gnarles barkley

milkandhoney

Well-known member
im surprised there aint been a thread about this yet but yeah anyway i was wondering what you people think about this?

a couple of whtie kids i know absolutely love this, think it's really original and really 'funky' etc but umm i cant rlly get down with it at all...cee-lo's caterwauling over the chorus of 'crazy' is fairly horrible, and overall impression i get is that this is music for indie kids to fill the non-indie music quota on their ipods to. which is a shame because i liked dangerdoom and grey album was okayyyish

anyway has anyone got anything more well-thought out to say about this? anyone actually heard the album?
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
I would concur with your view Re: "Crazy"-- its alright, its ok, there are worthy people involved, but it seems pretty flat and dull (incredibly boring drum programming, very obvious chord progressions etc etc). I would have thought its appeal to hip hop consumers would be limited, I've heard it touted as a next gen "Hey Ya!", but I think thats overstating the case a bit... I've not heard the album itself, I know its got good reviews, but what does that mean?
 

milkandhoney

Well-known member
In the time that it takes you to read this at least one forward thinking 17 year old white kid who wears tight Mars Volta t-shirts will have probably sent a friend a message along the lines of “OMG Did you see the one where they dressed up like characters from Napoleon Dynamite? We quote that movie all the time. And the name, Gnarls Barkley, is so clever, get it? Remember Charles Barkley? He played basketball. I’m not sure what Gnarls means, but those guys are so funny. Did you see that there’s a song called “Go-Go Gadget Gospel” - remember Inspector Gadget? That’s soo funny that they remember it too. I sure do like the way they reference something or someone that that I remember but haven’t thought about in a little while, and then they put a twist on it. ”

quite


jus switched on totp to see fearne cotton introducing crazy at number one spot saying "it's been on top for four weeks and still sounds SO FRESH"

no it doesn't you ugly cunt
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Harshness abounds!

Its quite bland, yeah. It really doesn't sound that fresh after hearing it over and over and over... seveal cnuts in my office have chosen the full track as their ring tone-- gah****!!! Played out...
 

mms

sometimes
it's a really lovely song and it's got that danceable, lyrically emotional and soulful , funky quality of stuff like 'hideaway' and 'you've got the love' etc ...

it's very memorable and who cares if it' s popular at last something worthy of being popular is popular.
sometimes you lot throw the baby out with the bathwater.
 
Last edited:

dHarry

Well-known member
Crazy was vaguely arresting/interesting to hear on daytime radio once or twice, but is really just this year's Moby/Candi Staton's You Got The Love remix/Rob D's Clubbed To Death/Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy...

Here's Geoff Barrow (Portishead) on myspace:

Geoff said:
and narls berkley can fuk off too ......."kwazzy hahaha bless your soul".......fuk off

[following on from this:]

so just to let you know ive always hated modern lounge , trip hop-down-tempo electronica style moby- boards of canada - style music ive always thought it was souless pap.

i dont think people have ever understood that our music was made from our influences which were hiphop - film- jazz- experimental music....and not some electronica trip hop shit....

when we first released our records people took them back to the shop cos the said they sounded odd.....and distorted.

our aim was not to make people chill out and smoke a blunt, but fuck with peoples heads

now music like dummy is being used to sell relaxation courses.. .. and that makes me sick to the guts...
 

Tim F

Well-known member
"Crazy" is deeply boring musically, but I think Cee-Lo is pretty great on it, his performance is so meticulous in its timing, phrasing, everything - that "now who do you who do you who do you who do you think you are? Ha ha ha! Bless your soul... you really think you're in control?" bit is consummate.

I guess people who think that soul shouldn't be planned out like that might find it irritating.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I first heard Crazy on the radio in a shop and it immediately caught my attention and made me wonder what it is, I think it's really nice and unusual/striking.
The review putting the boot in on the link above seems to completely miss the point - so what if it isn't hip-hop, I never thought that it was I just thought it was a good song.
I can understand someone being annoyed by journalists describing it as "experimental hip-hop" and I can understand that he doesn't like what he perceives as their fanbase but surely it's recognised now that you can't review a band by their audience or what people write about them.
 

D7_bohs

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
I first heard Crazy on the radio in a shop and it immediately caught my attention and made me wonder what it is, I think it's really nice and unusual/striking.
The review putting the boot in on the link above seems to completely miss the point - so what if it isn't hip-hop, I never thought that it was I just thought it was a good song.
I can understand someone being annoyed by journalists describing it as "experimental hip-hop" and I can understand that he doesn't like what he perceives as their fanbase but surely it's recognised now that you can't review a band by their audience or what people write about them.

