Speakerboxxx/The Love Below [PA] - Outkast (Cassette 2003)

Can somebody explain to me why this hasn't happened before?

Perhaps it's the scary implications that make last year's release of Outkast's Speakerboxxx / The Love Below such a unique event. As the majority of the world no doubt knows at this point, Outkast's newest release is actually a double CD, where each CD is basically a solo album for one of Outkast's two primary members; Big Boi gets Speakerboxx, where Andre (Ice Cold!) 3000 gets The Love Below. Obviously, this throws gas on the proverbial fire of the rumor mill. "They're going to break up!" "They're not speaking to each other!" "Andre insulted Big Boi's momma!" I couldn't tell you whether any of these are true or not, indeed, they might have been at some point, I don't know. Even so, it seems clear that now with more, uh, cohesive projects on the horizon combined with the massive success of this album, Outkast are likely stronger than ever. As Big Boi himself says,

Never relaxing, OutKast is everlasting,
Not clashing, not at all but see my n**** went to do a little acting...
--"The Way You Move", Speakerboxx

So it's more a simple experiment than defiant expressions of individuality. So again, why has this not happened before? I mean, really, can you imagine the fervor, the controversy, the debates to this day if The Beatles had released a double-LP split between Lennon and McCartney (Granted, it'd have to be packaged with a split 7" containing a song each from George and Ringo, but still)? Or a Fleetwood Mac album split between Buckingham and Nicks? Gore vs. Gahan? Bennington vs. Shinoda? Come on, people, the possibilities are endless! Package JT and JC together as one big NSYNC album and try to tell me you don't manage massive sales. Is anybody listening?

But we're talking about Outkast today, and an album that managed to wrangle "Album of the Year" out of Grammy voters, not that the competition was all that stiff.

For all its high-concept posing and brilliant ideas, it's not bad. Y'know. It's OK. I guess.


Big Boi Roxxx the Speakerboxxx

Big Boi's segment of the album is likely pretty close to what people were expecting from a new Outkast album, a solid (if unfocused) disc chock full of quick rhymes, party bangers, and the occasional political statement. It also features three tracks produced by Andre, so it's certainly the closer of the two to a joint statement. It's obvious that Big Boi wanted to create a "Rap Album", not an "Important Rap Album", not a "Party Rap Album", not an "Ambitious Rap Album", just a "Rap Album". Speakerboxxx is an album that ultimately says nothing, but says it pretty well.

Unfortunately, Speakerboxxx is marred by the fact that six of its 19 tracks are interludes, five of which happen from track 10 onward, totally killing the flow of the latter half of the album. The interlude featuring Big Boi's son Bamboo is pretty entertaining, but it goes for over two minutes, and it's only funny the first or second time. Granted, hearing a two or three-year-old say "motherf*cker" when it's obvious that his dad had no idea it was going to come out makes me grin a bit, but it makes me a little uncomfortable at the same time. I mean, there are so many better four-syllable words that a young child could say badly, and it doesn't reflect well on daddy's craft when one of the first words he comes out with when, uh, "freestyling" is that one.

...And suddenly I'm veering toward a Kids and Family review, so I'll shut up now.

There are some great tunes on Speakerboxxx. First single "The Way You Move", featuring some lovely falsetto from constant Outkast collaborator Sleepy Brown, has created a country full of neck problems from all the head-nodding that went on while it was popular. "Ghettomusick", featuring Andre, is wonderfully chaotic, progresses in movements, and gives cameos to Patti Labelle and the pitchshifted voice from Ween's "Mutilated Lips". Hip-hop purists might be disappointed at the fact that the only rapping in the song is a short verse halfway through the track, but I think it's a riot. "The Rooster" is all swagger and posing, and I love it for that. "Church" (which was drilled into my head via Madden 2004) is again produced by Andre, and it bounces and bubbles along with introspective lyrics on spirituality and a fantastic synthified bridge. "Flip Flop Rock" is fun as hell, and features one of the only examples of Jay-Z rapping that I've ever been able to stand, and "Reset" features my man Cee-Lo, who just totally rules everything he appears on. So the disc is not without merit.

