Tearing into Gnarls Barkley
I love Cee-Lo, and have since the Goodie Mobb days. His appearances on the Dungeon Family album outshone Big Boi and Andre, and his solo albums, while uneven, had given me hope he might just have a truly great record in him.
Apparently that record is NOT Gnarly Barkley, his collaboration with producer Danger Mouse.
And why would it be? Who is Danger Mouse, anyway? Did anyone actually hear The Grey Album? It wasn't very good. It was certainly no White Albulum, I'll tell you that much right now. It was the sort of record that people who don't actually like hip-hop buy, so they can talk about how they like "some hip-hop, like Jurassic 5."
My suspicions about this new project seem to be becoming real... noz writes over at Posse on Blogway:
Non rap listeners and critics eat this garbage up because they’ve just been waiting for a project from a rapper that would prove that they are not narrow-minded, but isn’t so rappy. These people are the worst types of music listeners in the world and need to just own up to being square ass square butts (or racists) who can’t fuck with rap already. They are no doubt very impressed that a rapper was able to have such wide lense musical perspective to not only know, but to cover a Violent Femmes song, as Gnarls Barkley does. Odds are these are that people lack the perspective to realize that there is a reason that nobody remembers any Violent Femmes, except for that one song.Noz' piece is very illuminating. You should read it.
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posted by Jesse Thorn at Saturday, April 22, 2006
21 Comments:
I've only heard the single so far. Color me unimpressed. Not a big fan of either guys, to be honest - I can appreciate Cee-Lo but he's not really my bag, and as for Danger Mouse, well, he's certainly not horrible, but I fail to see any greatness (I like DangerDoom but I mostly credit Doom for that).
Isn't it a bit snobbish to criticise people for feigning interest in a genre they don't know about? I mean, if it's totally an affectation, then fine, but there's no way of knowing that. Wouldn't it make more sense, as a supporter of hip-hop, to encourage these people to listen to better rap, instead of shaming them away from it forever?
Speaking of rap and shame, check this out: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pq6vufmTJ9Q&search=average%20homeboy
As a big supporter of this group, I kind of walked into this one a little pissed. But I read it without letting my feelings about the group come into play... and this article is garbage. He's part of a group of people who have emerged from the folds of the explosions of sites like Pitchfork- the hipster hater, who hates anything that could even be mildly associated with hipsterism. This is pretty prevalent in us hip-hop fans, because people are tired of Little Brother and Boot Camp Clik coverage going to Jeezy and the Re-Up Gang.
But f**k those people. They're as despicable as the hipsters, enjoying or hating music before they ever hear it. Like many of these critics, how many times does he actually discuss the music? It's mostly a barrage of insults at the fans, and when he does compare it other music, he brings up quite a few great albums. This album's solid, a lot like the N*E*R*D records with much better writing (even if I don't like it as much as I liked those). An even better comparison is that it sounds like one of Cee-Lo's solo records if there was finally some level of consistency. So basically, most of the album really doesn't sound like alternative rock at all. This guy wanted to hate this album before he heard it. And I'm not sure he did.
And worst of all, his style of thought and writing is the polar opposite of the New Sincerity. It's that Same Ol' Bullsh*t.
I was gonna post a long huge response to your post and Noz' article, but I ran out of steam. In the end, everyone's gonna stick to their guns on stuff as personal as music, so my two cents is just my two cents, same as Noz' is his and yours is yours.
I enjoy the Gnarls Barkley album. I also enjoyed the Grey Album. Apparently this somehow means that I'm a tool of the marketers and not a person capable of liking something regardless of whether or not it'll damage my cred as a true hip hop fan.
But it definitely doesn't mean my palate is somehow less than someone else's or unsophisticated or afraid of "real hip hop," just sometimes I like some well produced pop music. That's all Gnarls Barkley is and attacking it as somehow contributing to the crapification of hip hop just doesn't make sense to me.
It's late, and I'm tired, but...
Cee-Lo is an exceptionally good rapper, and he has a beautiful singing voice, but his songs have been pretty weak to this point, except some of the ones that were driven by great production (like the Timbaland one on Soul Machine). I'm looking forward to hearing this record, and I hope I'm pleasantly surprised.
Matt --- the problem is that hip-hop fans are tired of rock fans acting like they know more about hip-hop than hip-hop fans do. Like they really have the cream of the hip-hop crop picked out, so they don't need to have any understanding of the genre. If they own an RJD2 album (or even more annoyingly, if they ironically own some Dipset CDs or whatever).
Premo -- rest assured that while Noz is a hater, he's definately not what you're describing. He is coming from a very genuine love of hip-hop, and he's exceptionally knowledgable.
xtop -- You're totally off-base. What noz is writing about is the way that psuedo-hip-hop is judged as "better" than straight hip-hop by listeners who are judging it on rock standards. The problem here is that they're (and I presume this isn't you) often dishonest about this... they priveledge their musical values, which are based on rock values, and are very different from what a hip-hop fan would support on the basis of hip-hop values.
