by Abel Horwitz
Daily Lobo
It is hard to define an album that refuses to be defined.
How do you look at a collaboration between two of the most creative minds in music today and not be wowed by the sheer existence of it, let alone the talent on the album St. Elsewhere?
St. Elsewhere is the first album from Gnarls Barkley, an enigmatic persona created by DJ Danger Mouse and rapper Cee-Lo Green.
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Danger Mouse (real name Brian Burton) and Cee-Lo Green (real name Thomas Calloway) are two artists of distinction in today's pop music world. Danger Mouse was an underground hip-hop producer until 2004, when he mixed Jay-Z's Black Album with the Beatles' White Album to produce the sensational, copyright-be-damned Grey Album, jump-starting the mash-up trend of pop beats overlapping with hip-hop sounds that are so popular today.
He's the beat-maker behind 2005's The Mouse and the Mask, a hilariously talented album where MF Doom raps about Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup. He also worked on Gorillaz' latest record, Demon Days.
Cee-Lo is a member of Atlanta's Goodie Mob and frequent collaborator with Outkast. He has come out with two solo albums, Cee-Lo Green and His Prefect Imperfections and Cee-Lo Green . is the Soul Machine, in which spirituality, soul and hip-hop are molded into two albums of unique and endearing songs.
On a superficial level, St. Elsewhere is an album of dance-worthy beats and Cee-Lo's raspy singing voice. The music has a distinctive edge to it, sounding much like what would happen if rave music was crossed with an early '90s video game. I got the impression that if Danger Mouse didn't use a Super Nintendo to make his beats, he was directly influenced by the tinny, 16-bit video game soundtracks that so shaped my childhood.
While Danger Mouse produced the beats, it was Cee-Lo who wrote the lyrics. Cee-Lo's talent with wordplay is unlike that of anyone in music today, and he exhibits this strength on St. Elsewhere. His mixture of spirituality and soulful lament goes on throughout the album, transforming into party-starting anthems of fun and enlightenment at the drop of the hat, showcasing his versatility as a performer.
The duo proudly boasts of its collaboration process, which consisted of each of them trying to outdo each other with crazy beats and crazier lyrics. Looking deep into the soul of the album, listeners see much more than songs asking when was the last time they danced.
This is a collaboration between two minds that refuse to be pigeonholed. They are two minds that have gone on the fringes of pop music for the last few years and have found solid followings because of their unclassifiable styles. St. Elsewhere is an album of utter curiosity that goes far beyond simple dance-hall craziness.
