Gnarls Barkley
St. Elsewhere

THE REVIEW

I despise MTV. They stress you out so much that you end up avoiding great works. This is the case with St. Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley, a moniker behind which excellent names hide, unknown to most but well-known to those interested in black music: Danger Mouse (famous for the Grey Album, among other things, his production of the latest Gorillaz, and a beatmaker collaborating with MF Doom in the DangerDoom project) and Cee-Lo, a talented vocalist/MC from Goodie Mob and frequent collaborator of the OutKast.
The Atlanta duo comes to mind as a name that masterfully combines mainstream and quality, success and innovation. And the coordinates are not so distant between the two projects: besides being groups consisting of only two elements, the realm in which they operate is quite similar. OutKast leans more towards hip-hop and Gnarls Barkley towards soul/electronic.

After my initial reluctance, due to the media barrage of the single Crazy (a great track, by the way, a perfect fusion of soul updated for the third millennium and an irresistible dance beat), I approached the complete work: a rather compact and homogeneous album, with a slightly claustrophobic atmosphere as if they tried to create little frescoes for the post-contemporaneity. Quite a journey, starting from the frantic urban gospel of Go-Go Gadget Gospel to the urban, introspective soul of the concluding The Last Time. In between, their talent showcases various facets: while there's nothing to be said about Cee-Lo's voice, well, Danger Mouse moves among the edges and curves of black music like a new black Brian Eno. He makes everything his own and reshapes it for the third millennium, for the present.
Feel and fall in love with the psychedelic and ambient soul of St. Elsewhere, the rock-infused Gone Daddy Gone (how else could a Violent Femmes cover have been treated?), the post-modern blues of The Boogie Monster (how does Cee-Lo's voice sound so low and dark? It's maddening how playfully eerie it becomes), the laptop-soul, perhaps the album's pinnacle, the most illustrative track in its dark and desperate mood with that incredibly moving voice... well, what kind of track is Just A Thought?!?

In the end, you find yourself wanting to hit play again, to listen once more to this intriguing mix of sounds. I almost feel like coining a new genre: art-black, screw MTV and anyone missing out on records like this just because they want to be snobbish!