:: Track Listing

Speakerboxxx
1. Intro
2. Ghettomusick
3. Unhappy
4. Bowtie
5. The Way You Move
6. The Rooster
7. Bust
8. War
9. Church
10. Bamboo (Interlude)
11. Tomb of the Boom
12. E-Mac (Interlude)
13. Knowing
14. Flip Flop Rock
15. Interlude
16. Reset
17. D-Boi (Interlude)
18. Last Call
19. Bowtie (Postlude)

The Love Below
1. The Love Below (Intro)
2. Love Hater
3. God (Interlude)
4. Happy Valentine's Day
5. Spread
6. Where Are My Panties?
7. Prototype
8. She Lives in My Lap
9. Hey Ya!
10. Roses
11. Good Day, Good Sir
12. Behold a Lady
13. Pink & Blue
14. Love in War
15. She's Alive
16. Dracula's Wedding
17. My Favorite Things
18. Take Off Your Cool
19. Vibrate
20. A Life in the Day of Benjamin André...

:: Record Review

OutKast

Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
(La Face; 2003)

Rating: 85%
Combined Rating: 85%


I have some serious reservations about reviewing this album. Even as I start this paragraph, the chances of me finishing the review without feeling like I've done the album a terrible disservice isn't very likely. Reviewing hip hop isn't easy for someone who knows a dangerously little amount about it; I've only been an avid fan of the genre's many forms (from the mind-bending underground Anticon collective to sectors of the mainstream that don't habitually revel in misogyny) for about three years now, slowly looking past the lyrical superficialities of most of the mainstream fodder that I'd come to realize being as indicative of what hip hop has to offer as Nickelback is to rock or John Mayer to singer-songwriters.

The first thing that really hooked me was the ongoing drive to be inventive that its reliance on production necessitates -- not to mention that the genre is primarily single based and, like pop in the '60s, the artist with the next "new sound" reigns supreme; the continuing success story of the Neptunes proves this. It wasn't so much that I'd been in denial of hip hop before this, just mostly close minded to the idea that it could produce an album that would affect me in the way my favorite rock or folk or whatever records could. The albums I'd given a chance, few as they were, were terribly capricious and single-centered, with little to no concept of consistency.

The first hip hop album that really shocked me was, as you can probably guess by the subject of this review, Outkast's Stankonia. The album has been a gateway for many to the riches of intelligent (though not necessary conscious) hip hop, executed with both a gifted sense of experimentation and accessibility that transcended both genre (the pop sensibility of "Ms. Jackson," drum'n'bass charge of "B.O.B.," wah-wah guitar driven "Gasoline Dreams," and whatever the fuck "?" is) and expectations of what a commercial hip hop group could accomplish. The album also introduced me to their first real masterpiece, Aquemini, which quickly became one of my favorites of the last decade. Outkast had done something rare: they'd introduced me and enveloped me in the genre, not by abnegating its mainstream form (like most of the hip hop I've come to love), but instead by perfecting their own form of it.

Outkast's new double album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, comes about three years after Stankonia (a best of, Andre and Big Boi Present..., was released in the interim) and their vehement ambition continues to separate them from their immediate peers (many of which guest on the Big Boi disc), and continues -- like the best of popular music -- to be both accessible and challenging. Rather than a normal collaborative effort from the duo, S/TLB takes both members in a new directions from the very outset: both have put together a solo disc (well, "solo" as in with minimal output from the other member) with fundamentally different "visions" (their word, not mine) of what they want to accomplish. Big Boi takes a form arguably no less traditional than Andres in a fashion that we've come to expect from Outkast and lets it evolve naturally to a logical extension. Andre, obviously frustrated with the confines of mainstream hip hop, takes on the role of another galaxy's equivalent of our Prince, with a warped sense of funk, soul, jazz, psychedelia and, for lack of a better term here, vaudevillian crooning.

