Tracks
Gnarls Barkley: "Crazy"
(2006)
By Clayton Purdom | 28 January 2008
Well, fuck. I’d love to give Cee-lo all the credit for this. I’d been wondering why he chose to follow up his buttery classic The Soul Machine with a collab project with the dick that fucked up Hov’s swan song, why he’d ditch his moniker for some shit-silly pun, why he’d squander all his post-Mob glory for a cartoony plop. I heard they were covering “Gone Daddy Gone,” and I snorted with pleasure. I cackled. I guffawed.
Then I listened to it some. Well, fuck. “Crazy” is probably the best non-Clipse pop track I’ve heard in 2006, a heartbreaking cut of old soul misery on hyperpowered robotic struts. Cee-lo sounds as good as one could expect, and by that I mean he sounds cocksure and lascivious, reassuring and weary, dropping in a fraction of a beat prematurely to emphasize his counterpoints (“But think twice, that’s my only advice”) and literally laughing at you before letting you in on the sad joke with the chorus. His performance echoes with resignation, from the opening couplet of “I remember when I lost my mind / There was something so pleasant about that place,” to the final chorus that questions whether the whole damn world is as, yes, crazy as it seems, before shrugging, “Probably.” His lyrical thread works just like the best of Detroit, subversive, melancholy, wry, and spare.
But all that’s to be expected from Cee-lo. Dangermouse’s beat isn’t radically different for the producer, but it showcases his basic elements in top form, and despite my hopeful prediction that it would ruin Gnarls Barkley, it’s the most thrilling success here. The drums are clean, big and obvious, a simple bass/hi-hat one-two with a throbbing cluck pressing in the foreground. The verses push and shake before strings pull them to the ground, sliding in like so much sweat off the back of Cee-lo’s neckfat. Which came first, the bleary-eyed beat or the arch melody, I have no idea, but the track is phenomenal, and apparently wrecking everyone’s shit in England or something, and apparently their Myspace page can tell you your actual future, and apparently the album is being released by NASA because the hype is so large. But, shit, it’s good. Well, fuck.
Then I listened to it some. Well, fuck. “Crazy” is probably the best non-Clipse pop track I’ve heard in 2006, a heartbreaking cut of old soul misery on hyperpowered robotic struts. Cee-lo sounds as good as one could expect, and by that I mean he sounds cocksure and lascivious, reassuring and weary, dropping in a fraction of a beat prematurely to emphasize his counterpoints (“But think twice, that’s my only advice”) and literally laughing at you before letting you in on the sad joke with the chorus. His performance echoes with resignation, from the opening couplet of “I remember when I lost my mind / There was something so pleasant about that place,” to the final chorus that questions whether the whole damn world is as, yes, crazy as it seems, before shrugging, “Probably.” His lyrical thread works just like the best of Detroit, subversive, melancholy, wry, and spare.
But all that’s to be expected from Cee-lo. Dangermouse’s beat isn’t radically different for the producer, but it showcases his basic elements in top form, and despite my hopeful prediction that it would ruin Gnarls Barkley, it’s the most thrilling success here. The drums are clean, big and obvious, a simple bass/hi-hat one-two with a throbbing cluck pressing in the foreground. The verses push and shake before strings pull them to the ground, sliding in like so much sweat off the back of Cee-lo’s neckfat. Which came first, the bleary-eyed beat or the arch melody, I have no idea, but the track is phenomenal, and apparently wrecking everyone’s shit in England or something, and apparently their Myspace page can tell you your actual future, and apparently the album is being released by NASA because the hype is so large. But, shit, it’s good. Well, fuck.