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This is a saved page of Gnarls Barkley 101 (Vh1) This is a copy we made of the page on 03-Jun-2006. The original page may or may not still be availible and pictures and text may have changed since then. Click Here to view the original page at the original website. |
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"Way over yonder there's a new frontier/would it be so hard for you to come and visit me here?" asks Gnarls Barkley vocalist
ONE GNARLS Founding member of the seminal Atlanta group Goodie Mobb, Cee-Lo Green came to prominence in the early '90s, when the Dirty South started making blips on the national hip-hop radar. More recently, he has combined his tongue-twisting raps with off-kilter crooning on solo albums Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections (2002) and Cee-Lo Green ... Is the Soul Machine (2004). ANOTHER GNARLS Producer Danger Mouse (nee Brian Burton) rose to prominence making downtempo beats and creating tracks for underground MCs such as Jemini and Murs. But he officially arrived in 2004, when his bootleg The Grey Album, a mash-up of The Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album, inspired cease-and-desist orders from EMI, making DM a musical cause célèbre on the Internet. Acclaim and opportunities followed, with DM co-producing the Gorillaz's Demon Days (for which he earned a Grammy Nomination) and collaborating with MF Doom on the DangerDoom project. The idea for Gnarls Barkley came during the production of Cee-Lo's Soul Machine. Danger Mouse was invited to produce tracks, but had larger plans in mind, hoping the two would be able to embark on a full album together. "I would have done a track or two if he had said, 'Nah, I can't do a whole album," explains Danger Mouse. "I wouldn't have been mad at him -- he just didn't call my bluff." The results blur lines, meld genres, and gather influence from the past, present and future. Musical miscegenation is evident throughout St. Elsewhere -- from the horn bursts of "Go-Go Gadget Gospel," wherein go-go drums collide with Cee-Lo's gospel-like wailing, to "Gone Daddy Gone," a cover of one of DM's favorite rock groups, the Violent Femmes. As Cee-Lo says on "Necromancer," the eerily drowsy ode to lovers past: "the production is progressive, the reason is retro." "We work quick and well together," says Danger Mouse. "We adjust very quickly. He's looking out for what my opinions are, and I'm trying not to affect what he's doing." "The thing I'm most proud of is that we did this without a safety net, willing to live and die by it," says Cee-Lo proudly. "'Cause there was no predecessor to [Gnarls Barkley], nothing that would say it would work." So far, the public seems to be loving it. The BBC reports that their first single, the contemplative, understated "Crazy," is the first song ever to land at the top of the charts based solely on digital sales, boasting over 31,000 downloads by the time it became available in the shops. BARKLEY BY THE NUMBERS 0 - Number of guests on St. Elsewhere. Danger Mouse: "We had talked about a couple of people, but then it was like, we could do this s**t ourselves. Plus, there was something about this record that [would have been] almost intrusive in a way [to feature guests]." 1 - Number of tracks left off the album. Cee-Lo: It was a track called "Scarlet Fever" which was cool. Danger Mouse describes the way it was done as a "performance record." He said it sounded like it would be more performance-oriented, [whereas] he wanted the album to be a "listening record." 1 - Number of takes it took Cee-Lo to nail the vocals for "Crazy." Cee-Lo: A great deal of the album was done in one take. It was done so casually and so comfortably. That "one-take" is always more innocent. Each time after that it's contrived, thought-about and premeditated. 2 - Number of tattoos Cee-Lo got while recording the album. Cee-Lo: I actually had some work done on my right bicep and forearm that needed shading. The line work was done, and it's just been kind of unattended for a minute. The second one was a brick wall on my left forearm. I was thinking of doing my entire left arm in brick wall 'cause I'm right-handed, and they say your left is your weaker arm and vise versa. My left is just as strong, if not stronger. 3 - Number of hours it took to record "Boogie Monster." Danger Mouse: I played the track for Cee-Lo, with just the two of us in there talking and hanging out for a minute. And he starts writing it right there. Cee-Lo: The whole time I'm not writing; I'm kind of thinking out loud and scatting stuff. A couple of cadences will come to mind and then you gotta figure out what words work with the cadence. You can't be too philosophical if you got a choppy beat because you're moving too fast; you have to appropriate what you're saying. I'm always about being literal. I like conveying some point. I don't really like small talk for the sake of entertainment. 7 - Number of St. Elsewhere tracks that leaked prior to release. "Crazy" "Who Cares?" "Go-Go Gadget Gospel" "Gone Daddy Gone" "Necromancer" "Storm Coming" "Just a Thought" 10 - Number of times Chick-fil-A was eaten during the recording of St. Elsewhere. Danger Mouse: "It's the best hangover food on the planet, [and I had it] five times a week. 90 - Number of minutes Cee-Lo was late to the studio every day. Cee-Lo: There's definitely a ying and a yang between Danger Mouse and me. He's a different cat, more technical and meticulous than I'll ever be. I really don't rush it. I'm waiting to be moved and compelled, reanimated with an idea, something that just calls me to poetry. I got kids, I'm juggling a lot when I'm in Atlanta. But when I get there, I'm a team player. 2000 -- Estimated number of calls made to BBC radio after "Crazy" was played for the first time (according to Danger Mouse).
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