But this is no real surprise. Two years ago when the news first leaked that this would be a double album, many, including myself, jumped to proclaim Andre's disc as the preemptive masterpiece, already assuming that Big Boi would fall on his face in the absence of his increasingly experimental partner. His talent as an MC was never an issue, but without Andre's creative input, how interesting would the music be? Of course, many of us also forgot to factor in a few things here: first, the role of Big Boi in giving Andre some quality control in terms of his ambitions (and vise versa, obviously); and secondly, the quintessential relationship of the two talents put together. As such, to think that both hadn't rubbed off on one another would be naive; those who are quick to claim that Big Boi's disc is just another guileless hip hop record obviously aren't paying attention. For that matter, to assume that his creation ambition had ever been minimal or superseded completely by Andre is downright foolish.

In fact, Big Boi's disc is the more consistent of the two. Maybe this makes sense, since the disc also takes fewer risks. Big Boi is careful not to try and reinvent himself as much as push his well-formed talent forward to new heights. "Ghettomusick" kicks things off with a distorted, 808-propelled beat and though Andre's bit part isn't exactly paramount to the song's worth, it does start things off in a more familiar fashion. "Unhappy," "Bowtie" and first single "The Way You Move" follow, neither far removed from Aquemini or Stankonia; the powerful horns constantly being one of their best aspects and Sleepy Brown's vocal on the latter makes it sound like a close cousin to "So Fresh So Clean." From there, it starts to be a little shaky, but there's enough great material here -- "The Rooster," "Tomb of the Boom" (Ludacris' piece being one of the better parts of the second half the album), "Last Call," "Flip Flop Rock," the infectious rush of "Knowing" -- to make up for its few less inspired lulls (the "Gasoline Dreams" remake "Bust," for instance).

Andre's disc starts off far less promising. "Love Hater" comes across as an experimental Vegas sideshow performance and "Happy Valentine's Day" (preceded by one of the album's several godawful skits) is an absolute waste of one of the album's better productions, turning up the Prince similarities to ten and leaving his good taste at the door, only to be picked up again just in time for the album's midsection. Though his disc is certainly less consistent than Big Boi's the high points are far higher; "Spread," "Prototype," "She Lives in My Lap" and still single-of-the-year "Hey Ya!" show why Andre's penchant for experimenting can pay off in huge ways.

"Roses" works despite its terrible lyrics (roses smell like what?), "Behold a Lady" (again ignoring the amazingly annoying skit -- complete with faux-British accents -- that precedes it) and "Dracula's Wedding" get better with each listen, and "Pink & Blue" has a beautifully double-tracked vocal drawl and a sparse production that pushes the melody straight to the foreground where it belongs. The rest of the tracks range from mediocre crooning ("She's Alive"), indulgent avant-garde wankery (his cover of "My Favorite Things") and a slew of great ideas surrounded by weak melodies and lyrics (the less said about "Vibrate," the better).

Still, this trial-and-error attitude embraced on The Love Below is surely also the source of its best material, most of which stands amongst their incredible back catalouge of classics. It's inconsistent, but not detrimentally so; taking into account the amount of risks taken -- especially considering Andre's new immersion as a singer/songwriter -- the amount of filler (not accounting for the skits) is surprisingly low. This is a release that has allowed both to breathe and discover what they could accomplish outside of the confines of Outkast the group and expectations that had been arising from that. While this may be wishful thinking, it might have also given each time to work out their artistic "visions," freeing their individual palettes to start all over as a group no longer connected to preconceived notions of what either is capable of. Which is also why it's pointless to talk about this record in terms of cutting it down into a single disc. These are two separate albums with two very separate ideals, both very successful at what they aim to accomplish but fundamentally important because of the different angles they choose to blow wide open. To want to combine them, though awfully tempting, is wanting to make the album something it isn't, at the same time ignoring the breadth of ideas and directions both members have offered through their hit-and-miss artistic indulgence. Their individual talent is undeniable, even devoid of the chemistry they share with one another, and that makes their future -- either as a group or solo, or both -- inconceivably promising. Scott Reid :: 28 September 2003 |