Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere: Album Review

Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere (Wonder Bros, 2006)
Like most projects having to do with Grey Album producer Danger Mouse, this new Gnarls Barkley album is highly anticipated...on the Internet. Also, it may or may not be really popular in the UK. From what I understand, the first single "Crazy" was the first song ever to hit #1 in that country having only been released in online music stores.

But then I remember reading similar shit about Las Ketchup and whatever that Axel F ringtone bullshit was, so I'm not sure what to think.

GO GO GADGET GOSPEL

Reminds me of whatever the single was from the Cee-Lo's first solo album, with the horns and what have you.

CRAZY

The 2006 version of [insert the name of something that became inexplicably popular on the Internet and also in foreign countries]. Or am I missing something?

ST. ELSEWHERE

Cee-Lo seems to indulge in all of his worst impulses on this title track. Like that thing he does where he sort of sing-rambles about god-knows-what. For his part, Danger Mouse's beat could've provided the song with more structure. As it is, it's just sort of a mess.

GONE DADDY GONE

A sort of New Wave thing. Like "Turning Japanese" or something. Cee-Lo might not be as cut out for this sort of thing.

SMILEY FACES

And it may take being Asian or something to appreciate Cee-Lo as a vocalist. He's not completely untalented, but bottom line is the guy's just not that good of a singer. Whatever attendant irony there is in that fact is mostly lost on me.

THE BOOGIE MONSTER

You know what would be really ironic? An R&B singer that could actually sing. I'd bust my gut laughing at that shit. Bwahahaha.

FENG SHUI

Cee-Lo actually does a little rapping here. The beat might be going for a sort of Asian thing, but it mainly comes off as a jumbled mess.

JUST A THOUGHT

An ill-advised attempt at something  a bit heavier in subject matter.  I don't believe for a minute that Cee-Lo has considered suicide a day in his life. Fuck him.

TRANSFORMER

Danger Mouse gets a bit too wacky for his own good with this track.

WHO CARES

To its credit, the chorus to this isn't quite as lazy as the last several tracks here. Cee-Lo still mostly rambles through his verses though. Usually, you wish he'd either rap or sing - preferably rap.

ON-LINE

Was this meant to be a skit? I couldn't make out most of what Cee-Lo was saying here.

NECROMANCING

Why is Cee-Lo rapping about fucking corpses? Fag!

STORM COMING

DM cranks the BPM's, on some JJ Fad shit. But not so high that you don't notice how retarded this is.

THE LAST TIME

I've told you once and I've told you twice. But you never listen to my advice. Well this will be the last time.

COMMENTS: I'm no huge Danger Mouse fan anyway (at least from last year on), but I actually like this a lot less than both the second Gorillaz album and the Dangerdoom album, both of which I reviewed on this site, if you can imagine. Cee-Lo should stick to rapping, and Danger Mouse should stick to Black Album remixes.

BEST TRACKS: I didn't like a song on here.