Same experience - heard it weeks before it came out on a radio station my daughter was listening to in the car and immediately had the 'whats that?' feeling you get with that pop moment; some records seem to float in from outer space, and 'crazy' though I'm not putting it up there with what hearing (say) Ray Charles or Elvis decontextualised on the airwaves must have been like, had a bit of that. Portishead boy whinging about his dull as the bristol channel on a dull day 'experimentalism' has nothing to do with it (and if he didn't want to be the sound of relaxation, he could try not being so soporific). Pop is the sound of that piece of D+G cult studs wisdom about capitalism deterritorialising to reterritorialise; something comes from nowhere and tells you - listener/ consumer - that you too come from nowhere and can therefore go anywhere; and while that moment can be harnassed to atomise you, it can also be a powerful tool in one's own self (re-) determination.

Hip- hop mongs will doubtless hear a record like this as wek-ass pop sell out, just as we overgrown post punk worriers hear the Arctic Monkeys as overdetermined and derivative - but to a ear that can't tell the difference between Sheffield and media london and thinks the English class system is some thing to do with the queen and the changing of the guard, an AM record will similarly come from nowhere, heard as universal or at least universalisable, late teen anxiety and recontextualised to fit. And what the AMs have and all the other FF Kaisers, Bloc P types don't is that sense of attained perfection of a world suggested and - potentially - capable of being filled out with you in it ........
 
how bitter does geoff barrow sound? the fool needs to

shut up and make another record. GB aren't even trip-hop. If he's so annoyed by his tracks being licensed by compilation give back the sync and licensing dough but something tells me he won't. As for some of you lot....grow up man. Everytime I'm on here you lot are complaining about something - do you guys even like music? 'crazy' did get played to death but its still a dope tune. Dangermouse isn't a great producer and a few of us know that but stop the complaning though man.
 

milkandhoney

Well-known member
mms said:
it's very memorable and who cares if it' s popular at last something worthy of being popular is popular.
sometimes you lot throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Tactics said:
As for some of you lot....grow up man. Everytime I'm on here you lot are complaining about something - do you guys even like music? 'crazy' did get played to death but its still a dope tune. Dangermouse isn't a great producer and a few of us know that but stop the complaning though man.

okay i admit i probably sounded a bit pessimistic/prejudiced against indie people but in my defence i made this thread mostly to guage opinion and find out more about gnarles barkley, hence me asking questions like "what do you people think of this?" and "anyone actually heard the album"

but even so, why not complain? this song is getting rinsed out on radio and everyone from indie kids to broadsheet writers to fearne fucking cotton is going on bout how amazing this shit is blah blah blah i personally find it rlly irritating and ludicrously overrated..surely that's good enough reason to complain? it's not as if there aint enough support for it...
 

hint

party record with a siren
In what respect do you consider it to be overrated?

The vocals are packed with hooks - both lyrical and melodic. It was always going to be a massive hit.

Are you surprised at how popular it is? Are you surprised that Fearne Cotton likes it? :confused:
 

geto.blast

snap on rims
hint said:
Are you surprised at how popular it is? Are you surprised that Fearne Cotton likes it? :confused:


no , those "in the know" will tell you danger-rat is 99% hype.

maybe it's a good project but the man annoys. anyone who was aware of the whole "grey album" fiasco can tell you it s all a shtick.

back on planet-for-real-shit: anyone here know anything about "baltimore breaks" ?
 

mms

sometimes
milkandhoney said:
but even so, why not complain? this song is getting rinsed out on radio and everyone from indie kids to broadsheet writers to fearne fucking cotton is going on bout how amazing this shit is blah blah blah i personally find it rlly irritating and ludicrously overrated..surely that's good enough reason to complain? it's not as if there aint enough support for it...

it's really quite different from anything out there in popland at the mo, and ultimatley catchy and tuneful, you know how much of an indie nation britain has become at the moment , nothing else really gets a look in.

The other reason it might be bigged up is the two dudes are cartoonish and like a laugh, plus dangermouse has game, after producing some of the gorrillaz and the one off act of brilliant controversial brainstorming that was the grey album. It's like the gates are open for pr fed types like fern cotton to rep em and feel they are being fresh.

even if it is ludicrously overrated, which is probably true really, it's certainly a welcome breath of air.
 

milkandhoney

Well-known member
point taken about breath of fresh air. still kind of wish it was something less annoying tho init

geto.blast didnt you/hip hop 'heads' rate dangerdoom?
 
Top