By Jeff Vrabel
NEW YORK (Billboard) -
The title of Gnarls Barkley's
sophomore record is the first, and probably last, funny thing
about it.
"I'm very fortunate and privileged to still be relevant, to
get a chance to listen back at my music in a way where it seems
as if it doesn't belong to me," he says. "At this point it's
ours now to share. There's a bit of vulnerability in that,
although there's also strength."
That's the first in a series of dualities Green will bring
up in discussing "The Odd Couple," a record that, like its
predecessor, is about playing things off one another, forging
matches out of seeming incongruities and continuing to scavenge
around the intersection between the weird and the wondrous.
UNLIKELY OVERLAP
"Dark has this negative stigma attached to it," Green says.
"But my take on it is that the sun does set at some point in
time every day. So it's equal parts dark and light."
If it takes listeners a few spins to catch on, that's fine.
"I've grown pretty accustomed to people watching, but not
necessarily recognizing, the difference between seeing and
recognizing something for what it truly is," he says. "And I
accept those terms, but by default, some of the time, there's a
part of any human being that just wants to be embraced right
out of the gate." And here Green pauses for a chuckle. "I am
aware of my own oddness and uniqueness," he says. "I can dig
it."
More than its runaway hit forerunner, "The Odd Couple"
prowls around that unlikely overlap between surf-pop/spy-movie
sounds and new-school soul. Such tracks as "Whatever" and
"Surprise" find Green pushing his ever-improving vocals into
new and sinister areas. Second single "Who's Gonna Save My
Soul" might be his finest performance to date, even if it kind
of makes you want to give him an ice cream or a hug. "(That)
was the first song we did where we knew, 'Wow.' It felt magical
again," Danger Mouse says.
For his part, Danger Mouse (real name: Brian Burton) is
more interested in conjuring a kind of dark-carnival
soundscape, a sound much closer to "The Boogie Monster" than to
megahit "Crazy." The first single, "Run," is probably the
closest the new disc comes to the pop side, and even its chorus
sounds like a plea for escape. "That song doesn't really sound
like anything else on the album," Burton says. "But that was
the same thing with 'Crazy."' And that worked out OK.
THE BIG 'REVEAL'
Indeed, in a day when bands can offer unprecedented access
to their fans, Gnarls Barkley has consciously sprinted in the
other direction, leaking out only choice bits, guarding against
what Green and Burton see as an industry-wide tendency toward
overexposure. (Last summer, Burton consented to play a track
for a Billboard staffer on the condition he didn't ask word one
of a question about it.)
"The buzzword on the first record was 'reveal,"' Downtown
Records head of marketing and sales Michael Pontecorvo says.
"You'll remember there were five or six promo images, and none
of them were in everyday street clothes. It went with the whole
'Who is Gnarls Barkley?' idea."
The plan certainly didn't hurt the band's sales. "St.
Elsewhere" has sold 1.3 million copies in the United States,
according to Nielsen SoundScan; it peaked at No. 4 on the
Billboard 200 and spent 47 weeks on the chart. "Crazy" spent
seven weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and crossed over
to Billboard's modern rock, R&B/hip-hop and adult contemporary
charts.
The first time around, Green believes, was the sound of him
and Burton "feeling our way through it. It was truly an
experiment in being the first of a kind. You can only be so
certain about your intention when you're doing that, and not as
certain about the outcome. Music can always be an act of
faith."
RELUCTANT ROAD WARRIORS
The Wizard of Oz," the cast of the "Austin Powers"movies, astronauts, hippies, tennis players and a hair metal
band.
Yet Green sounds hesitant about the idea of taking Gnarls
out to support "The Odd Couple." "Believe it or not, I still
can't afford to take my entire family on the road with me," he
says. "I'm a family man, and I miss my kids and family very
much, which is why I've never been so hot to tour. I've been on
the road all my life. I've got suitcases I haven't unpacked
from last year."
Burton concurs. "Our desire is to make another record more
than anything." But Pontecorvo hints that a tour statement will
be released around the record's release date, though it won't
be a standard trek.
"It's an entirely different thing to walk out onstage to
the love and embrace of a crowd that's singing along with
something you could have very possibly been alone in," Green
says. "And it's about that too. It makes me able to complain a
whole lot less."
Alice Cooper and David Bowie and Elton
John
"Let's face it," he adds, "we both did notice that the
album was dark, right? So we're just trying to have fun with
it, you know what I mean? A spoonful of sugar makes the
medicine go down."
Reuters/Billboard
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