GNARLS BARKLEY
Music by Danger Mouse Lyrics by Cee-Lo Green
Produced by Danger Mouse
Released April 24, 2006
Believe it or not dear readers and listeners, I've had this next installment in my head for YEARS!
I have long held a deep fascination with the art and artistry of songwriting when it is utilized in a most subversive fashion. What I am speaking of primarily is when shiny, happy pop songs actually house darker, troubling, disturbing and riskier themes and textures yet they go almost unnoticed because the craft of the songwriting and the beauty of the performance envelops us so completely that we are singing a long when we would otherwise be crying, cowering or hiding under the covers. Take a song like The Beatles' "Help!," where John Lennon himself explained that the song was, in reality, a personal outcry for help which was obscured due to the jauntiness and euphorically performed track. I would think that if we traveled back to the now classic works of The Beatles, The Beach Boys, the music of Motown and others, we would find a plethora of songs that we all know and love but upon deeper examination would be surprised to see how melancholy, and at times, depressing, those songs really are. To that end, I am compelled to provide you with a great quotation from Nick Hornby's landmark novel High Fidelity, in which his main protagonist, the music fanatic and record store owner Rob Fleming expresses the following:
“People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss...What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?"
With that concept in place, I am happy to turn your attention to "St. Elsewhere," the 2006 debut album from Gnarls Barkley, the musical collective of rapper/singer/lyricist Cee-Lo green and producer/musician Danger Mouse. It is brilliantly conceived and performed work that effortlessly bridges the gaps between hip-hop, soul, funk, alternative music and even elements of glam rock and the blues to create a musical stew that firmly exists within its own universe. Over the course of the album's 14 songs and brisk under 40 minute running time, we are given a front row seat to the excellence of song craftsmanship. The instantly accessible songwriting is masterful as the tightly structured songs, many of which do not last much more than two minutes each, waste not even one moment of time. Gnarls Barkley ensures that all of us receive the fullest musical bang of our collective bucks! The critical acclaim, awards received and hefty sales are all richly deserved as Gnarls Barkley illustrated wonderfully how artfulness does not need to be discarded while providing tremendous entertainment.
But this is a piece about subversiveness and I have to admit that as amazing as "St. Elsewhere" is, it is also an album that, truthfully, has frightened me. That admission may surprise you but yes, I have found this album to be deeply disturbing, to say the least and in fact, through a sense of irrational fear, I have even entertained the thought of hiding it away as it kind of reduced me to that childlike fearful state where I thought that what I was listening to was somehow...evil.
Just take a look at the album cover! With its cartoon images of wild animals baring their teeth, mass pollution, a "Don't Walk" street sign flanked by a backdrop of a darkened cityscape, the backwards lettering of "LIVE" to be read as "EVIL" and all shrouded by a mushroom cloud, I do think that it completely gives you a clear insight as to what you are going to hear to a degree. In fact, for me, I think the album is actually a non-linear narrative and character study of the birth, rise and inner torment of a serial killer (let's name him "Gnarls Barkley") and we are placed in the maelstrom of his thoughts, like the character of Alex in Anthony Burgess' novel and Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film version of A Clockwork Orange or even the grotesquely horrific character of Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis' highly controversial novel American Psycho. Throughout the album, we are also being saturated with themes of isolation ("Online"), suicide, paranoia and depression ("Just A Thought," "Who Cares?"), insanity (the gargantuan hit single "Crazy"), schizophrenia ("Transformer"), murder and even necrophilia ("Necromancer") and yet somehow, we all just keep signing along. So, just in time for Halloween, I bring you Gnarls Barkley's "St. Elsewhere."
"St. Elsewhere" opens and closes with the sound of a film projector, immediately alerting us that what we are about to hear is a movie for our ears and that nothing should be considered as "real," quite apt as we are listening to an album created by two musicians bearing stage names that are hiding behind the faceless persona of Gnarls Barkley. Even so, I don't think all of the artifice entirely lets us off of the hook.
With the wildly percolating beats and roof raising vocals, the very appropriately titled "Go-Go Gadget Gospel" finds our anti-hero in a state of celebratory euphoria as he is now able to experience "Freedom in Hi Fidelity" and expresses to us that "I'm well on my way/I'm almost everything/And today is my day." This would all be well and good but the very next song happens to be "Crazy," a track that begins with a vividly dark reminisce ("I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind/There was something so pleasant about that day/ Even your emotions have an echo in so much space") and continues onwards to challenge all of us about who is sane, insane and even moreso, "You really think you're in control?" With just those first two songs on the album, Gnarls Barkley has created the soundscape that is instantly inviting yet decidedly sinister. Sonically, the songs are respectively playful and soulful. But especially with "Crazy," just listen to the instrumentation. Danger Mouse has overseen string sections that are mournful, musical colors that sound a tad muted and really pay close attention to the harmony backing vocals, on this track and throughout the album. The backing vocals on "St. Elsewhere" do not sweeten the experience or soothe or coo alongside Cee-Lo Green's incredibly expressive voice. They moan! This quality makes the vocal aesthetics of the album sound nothing less than haunted.
The album continues onwards with the title track, a song that suggests to me the mental arena to which our narrator has retreated once taking leave of his sanity. Then, for me, the album's possible narrative becomes more fractured, possibly illustrating Barkley's disturbed state. "Gone Daddy Gone," a cover of a song by The Violent Femmes was a sharply clever move as our narrator's violent tendencies are brought to the forefront but are dulled by our familiarity to the original song and the almost 60's shimmy styled tone of the music. But make no mistake, Green's vocals are downright nasty and lascivious when he sings, "Beautiful girl, lovely dress/Where she is now, I can only guess."
