![]() ![]() It took me over a week to figure out that their name is a play on basketball star Charles Barkley.) Just one more reason that no one is cooler than Gnarls Barkley. Which makes perfect sense! The trite rhyme is revitalized! Describing his house, Cee-Lo says he hasĪnd a frame on the wall where you can picture yourself "You're welcome to stay," he tell us, "but even your company must compliment the feng shui." That's some serious shit.Ĭool beat, cool subject. Over a slinky beat, Cee-Lo raps about how he is so balanced that everything in his life has to adhere to the Chinese philosophy of interior design. At less than two minutes, the song "Feng Shui" distillates why they are so cool. I'm not kidding, and I'm so happy I'm not.Īnd sometimes they want to talk about feng shui. Or they want to talk about how they're Transformers. ![]() They just want to talk about how awesome they are. Take a look at the photos! Granted, some of their songs deal with serious subjects like suicide-and quite well-but most of the music is simple, loopy fun. Or "The Boogie Monster," which takes a sample of "The Monster Mash" and turns it into a creepy, funky jam.Īlong with the excellent songs, we also get to enjoy the rare hip-hop act who seems to have a sense of humor about themselves. We get to savor rewards like the song "Crazy," a soul jam which was number one in England for nine weeks. aren't your song titles just a little too cheeky?) I know for a fact that Cee-Lo has been mashing up rock and hip-hop for years on his solo records, and DJ Dangermouse famously smushed The Beatles' "White Album" and Jay-Z's "Black Album" into "The Grey Album." Gnarls Barkley is the fascinating outcome of two unique artists pushing each other to new places. It's obvious from the first song-"Go-Go Gadget Gospel"-that these men know exactly what they're doing, so we should trust them.Īnd unlike, say, Fall Out Boy, their weirdness doesn't seem like an act. It rocks, but there's too much soul singing to make it rock.īut Gnarls Barkley's music doesn't need a category. The music is dance-able, but it's not dance music. Elsewhere" is one of the most exciting I've heard in years. Take Gnarls Barkley (awesomely aping Napoleon Dynamite to your left), the hip-hop/ rock/ funk/ just-plain-weird musical duo comprised of DJ Dangermouse (left) and rapper-singer Cee-Lo Green. Well, that can't be the only reason, but it helps. I still hate it, though.īut sometimes songwriters will use the couplet in a surprising way, and I fall in artistic love with them. ![]() (Except " pelf," but how often do you get to say that?) The clunky, unnatural phrase is built out of necessity. The reason it's used, of course, is that "shelf" is about the only word that rhymes with "self," so songwriters have little other choice. This cliche exists only within the bubble of songwriting, which makes it extremely phony and unconvincing. When in daily speech have you overheard a colleague saying, "Seriously, Dan, I love Margie, but she keeps putting my love on a shelf?" Never. The idea of love on a shelf appears in so many songs that you'd think the general public considers the notion all the time.īut really? No one ever does. Or they're sorry they put their lover on a shelf. Or they don't wan't to be on a shelf themselves. Some singer doesn't want his or her love to be put up on a shelf. She said, "Don't hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself." My honey, my baby, don't put my love up on no shelf Take this sample from "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" by Georgia Satellites: ![]() When I've had too much to drink-which means I've had, like, half a glass of champagne-I sometimes go off on how much I hate the "shelf/self" rhyme in song lyrics. ![]()
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