St. Elsewhere

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
St. Elsewhere
Studio album by Gnarls Barkley

Publication
(s)

May 26, 2006

Label (s) Warner Music Group

Genre (s)

Alternative , hip-hop , soul

Title (number)

14th

running time

37:21 min

production

DJ Danger Mouse

chronology
- St. Elsewhere The Odd Couple
(2008)

St. Elsewhere is the debut album by the alternative duo Gnarls Barkley . It was released in May 2006 and was very successful commercially, primarily because of the single "Crazy".

About the album

St. Elsewhere was created between 2003 and 2005. The album was produced entirely by DJ Danger Mouse . It is sample- heavy, but many instruments were played live. Most songs have fast beats and can be assigned to the genres of electronica and hip-hop , but also mix many other styles. Cee-Lo Green sings most of the songs, only "Feng Shui" is completely rapped . The texts he wrote often deal with negative emotions and mental disorders such as paranoia , schizophrenia and depression , but also overcoming them. Occasionally they contrast the often happy, but sometimes also melancholy melodies.

A special edition of the album with a 92-page booklet and a bonus CD was released in England in November and in Germany in December . This contains the videos of the three singles from St. Elsewhere and also of “Go-Go Gadget Gospel” as well as live performances by Gnarls Barkley, including on Top of the Pops .

History and singles

Even before its release, St. Elsewhere received enormous attention from the lead single "Crazy", which was released in April 2006. At the end of 2005 the song was discovered by the English radio station BBC Radio 1 and received an enormous airplay . In April 2006, “Crazy”, at the time only available as a download , reached number 1 in the UK Top 40 , something that no single had achieved before. It held the top position there for nine weeks and in countless other countries in the top 3. Gnarls Barkley then decided to take the song off the market so that listeners would not get tired of it; in addition, they want to concentrate on the second single "Smiley Faces". In April 2008, the song hit two million downloads.

In 2006 “Crazy” won an MTV Europe Music Award in the main category Best Song . A year later, the song received a Grammy for Best Alternative Performance at the Grammy Awards , and it was also nominated in the Single of the Year category. The music video for "Crazy", shot in the style of a Rorschach test , won two MTV Video Music Awards in 2006 and was nominated for a Europe Music Award. From Rolling Stone "Crazy" was voted the best song of 2006. In addition, the song was by countless musicians gecovert , including Nelly Furtado , The Raconteurs , Bryan Adams , The Kooks and Billy Idol .

Track list
  1. Go-Go Gadget Gospel
  2. Crazy
  3. St. Elsewhere
  4. Gone Daddy Gone
  5. Smiley Faces
  6. The Boogie Monster
  7. Feng Shui
  8. Just a thought
  9. Transformer
  10. Who Cares?
  11. On-line
  12. Necromancer
  13. Storm coming
  14. The Last Time

"Smiley Faces" was released in July, but could not build on the success of "Crazy". In Ireland and England the song was able to place in the top 10. The accompanying video is a mockumentary about Gnarls Barkley, shown in historical scenes similar to those in Zelig or Forrest Gump . Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell have guest appearances on the video. It won an MTV Video Music Award in 2007 .

In November, the double A-side “Who Cares? / Gone Daddy Gone ”. Videos were shot for both songs, with "Gone Daddy Gone" receiving the greater media attention. The track is a cover version of the Violent Femmes song from 1982. The single only reached number 60 in the UK Top 40.

reception

At the Grammy Awards 2007 , St. Elsewhere was nominated in the categories Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Album and won the latter.

Reviews

St. Elsewhere was received mostly positively. His metascore is 81 out of 100 points.

The e-zine laut.de rated the album with four out of five points. His style is described as a “ madness from soul, New Orleans carnival, electronics, gospel , hip hop and freak show ”, and the ingenuity that is attributed to Danger Mouse's successful sample selection and Cee-Los's multi-faceted voice is particularly praised.

“Brilliantly produced, Gnarls Barkley manage to create chronic tension with 14 strongly varying songs. And that without being able to assign them to a specific direction. Gospel interludes exist alongside hard beats, remote sounds complement a velvety soul voice. There is no more than 37 minutes of music on this record, but it is so varied that those who want more Gnarls Barkley stuff should just run the disc again. Especially because some songs are not as catchy as “Crazy” and only become apparent after listening to it for the second or third time. "St. Elsewhere "makes it clear that two absolute professionals are at work here [...]"

- SWR3 .de

The All Music Guide highlights the individual achievements of Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo and awards St. Elsewhere four and a half out of five points .

"With the help of Danger Mouse's platinum ear and intricate vocal productions, Green is revealed as a top-notch post- millennial soul singer. Even when he's floating another mass of wise, serene gibberish, DM simply drops another production trick to keep things tight. [...] Although Gnarls Barkley topping the charts was a slight fluke, the excellence of St. Elsewhere could have been seen coming a mile away. "

Further reviews:

  • Juice : 4.5 out of 6 points
  • Plattentests.de : 7 out of 10 points
  • Rolling Stone : 3.5 out of 5 points
  • Q : 4 out of 5 points

In 2006 lists of the best albums published by PopMatters e-zine and Entertainment Weekly magazine , St. Elsewhere took first place, while it landed second and tenth, respectively, in comparable year-end ratings by Spin and Q magazines .

Charts

album

year title Chart positions annotation
DE AT CH UK US
2006 St. Elsewhere 6th 2 2 1 4th First published (DE): May 26, 2006

Singles

year title Chart positions annotation
DE AT CH UK US
2006 Crazy 3 1 1 1 2 First published (DE): April 28, 2006
2006 Smiley Faces 32 37 37 10 - First published (DE): September 8, 2006
2006 Who Cares? / Gone Daddy Gone 84 - - 60 - First published ("Gone Daddy Gone", DE): December 8, 2006

Individual evidence

  1. a b All Music Guide : Review of the album
  2. laut.de : “Gnarls Barkley: Band stops hit single 'Crazy'” ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , May 29, 2006 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.laut.de
  3. RIAA .com: "Flo Takes 'Low' to New Heights" , April 22, 2008
  4. Rolling Stone : "The 100 Best Songs of the Year," December 8, 2006
  5. Slate : "Crazy for 'Crazy' - Everyone is covering Gnarls Barkley's big hit." , September 7, 2006
  6. ^ Metacritic : collected reviews of the album
  7. laut.de: Review of the album ( Memento of the original from December 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.laut.de
  8. SWR3 .de: Review of the album
  9. ^ Juice, May 2006 edition
  10. Plattentests.de : Review of the album
  11. Rolling Stone : Album Review , May 9, 2006
  12. a b Information about St. Elsewhere ( Memento of the original from January 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tower.com
  13. ^ "Best Albums of 2006" on PopMatters.com , December 23, 2006