It might be an understatement to say that my friend is pleased with last week’s #1 album:
This white girl has nothing but infatuation and admiration for the OutKast CD “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.” It’s two CDs, actually–Dre and Big Boi have packaged their respective solo albums together in one jewel case and labeled it the next OutKast album. To those who think a house divided cannot stand, think again. The two display a voracious musical intelligence that is literally a trip. Big Boi’s “Speakerboxxx” is the less varied but no less intoxicating half of the project; he moves from channeling Earth, Wind & Fire to a gospel choir to more of the urbanity heard on Outkast’s last album, “Stankonia,” with complex raps that hold together in the middle of his riffs, not just around the edges. Singing about everything from Daniel Pearl and Operation Anaconda to the gangsta quadrivium of women, guns, drugs, and name brands, Big Boi explodes all over “Speakerboxxx” with an energy that can only be described as Olympian.
“The Love Below,” Dre’s contribution, is at the same time randier and more romantic–and musically all over the map. Underlying his erotic exhortations–i.e., to “shake it like a polaroid picture”–are grooves drawn from Prince, a mellower Hendrix, the best of neo-soul, George Benson; every offering strikes a different tone. How can you not like a guy who sweetly sings, “so what if your head sports a couple of gray hairs/Same here, and actually I think it’s funky in a Claire Huxtable-type way”? And then has me singing along to a song whose refrain is “crazy bitch”?
Sure, there are some fillers and cringers here and there, and the de rigueur talky interludes, but considering the mass of music they’ve put together here, the whole project has an astronomical batting average. It’s the most infectious, enthusiastic, ambitious music I’ve heard in a long time.
She’s not the only one. Read more about it here and here.
UPDATE: Slate’s Sasha Frere-Jones is similarly smitten.