Dear Amel and Gnarls,
You have both left me floored. Allow me to explain.
Amel, I remember when you were the voice of Groove Theory, rocking those hits in the mid-'90s (Well, actually, there was only one hit—"Tell Me"—but it was a good one, wasn't it?). More recently, you've set it off on the solo tip, with three fine albums under your broad, hippie-chick belt. There were moments of brilliance, like that track "For Real" on your 2004 album Bravebird. Somehow, though, it never all came together with the sort of consistency that elevates a merely good artist to the ranks of the truly exceptional. Never, that is, until now.
Never, that is, until your new joint, Morning. I can't stop listening to it, Amel! It's almost sinister the way your fragile little ditties have set up house in my cranium. One minute you're flaunting deliciously frothy art-soul that sounds like it was concocted by Serge Gainsbourg in a lazy villa on the sun-dappled French coastline, circa 1969. Yes, I'm talking about the title track, with its heartbreaking chord changes and earnest sweetness. The next, you're serving up hip-hop-laced jazz that sounds like the best thing since Shirley Horn. That would be the lilting "Unanswered Question," so airy and graceful, it lopes like a thoroughbred.
Then you take bad-ass, urban attitude and color it with your inimitably smart palette. With streetwise swagger on "Earn My Affections," you say things like "in every attic there's a treasure" and "[you] ask me to your show and don't save me a seat," and drape your words over spare, transcendent beats worthy of Jon Brion-era Kanye. How could I resist?
Ballads can be hard to pull off, because the temptation to descend into mawkish cliché is strong. But "No One Else" proves you are incapable of cliche. On this ballad and throughout, your production is fresh, and your words are viscous and extraordinary as the lava that bubbled from the heart of the Earth to dress Hawaii's black sand beaches in their dark, wondrous finery. Your music is a sphinx I could ponder forever.
As for you, Gnarls, the buzz surrounding your debut, St. Elsewhere, has been—well, maybe "buzz" isn't the word. "Deafening roar" is more like it! It seems as if everyone loves them some Gnarls. But who are you, anyway?
You are trip-hop, hip-hop, electro, dance and dirty Southern soul. You are a mash-up from some freaky-deek parallel dimension. Okay, you are actually Goodie Mob alumnus Cee-Lo and producer Danger Mouse. And you are, quite simply, genius.
What would a revival meeting sing-along sound like in the year 3000? My guess is it would sound a lot like "Go-Go Gadget Gospel," your album's opening track. Talk about infectious. Talk about uplifting. The song's hook is "Freedom in high fidelity," and the track delivers on that promise. It took me a long time to listen to the album in its entirety, Gnarls, simply because I couldn't get past the first track. I found myself caught in its soaring glory.
"Crazy," the cut currently getting spins on alternative radio, took me deeper into your futuristic funhouse. Its hypnotic vocals are part-Nina Simone, part-Sylvester. And the insight carried by its words—the song's themes are so profound, it's chilling. It's fitting that "Crazy" was the first single to reach number one in the United Kingdom on the strength of download sales alone. Digital love. The future is now.
Yours is a music of ideas, and the ideas come fast and furious. There is talk of inner demons, boogie monsters, paranoia and suicide. There is darkness, but there is also light. You leave us with hope, Gnarls, when you look past the clouds to say, "Let's dance the night away," on "The Last Time," the album's final track. You leave us with hope, Gnarls, because your music is so wise and knowing, it feels like religion.
Gnarls and Amel, thank you both for a really good time. Come again soon.
Love,
W
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