A good example of this is flow: this is probably the single most important element of MCing, but it's basically completely ignored by rock fans when they're telling you about how they like "real hip-hop" or "hip-hop, not rap" or whatever.
I just want to make a comment on the Grey Album, as I have heard it. To what Jesse said about assessing hip-hop from rock standards, I think many rock fans fell in love with the Grey Album not so much as a great album but as an excellent education into how a sample based hip-hop album is made. Not all serious music fans have encyclopedic knowledge of 70s soul or 80s funk so when they hear a rap song they won't know a bobby caldwell sample from a stevie wonder sample from an original groove. But most music fans, especially rock fans, have full knowledge of The Beatles albums and so hearing the Grey Album is like being behind the curtain while the magician does the trick. Its like how your algebra teacher asked you to "show your work" on the test to prove you didn't just take the answer from the guy right beside you. The Grey Album was for rock fans exactly what Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You" wasn't... One clearly revealing a hip-hop producer to be something truly creative, the other clearly revealing a hip-hop producer to be a true hack. I think the Grey Album's quality as music is a secondary concern for many of its fans. Its primarily a conversation piece. An excellent one in my opinion.
I also want to point out that fans of one genre often seem to need some kind of half this half that, musical centaur kind of thing to bring you from one genre to another. To no one in particular, what was the first jazz record you truly enjoyed? I bet it wasn't John Coltrane's Ascension.
Why are you dudes having fits about this? Us backpackers will buy our Aesop Rock and our MF DOOM discs and we're fine with that. You "real hip-hop fans" (which, I might add, is a term just as stupid and condescending as you claim the hipsters are being) can roll with whatever you like. If you dig what you dig, why should the Cool Kids digging what they dig effect you?
Furthermore, just like I said re: the sarah silverman article, follow the money. this gnarles barkley record is going to make some people a LOT of money. So...what's the problem?
"These people are the worst types of music listeners in the world and need to just own up to being square ass square butts (or racists) who can’t fuck with rap already. They are no doubt very impressed that a rapper was able to have such wide lense musical perspective to not only know, but to cover a Violent Femmes song, as Gnarls Barkley does. Odds are these are that people lack the perspective to realize that there is a reason that nobody remembers any Violent Femmes, except for that one song."
Nah, the worst kind of fan is the one who argues that what you like, you like because you're an a-hole and that what he likes, he likes because he has superior taste. Or other reasons besides just simple enjoyment. Replace all the rap references with post-punk throwbacks, and the article is primo hipster rag fodder. No difference, same crappy superior, intellectual attitude toward pop art. The worst part is the pretense of a constructive complaint. Does the good music go away because the squares discover the bad stuff? No, but this kind of discussion allows the author to display his geeky knowledge of a genre, like some jerk lamenting how modern horror movie fans haven't seen anything by Mario Bava.
Plus, is it possible to approach rap/hip-hop the way Danger Mouse does and make something awesome? Of course.
There's another issue here, which is about priveledge.
The cultural values of the US of A, when it comes to which pop-art is considered "art," are very rock-centric. And those rock-centric people are the ones who are prone to celebrating mediocrities like The Grey Album.
People who care about hip-hop have generally spent their entire lives being told that the popular art form they love is lesser, or that it's only good in certain cases (noz mentioned The Roots, who play instruments... I'd add Public Enemy, who were noisy and political).
It's not really about whether that's good, although it sometimes means mediocrities like Jurassic 5 or the Grey Album get undue praise. What is is about is all this cultural force behind rock-centric judgements.
Not to drag Pitchfork into this (the elephant in the room), but they have an interview with Gnarls Barkley up today. I thought the first third to half of the Grey Album was alright and Ghetto Pop Life is decent, but apparently Cee-Lo wanted to do a track or two with DM who then said, "I don't do tracks, I do albums," which is stupid. Also, Cee-Lo said Goodie Mob is back together.
Initially I had the same reaction as craphound, but the more I think about it, the more I think that people like J5 or DM or the Roots to a certain extent are popular with rock fans because they're easy to "get" without doing much work. Part of the problem, I think, is that a lot of mediocre stuff is presented on radio/the TV as "good" rap, so people look for alternatives. As Jesse pointed out, the problem is that the most readily-available "alternatives" aren't much better. On a related note, there was also an article in the Washington Post this weekend about Will.i.am, and how a lot of rap "insiders" (Busta Rhymes, etc.) respect him a lot, vs. how much flak the Black Eyed Peas get.
I remain nonplussed about Gnarls Barkley.
