, the chances of buying an entire CD with only one song you like are greatly diminished. But you still get burned from time to time. Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere burned me. Who didn’t love “Crazy”, with Cee-Lo’s smooth vocals and the ulta-hip neosoul production? But the rest of the album – it just didn’t come together, even as just a vibe record. Well, two years have passed and I’m willing to give Gnarls another shot. Will they manage to include more than one song worth listening to on The Odd Couple?
Their Story
Gnarls Barkley dates back to the 90’s, when producer Danger Mouse first met soul singer Cee-Lo Green in Atlanta. Though they kept in touch, the pair continued to do the solo thing for the next several years.
Danger Mouse came to prominence when he released The Grey Album - an underground mix of Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Beatles’ “White Album”. The unlikely hit drew the attention of several hipsters in the industry, most notably Gorillaz, who had DM produce their second album Demon Days.
Cee-Lo thrived as a member of hip-hop crew Goodie Mob, but faltered when it came to a solo career. After releasing his second commercial flop in 2004, he began to focus on other projects. One was a collaboration with Danger Mouse dubbed Gnarls Barkley. The pair recorded several demos in 2003 which became pretty well known around music insiders. Before the duo had completed their first album, the first song, “Crazy”, had leaked and was on its way to topping the charts in the UK. It was a #2 hit in the US as well, propelling the band’s debut, the rap-pop fusion album St. Elsewhere, to #4 and platinum status.
With a huge hit, Gnarls Barkley became big in demand. They returned to the studio in late 2007, hoping to capture lightning in a bottle a second time. The lead single from the project, “Run”, failed to reach the Top 40. However, thanks to an early release on iTunes, the song and new album became a #1 digital hit.
Media
Gnarls Barkley – “Run” Video
Gnarls Barkley – “Run”
The Album
On April 8, 2008, Downtown and Atlantic Records released The Odd Couple, the second album by Gnarls Barkley and the follow-up to 2006’s St. Elsewhere. Though 4/8 is its official release date, The Odd Couple was released on March 18th digitally, and rushed to several retail outlets on March 25th. Thanks to those early sales, the set has already reached #12 on the Billboard charts.
The Band: 7.5
Cee-Lo Green: vocals
Danger Mouse: producer
Seeing a Gnarls Barkley album happen so quickly after the first is kind of strange. Given Danger Mouse’s multiple projects and Cee-Lo’s seemingly short attention span, you would think a return collaboration would have to be pined for for years before seeing light, which would no doubt include headlining festival dates and what have you. I think, really, the pair see this collaboration as necessary simply because St. Elsewhere was recorded without them actually being together. Perhaps the two just wanted to see what it was like actually recording a whole album “together”.
The result isn’t actually much different from their debut. You’ll still be blow away by Cee-Lo’s soul-inspired vocals, and Danger Mouse has once again compiled a playlist of beats that are more intricate than hip-hop has any right to be, yet more interesting than everything but the best film scores. Like I said, this comes as no surprise. But The Odd Couple’s big difference is how lived in it feels. Gnarls Barkley has certainly gelled as a tag-team over the past couple of years, and their new set comes off as a real band’s album and not simply an experiment.
There’s a new cohesiveness here, not to mention a penchant for letting tracks breathe more than on St. Elsewhere. While that album wasn’t much more than out of the ordinary past the amazing single “Crazy”, The Odd Couple moves through quite a few more highlights. Which brings us to…
The Songs: 7.0
1. Charity Case
2. Who’s Gonna Save My Soul
3. Going On
4. Run (I’m A Natural Disaster)
5. Would Be Killer
6. Open Book
7. Whatever
8. Surprise
9. No Time Soon
10. She Knows
11. Blind Mary
12. Neighbors
13. A Little Better
The Odd Couple kicks off with Cee-Lo doing his best “Time Of The Season” impression on the into to “Charity Case”. This is a trippy cut, complete with some interesting female vocal interplay. The vocals there go uncredited, which leaves us to wonder – are these the voices in Cee-Lo’s head? And thus, our journey beigins.
“Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” is the natural flipside of “Crazy”, a slowed down and brooding track that draws deeply from the late night soul clubs of the 70’s. You can practically feel the haze – and the regret. It’s in this song that Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse become one, as the production, the Spanish guitar, the swelling synths – they all help tell the story of “gettin’ high cause I feel so low now” with perfect balance.
The lead single, “Run”, is a fun little moment, and “Would Be Killer” is as cool as ice. Like St. Elsewhere, this album suffers from a lot of filler (especially in the second half), but even the filler is engaging. This is the late night record you’ve been waiting on.
The 411: The Odd Couple should please fans of St. Elsewhere, as Gnarls Barkley doesn’t change their formula much here. Sure, there’s nothing as earth-shattering as “Crazy” here, but the set is much more cohesive, and Gnarls Barkley had the kind of sound that was worth giving a second, more focused swing on. “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” is reason enough to pick this one up, but there are several highlights (“Open Book”, “Run”) that will keep this CD in rotation for more than a week, especially as night settles in.
