from a much better writer than me....

Highlight of an article in the Age on Gnarls Barkley's new Album, St. Elsewhere,
written by Garry Mulholland, author of This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco:

"...One of St Elsewhere's charms is its brevity. Another is its
enormous range. Like Demon Days it fizzes with ideas, from
cartoonish horror stomps to singalong '80s pop and a Violent
Femmes cover (Gone Daddy Gone). It sounds fresh, unprecious and
very post-Hey Ya, but taken as a whole - like so much else in the
Danger Mouse portfolio - it's notoriously hard to
categorise. OutKast meets UNKLE with shades of Stevie Wonder? A
Funkadelic salad with NERD croutons and a Massive Attack
vinaigrette?

"I call it industrial euro-soul," says Cee-Lo. "Some of them
beats are dirty, like a factory. They sound like he's on the
laptop with gloves on. The 'euro' is because industrial music is
more European like, you know, Kraftwerk or ... Aphex Twin or some
shit."

Danger Mouse licks his spoon. "I prefer 'psychedelic soul'," he
says. "Psychedelic music is pretty much all I listen to right
now. Really raw experimental stuff from the '60s and '70s, stuff
like the Churchills, the Electric Prunes. They would make music
knowing that they could have made it more sellable, but they
didn't. I love that. That's the spirit I wanted
here. Experimentation and melody."


his view on the single, Crazy:

"...Hailing Crazy as single of the year in May smacks of hyperbole, now doesn't it? Actually ... no. Its chart history and success is made all the more extraordinary by the kind of record it is. It's a soul record. Not R&B, nor hip-hop-soul, nor a Joss Stone-style pastiche, but an organic, modern soul record, relevant to its times and shorn of nostalgia. Add the fact that Gnarls Barkley are almost invisible, and you have one of those wonderful moments when the music-buying public rebels and votes for quality, depth and integrity.

Crazy is an outrageously simple record. A disco beat. A woody, staccato bassline. Discreet gospel harmonies. A few verses and some sampled strings on the chorus. And a voice. But this is a voice straight out of the church, containing all of soul's twinning of strength and vulnerability, and testifying, with a somewhat arty lyric, about a feeling that most of us feel in these alienating, bewildering days - that madness and death may be more comforting than living a life where you have to "think you're in control".

The song kicks straight in without intro fanfare, and ends when it runs out of words, very much like an unfinished demo. It's so simple it's weird."

Go listen for yourself. I'm sold.