The Beat Surrender

Despite the fact that Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) was involved in this project, I hadn’t really shown much inclination to jump on the Gnarls Barkley bandwagon, a bandwagon that had gained considerable speed with the single Crazy. This single had already made a big dent in music history by becoming the first single to top the charts based purely on download sales in the first week. Since then it’s spent six weeks at number one and has shown no signs of slipping off the top spot.

After hearing it several times in bars I treat myself (last of the big spenders) to the limited seven inch picture disc and my interest in the album jumped up a notch. I was still slightly cynical though, it had all the hall marks of being a one hit wonder, with an album of filler thrown around it to cash in, the fact that it had made history as the first download only number one added to the gimmicky feel.

Well not for the first time with music, me of little faith has been firmly kicked up the arse and the biggest surprise is that I’m surprised. I’ve long held Danger Mouse in high esteem, his DM & Jemini album Ghetto Pop Life is still one of my favourite hip-hop albums three years on, he was the mastermind behind the controversial Grey Album which fused the Beatles music with Jay-Z’s rap to startling effect and has teamed up with MF Doom to produce the excellent Dangerdoom album and that’s before you get onto mentioning Gorillaz!

Listening to St Elsewhere once and I realised my mistake, this is a peach of an album and I shouldn’t have ever doubted DM. Listening to it for the second time I was absolutely convinced that the single was anything but a one off fluke.

A lot of the credit of course must go to Cee-Lo Green (Thomas Calloway) who provides the soulful vocals on these songs, his voice fits perfectly with the blues-funk beats and rhythms that Danger Mouse has laid down, fantastic listening if you are at home chilling out, probably even better to get ready to for a night out and it wouldn’t feel out of place being played in your favourite pre-club bars, such is the versatility and quality that shines through it.

The single you probably all know by now anyway, with its low rumbling bass and breezy lyrics. This though for me isn’t the stand out track on the album, you could really pick anyone from four or five outstanding tracks (the title track, Gone Daddy Gone and Just A Thought are my particular favourites at the moment). On Line reminds me of Songs In The Key Of Life era Stevie Wonder without sounding too retro, which is some compliment to pay anybody. At other times on the album you can’t help but think of some of Atlantic’s finer 70’s funk moments and early period Prince, it really is that good.

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