I don't see how attacking how someone enjoys something is really productive at all. So rock fans enjoy hip hop in a different way than hip hop fans do? That implies that there is a correct way to enjoy hip hop. Or anything at all. Which just ain't true.
That rock fans approach rap from an entirely different perspective (and whether or not they're disingenuous about their reasons for liking it is pretty debatable) makes sense. The same way you, as a more hip hop centric music fan would approach, say, the Melvins from an entirely different perspective than what fans of that scene might say is correct.
I think the argument has some merit (while being very flawed) but I don't know that it's relative to the argument of whether or not Gnarls Barkley is good. I can think of a very few instances in which someone likes music in the wrong way, and if some guy wants to listen to Cee-Lo get all pop on them in between a Death Cab for Cutie album and a Johnny Cash record, I think you'd have to dig deep to find something negative about that.
Craphound said it best, I just wanted to get that out.
Xtop... you're missing the point. It's not just about criticising what rock fans like and dislike. It's not even really about whether Gnarls Barkley is good.
It's about power.
The mainstream rock intellegentsia are the ones who confer "art" status on pop music. They give out the grammies and the Short List Awards and they write for Newsweek and Spin and Pitchfork and whatever else (the only hip-hop first, everything else second centered mainstream media pop critic I can think of is kalefah sanneh from the NY Times).
When you like hip-hop, if you have any interaction with "serious" rock fans, or committed indie-rockers at all, you have to hear all about what "real hip-hop" is. And they don't qualify those opinions with, "well, to my rock-tuned ears..." They offer their opinions ("Well, the Roots at least play their own instruments..." or "Andre from Outkast has become so much more musical.") as fact. And because of the rock critic cultural hegemony, it is, in a way.
And to clarify: I don't say that to diss the groups that rock fans like. Most of them, I like myself. I liked The Love Below. I love the Roots. I love Public Enemy. I like Dipset and the Re-Up Gang.
What noz is saying is that if you cater to rock fans values, you get a pat on the back from the establishment that goes far beyond just "hey, this new music is closer to what I like." It's more like "here's someone doing something creative and innovative with hip-hop," when plenty of people are doing that in the hip-hop idiom who get very little respect from that establishment.
On a related note... I have an MP3 of the first track from Cee-Lo's other project, which is called Plantlife or something. It's also decent but flawed... this time because Lo's MC style can't keep up with the beat (which is that kind of real break-beaty sort of thing). But still a fun track.
Are you going to blog about every conversation we have? Remember, that stuff I told you about my dad I told you in confidence.
I think the article contains some really good points and is quite funny, but I think the problem some people have with it is that he doesn't just talk about people think they know what "real" hip-hop, he refers to people who enjoy more rock-based type of hip-hop as "the worst type of music fans." He may have not meant that originally, but he would have been better off(in my book) by just saying they don't know anything about hip-hop. I think it is completely OK to complain about people who act like they know rap, but rarely listen to it, but for some reason he had to include criticisms of those people's tastes, not just what they say about hip-hop, which is completely pointless and kind of obnoxious.
You're late to the party, Jordan. This post started on Friday.
I never realized before how lucky I am not to read music reviews.
The complaint, in the article and echoed by Jesse, is so common in so many mediums and genres, but it isn't a solvable problem. In the case of black music, usually what happens is the music gets cut with something else to make it palatable to the mainstream, and the diluted version begins to drive the tastes of more and more people. Jazz never ever went mainstream in its pure form.
But a) you can't blame the mainstream for not liking pure roots level music. People like what they're familiar with and will accept change in small increments. What are old, genre-specific norms to a hip-hop fan are new to Joe Average.
,b) it doesn't matter who invented something. The exploiter of the invention, the one who can bring it to the masses, wins. Tarantino has been the biggest influence on cinema in the past decade, having never invented a thing (though he did bring many things into the mainstream). Same with Nirvana. And you know, props to those guys. It's hard to please allot of people. It's easier to talk to a captive audience, like fans of a genre.
and c) nothing is pure. Genre only exists in the minds of the fans, and the set of values that constitute a genre expand and change (and sometimes reverse) over time.
I'm probably taking the article too seriously anyway.
Okay, okay, okay. Wouldn't hip-hop critics triumphing over rockist critics just destroy a whole core reason for liking hip-hop in the first place? The fact that it's subversive, that it's a club. The Goodie Mob was never a huge presence in pop music, they ran out of steam, who cares if their best member has moved onto greener pastures. Oh, I forgot, people who don't like them are white supremacists.
And who's making Gnarls Barkley popular, rock critics? Or is it just a solid, catchy pop song enjoyed by an audience who really has no idea that the lead singer was ever a rapper in the first place?
Niggas don't dance no more, all they do is diss.
my head hurts now
Carla wins.
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