"Smiley Faces" is easily one of the album highest points as it presents a selection that sounds like classic Motown updated for the 21st century. It is bouncy, bright, and exuberantly sung. But again, check out those moaning backing vocals that indeed bring dark shadows over the musical sunshine. And then Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green smartly understand that the greater effect of a song doesn't always occur on the way it begins, but on how it ends. The final lyrics return us right into the mindset of our narrator when he explains, "I wanna be you whenever I see you smiling/Because it's easily one of the hardest things to do/Your worries and fear become your friends/And they end up smiling at you." And the vocals moan into the song's fade out. Creeeeeepy!
"The Boogie Monster" subverts its themes of middle of the night inner turmoil that leaves the narrator "waiting on the sun to rise," through its Vincent Price/late night television monster movie groove and a very funny and tossed off dirty joke at the song's conclusion. The first half of the album concludes with "Feng Shui," which could be an expression of the narrator's fastidiousness with his impeccably tailored home environment a la Patrick Bateman...and please note that we have not yet experienced the sadistic horrors that occur there or even know whatever happened to the young girl from "Gone Daddy Gone."
The second half of "St. Elsewhere" opens with "Just A Thought," a song that I think could be the narrator's backstory, the time before he embraced insanity and was plagued with "not just good, but great depression." The tracks "Who Cares?" and "Storm Coming" continue in this vein. And it is here where the music nearly matches the lyrics in terms of tone, sentiment and effect. "Just A Thought" and "Storm Coming" possess more dramatic arrangements featuring pounding drums and grim guitars while "Who Cares?" moans onwards and floats solemnly.
The wild cartoon music makes its return with "Transformer," subverting the narrator's acknowledgement of his schizophrenia and the slow, lounge-like pimp strut of "Online," featuring Green's funky growl spotlights our narrator's sense of alienation ("Feel like the life of the party/But it's all in your mind") as well as his copious drug usage ("Once I clean my mirror/I'm a be feeling fine").
And then, "St. Elsewhere" nearly crosses the line of good taste as it abruptly drops us all smack into a bonafide horror film like Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974), with the nightmarish "Necromancer." Everything comes crashing down into Hell on this track, as our narrator begins teasing us with Marvin Gaye's classic refrain from "Sexual Healing" (single released September 30, 1982), when he sings "Wake up, wake up, wake up wake up..." to the corpse of who I assume to be the girl from "Gone Daddy Gone." Green's lyrics and vocals are at their most terrifying due to the cold, emotionless, wry, matter-of-fact descriptiveness of his sadism, again like Patrick Bateman.
Like Alex from "A Clockwork Orange," we are privvy to his thoughts and actions as if we are friends, thus making us co-conspirators. "Without a care in the world I'm compassionate about killing her," he explains. "A Cosmopolitan, cocaine and and an occasional pill in her." The narrator presents us with jokes that disgust ("I whispered in her ear to hear an echo") and taunts maliciously ("So scream and holler, run and play/Wish you could die another day") before leaving us with the afterthought, "Man, bet she was alright/When she was alive." For this track, Danger Mouse provides no escape as the subversion is non-existent, leaving nothing but the terror.
The after shock of that track informs the final selections of the album especially the final track "The Last Time," a roller disco rave that finds our narrator as a seducer, possibly making his moves upon the girl he eventually murders. "When was the last time you danced?" he asks while grooving under the mirrorball. And how terrible it all sounds, despite the nightclub uplift, as this poor girl is indeed dancing for the last time.
And then, the film projector ceases to spool, ending the audio movie that is "St. Elsewhere."
Now of course, everything that I have just written is solely speculation as neither Danger Mouse or Cee-Lo Green have attested to anything like "St. Elsewhere" housing a possible narrative like this at all during interviews. They have never even suggested that the album even follows a concept. That's fine, of course, as artists typically hold those sorts of cards close to their collective chests. But what surprised me when the album was originally released, and what continues to surprise me now is how the supreme pop craft, the dizzying sonic layers and culmination of a myriad of musical sources and references were so powerful that the darker nature of the album is barely mentioned at all. Looking back on the original album reviews, music writers spent very little time, if any, examining the themes of "St. Elsewhere," including "Necromancer," and spent nearly all of the time in amazement at the overall musical punch, which is mighty. It's like Gnarls Barkley got one past the goalie. But then, what if there was some sort of joke to the proceedings that I didn't get and I ended up taking this thing too seriously? And I cannot help but to wonder if I am the only person that was affected in this fashion by that album.
But then, I am reminded of a brief conversation I had with a friend concerning the television singing contest program "The Voice," on which Cee-Lo Green is a judge. My friend expressed to me that she found Green to be terribly unsettling, that his Cheshire Cat grin seemed to be hiding some more questionable quirks and qualities that she read as nefarious. While I have never even seen even one episode of "The Voice," regarding Cee-Lo Green, somehow, I just knew what she meant.
Gnarls Barkley's "St. Elsewhere" is easily one of the 21st century's most inventive, consistently surprising and finest pop albums. But trust me, behind that shiny sheen is something decidedly unnerving. Why don't you take another listen...
...if you dare!
No comments:
Post a Comment