"Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley
from the album "St. Elsewhere"
genre(s): Alternative, Hip-Hop, Soul
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You have heard this song before. I know you have. You may not know it, but you have. It set a record in the United Kingdom for being the first song to hit #1 on the singles chart on download sales alone. It also stayed there for nine weeks, then was retired so "people would remember the song fondly and not get sick of it." Those crazy Brits! (and Irish, too, I think they had something to do with it.)
So why, you may ask, am I reviewing this song? There's a very simple reason for this, and that is because I like it.
I like it an awful lot.
The people involved in the creation of the song, sometimes called the band, consists of two people. These people would be Danger Mouse, who produced the last Gorillaz album and made a CD combining the Beatles and Jay-Z (which is a really, really strange combination), and Cee-lo Green, who was part of...some band. He has a really good voice. Also, he did a song for the Snakes on a Plane soundtrack, and that's all that really matters.
But enough rambling about the band. Time for song rambling. =D
The song is, quite frankly, is incredibly, incredibly catchy. It's the sort of song that gets stuck in your head for about a week after you listen to it, and occasionally, at the exact wrong moment, you'll burst out into singing the chorus, which is guaranteed to be embarrasing, because chances are you're not a large black man who sings soul music. But you'll want to anyway, and you probably won't care, at least not for the first minute or so.
The song consists of a bassline that's really catchy, what sounds like a gospel choir singing "OOOOOO" in the background, and Cee-lo's singing, which, again, is large, black, soulful, and...super great I guess. MOVING ON! There's also some strings and horns and stuff in the chorus.
Lyrical complexity is not something you're going to get in this song, though. The chorus is the line "because that'd make me CRAAAAAAAAAAAAZYYYYYYYYYY!" over and over, and the lyrics sound deep, but probably don't really mean anything.
Overall, even though the song is incredibly popular (the album has sold 500,000 copies in about three months in the U.S.), it's not terrible like some other popular songs.
Pros: As I said about five time before, really catchy, excellent production, instrumental, et cetera
Cons: Not enough dinosaurs
Final Grade: 4.5 cherries out of 5
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The music video for "Crazy" can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ3KDWLDFcg
