I’m just feeling like unraveling myself some more throughout
this heady space of a blog we’ve created and it definitely feels like a good
enough time to try to start. And while I know December feels like a reach, I
think we can sort of combine for a strong showing. Plus, that’s just such an
awesome word, it feels good to use it and try a refreshing new outlook.
I had St. Elsewhere when it came out, I remember it came out
in April 2006 and I remember I bought it that weekend or soon after. I remember
that spring waking up at like five in the am to work at an old job until the
very deep night. I remember doing it all because Radiohead was that summer and
that was the entire funding: relentless overtime. I remember burning out, I
also vaguely remember the details of those days – it all feels so far away.
Anyways, this album I remember because I’d blast it early in the morning. I
fell hard for “Crazy” but the album didn’t grow that much on me. Subjectively
speaking, it be like somewhere in the murky 60s or 70s in a list of 100 from
that year. Regardless, the point is “Crazy,” yes, that year – man “Wolf Like Me”
is perhaps better? – well so yeah it was the best song, I love it still, some
say best of that decade that just ended? I wouldn’t argue much, but I very
recently just found out this “Crazy” used a great sample.
I’ve never seen this movie it’s from, Preparati la bara, but
the song is “Last Man Standing” by the Reverberi Bros. This sounds like a
solemn hymn, especially the way the voices resonate throughout, without ever
vocalizing an actual word. The trumpet, it’s definitely the leader – it lulls,
and rolls over – before the strings add flair and drama; all together, it’s a
sort of marching, towering piece that definitely breathes a steady pace.
Mechanically, it’s less than three minutes and still, very moving in it of
itself.
And well, this is “Crazy.” Of course you gotta love the way
the voices, this time, feel like they might be going somewhere, whereas on the
Italian original, they’re far more pensive. On this version, Danger Mouse’s
beats take the high road and bumping, steady and propulsive, they allow for
Cee-lo’s voice to just rush in and out of focus. I think that’s the brilliance
of it, the ebb and flow of their styles into what is obviously tremendous
chemistry. And it’s a nod to both of them really when noticing the success
Danger Mouse has had outside of Gnarls Barkley (Beck, The Black Keys, Danger
Doom) and Cee-lo already has a song some fashion as the best song of this decade?
(“FUCK YOU”) that this is really a pretty fantastic duo. And… this is a bad ass
video right?
I remember seeing them cover aforesaid Radiohead’s “Reckoner”
at ACL in 2007, at the height of the “In Rainbows gush of 2007, i.e. Radiohead
made music before 2007?, i.e. the time Radiohead really broke through, i.e.
what’s Kid A, i.e. the original surge, i.e. and does the Bends matter anymore?” As in the answer to each
is ‘whatever the hipsters say?’ But seriously, here’s to more and hopefully for
all ours’’’ sakes, better output. Maybe? I think so. Til then. – Bryan
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