When you have the fluke hit of the decade, the threat of running into the curse of the “sophomore slum” is an understatement, particularly if you’re the psychedelic soul duo of Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green. However, if you’re one that appreciate albums as song-cycles verse explosive pop nuggets, than Gnarls Barkley’s The Odd Couple has something going on.
On the surface, with iPods selling in the millions, downloads becoming more and more accessible, and even the actual coining of the moniker, 'The MySpace Generation,' 2006 may appear to be a relatively quiet year for the album. But taken as a whole, it was actually another solid year for LP releases. Sure, there were less blockbusters and a few too many prematurely hyped 'next best thing' mp3s, but when we sat down to go over the piles of CDs, there were more than enough quality titles that had to be reluctantly voted off the island. What we ended up with was a list that offered a little bit of everything – a blurring of genres and styles, featuring artists who created definitive statements – easily identifiable as 2006, but timeless all the same.
Just who is Gnarls Barkley anyway? The play on the former burly Sixers and Suns forward is actually a collaboration between the acclaimed Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo from Goodie Mob. Whether you knew that or not, you
