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The Odd Couple
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Gnarls Barkley
List Price: $18.98
Our Price: $7.53
You Save: $11.45 (60%)
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Product Details
- Artist: Gnarls Barkley
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- Binding: Audio CD
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- EAN: 0075678994692
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- Label: Atlantic
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- Manufacturer: Atlantic
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- Number of Discs: 1
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- Product Group: Music
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- Publisher: Atlantic
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- Release Date: 2008-03-21
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- Studio: Atlantic
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- Title: The Odd Couple
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- UPC: 075678994692
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Avg Customer Rating: 
Product Description: With its cinematic origins The Odd Couple is the natural title for the second album by a pair who seem to spend as much time in wardrobe as the studio and whose recordings are often compared to film scores. Their greatest hit, 2006's "Crazy" was even built around a chunk of a spaghetti western soundtrack. Yet after the success of 2006's excellent St Elsewhere, the collaboration of singer Thomas "Cee-Lo Green" Callaway and producer Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton has become a permanent institution. The Odd Couple certainly lives up to expectations, and though there is no obvious smash to match "Crazy", it's a smoother affair than their often hyperactive debut, the unsettling "Open Book" aside. Highlights include the excellent, agitated lead-off single "Run", a smart slice of off kilter pop-soul, and its most obvious successor, the instant classic "Surprise". "Going On" manages to weld an eighties pomp-pop introduction to a surprisingly vulnerable Cee-Lo performance while the plaintive, bluesy "Who's Gonna Save My Soul" catches him at his most soulful. "Whatever" is a cute, rather bratty sixties pastiche halfway to Britpop (though no Englishman ever used the expression "y'all") while the warped bubblegum pop of "Blind Mary" and the more traditionally ominous "Would Be Killer" are opposite sides of the same twisted coin. Informed by rap and dance, but occupying their own unique genre, Gnarls Barkley continue to soundtrack the movie that, so far, exists only in their heads. --Steve Jelbert
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Customer Reviews
Dissappointed
I saw these guys on SNL and was blown away. I must have been pretty loaded at the time because the CD sure doesn't come across with the same energy.
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kitschy sheds its petals
I liked Gnarls better back when he used to sell me copies of "Grit" magazine and cut my hoop nets when I was looking toward the fire he'd set in my wastebasket. Now, he's whooping it up like a sitcom diversion, jibberjabbing like a simian slutdive bellhop. I like mockingbirds in a guilty way when they don't know I'm awake, spying on their mating chatter. But this, this by nature is grandiose, cellular, predisposed, grating. And I'm having a major case of deja vu. Does it even matter anymore? We're an expendable society, so why not embrace polymers? Why not kill all the fish?
But I plodded on, wondering what this "soup of the day" really was. Were those bits of carrot or flesh wounds? And it didn't matter because we had techmologicalized. We were pushing buttons now and DNA-approved to gain access to pay-per-view oxygen. We evolved through hope and memory loss. By the time I reached "Whatever," I really didn't care, which provided perhaps the finest moment of this failed experiment -- a time-transcendent conversation with Gnarls truly, wrapped in tusks of irony. But I still didn't know the way out of this cardboard box jungle -- the bird, strangled by glory-trolling, decaying in uncaptured sunshine.
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You Gotta Be Kidding me
Is this stuff music? Sounds like a bunch of drug heads going on a road trip. Please, give me a break. This stuff is not music. A child can make noise but you expect more from adults calling themselves artist or musicians.
I purchased this junk based on a recommendation from Sound & Vision Magazine. What a mistake. As I listened, I started doing paperwork because it was so horrible sounding and boring. Then this mess became like torture. Couldn't finish listening to this trash.
This should be listed under miscellaneous instead of music. How it can be considered music, I have no idea.
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Best CD of 2008 so far
This is a wonderful album, one of the best I've heard so far this year. Someone mentioned it's like psychedelic soul. Give it a try. And if you happen to catch Gnarls Barkley playing on SNL in reruns, you'll be blown away.
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There are down sides to instant success
Were this to be the first release by Gnarls Barkley, I would give it 5 stars. It has a good mix of mo-town grooves with a modern spin that gives it an edge that is very desireable (just like their first release) in this day of regurgitated crap that all sounds the same.
That being said, this is not the first release by the duo and so, they must contend with the stunning succes of their damn-near-perfect St. Elsewhere.
It really isn't that there is anything wrong with this album. It is an excellent effort with all of the desired qualities that made the first effort so wondeful. To be honest, in my humble opinion, this album doesn't really contain any standouts (as opposed to the freshman effort which had "Smiley Faces", "Just a Thought", "Who Cares", and of course, the world-renowned "Crazy"), though it is a thorough and solid effort that deserves a listen; it just doesn't have anything REALLY special like the first album did (but don't let that take anything away from what they have done here; it is really daggone good).
This pair, Danger Mouse & Cee-Lo, have put out a strong somphomore effort that is deservedly receiveing attention and rave reviews. The fact that it is not quite "St. Elsewhere" is immaterial. These guys set the bar too high with their first album, but that should not be punishable by 1 star reviews, rather, it should be praised, as should this album, for keeping up the quality while not just remixing the first effort. Basically, I can't give this album 5 stars because I gave St. Elsewhere 5 stars. Technically, I would probably give this album 4.25-4.5 stars.
So, to sum up, St. Elsewhere is still the better of the 2 albums, but if you like that album, this shouldn't dissapoint. Don't listen to the naysayers and morons that wanted an exact repeat of St. Elsewhere. That is what is wrong with music today; it all sounds the same and people want it all to sound the same; it's so freekin' boring. Damned if you do, damned if you don't; I guess.
Don't hold it against these guys that they EVOLVED a little and DIDN'T rely solely on what they had already done; some of the reviewers are complaining, that is really what people mean if they say that this isn't St. Elsewhere and give it 1 or 2 stars. I definitely think this is worthy of the legend that will be known as Gnarls Barkely.
I only hope that they have something special lined up for their third release; it's gonna get tougher and tougher for these guys to keep producing at the high level which they have now maintained through 2 albums. They have the opportunity to really be something special; let's hope it happens.
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