Still, ridiculous lyrics mar many of the songs here. "Unhappy"'s hook goes as follows: Might as well have fun 'cause your happiness is done and your goose is cooked. Ad nauseum. It's really annoying. "Bowtie" is more fun, jazzy swagger, but "The Rooster" kicked its *ss in a dark alley, and it came out looking a little black and blue. "War" is interesting, but it falls into clich a little too often, and "Last Call" is, uh, crunk, which I'm not really too big on. I mean, it features Lil Jon. Who enjoys listening to this guy? Does he get the party started? Does his demeanor imply that he's got a tremendous unit? I don't get it. Hearing Lil Jon in anything makes me want to take a power drill to my eardrums. Still, "Last Call" has the advantage over "Tomb of the Boom", an utterly ridiculous and stupid (not to mention poorly performed) song featuring, of all people, Ludacris on the chorus. Yahoo.

All in all, Speakerboxxx is uneven, but worth a spin or two when I need my hip-hop and Def Jux is giving me a headache.


Andre (Ice Cold!) 3000 Heats Up The Love Below

So now we have the much-discussed disc from Andre (Ice Cold!) 3000 (and yes, I keep adding 'Ice Cold!' for the sole reason that I like shouting 'Ice Cold!'), titled The Love Below. Most of the comparisons made here have been with Prince, and it's a fair comparison, as Prince very likely provided the main source of inspiration for Andre's visions of Love, Sex, LoveSex, Sexlove, and Evolxes. Yes, he does it backwards too.

Like Speakerboxxx, The Love Below has its share of highlights, not least of which is the truly excellent Beatles-aping of "Hey Ya!", which was probably the single coolest thing to get drilled into the ground by pop radio in the last year. Acoustic guitars, lots of backing vocal overdubs from Andre himself, new wave xylosynths, and about four different catchphrases that could have stuck if shake it like a polaroid pitcha wasn't so damn cool make for a true classic tune. Second single "Roses" is good, foul fun as well, and it features Big Boi on a decent rap guest appearance. "Happy Valentine's Day" is fun, funky jamming amounting to not much, and "Spread" is a sleazy rap tune, but at least it's polite about it: Don't want to make you feel strange, but don't let these words be in vain so Spreeeeeaaaaahaaad, spread for meeeeee!. Guh. Yeah. Hey, there's a trumpet solo, back off. Also notable is "Dracula's Wedding", which features the double-whammy of Kelis (who at least used to be damn cool) and that fuzz-synth noise from Aaliyah's "Try Again". Finally, a fast, frenetic instrumental take on The Sound of Music's "My Favorite Things" featuring some virtuosic piano work absolutely must be heard to be believed.

Still, too many things drag The Love Below down into the dumps for it to be a truly enjoyable piece of work. Again, constant stupid useless interludes mar the final product, killing any sense of momentum that might get built up over the course of the album and leading the listener to wear a fingerprint in the "skip track" button on their CD player. Many of these interludes go for a solid two minutes! Who needs that?

Andre's falsetto crooning gets old, too, especially when it's not surrounded by music that can properly back him up. "Love Hater" is fun jazz, but it's utterly meaningless, and disjointed in its screeching. "Pink and Blue" sacrifices what could be a funny tune about love with a mature lady to the gods of sparseness, as an overly simple beat on a dated drum machine provides most of the backing track. Such a simplistic song only serves to point out the technical deficiencies in Andre's voice. "Vibrate" is similarly annoying, based around backward drum noises for the main loop, and "Love in War" is more unnoteworthy caterwauling. Perhaps worst of all is "A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre", widely lauded as it's the only true return to hip-hop on the entire disc, but Andre's rap is poor and the production is barely average, if that. Worst of all, it doesn't fit--it shows up more as a tribute to his girl, Erykah Badu, than anything else, and it just seems sorely out of place on this album of Prince poses and falsetto croons.


The Reversal of an Old Clich

What we are ultimately left with here is a giant, sprawling double album that happens to amount to less than the sum of its parts. Taken in bits and pieces, Speakerboxxx / The Love Below contains a whole bunch of wonderful songs, but they're just too spread out over the hundred-and-thirty or so minutes of this double album. The mediocrity of so much of the album makes listening through either disc an arduous task, and really, when I'm listening to music like this, the last adjective I want describing my listening experience is "arduous". The best you could do is buy it, burn a mix of the best tracks, and enjoy your mix, relegating the original copy of the album to a safe place for storage. Because honestly, the gems are simply not worth the effort it takes to listen to either whole album all the way through.