November, 10th, 2008
last updated May, 18th, 2013

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Reviews:

Speakerboxx/The Love Below

by Chris Sunami

1. Concept Videos: Hey Ya! (Outkast)

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   If you listened to any radio in the year it was released, you heard it. You may have loved it, or hated it, or most likely, loved it until they played it so much that you hated it. But you couldn't avoid it. It covered the airwaves unlike any other song in recent memory, hitting Top 40, black urban, the alternative stations, and even NPR. It was utterly, unbelievably eccentric, and catchy to the point of madness. The first time you heard it, you asked yourself "what the ??? was that?" It didn't sound like anything else on the airwaves, a wild hip hop parody of an old-school rock-n-roll number.
   
   
   
   
   A revisionist history answer to the British invasion, the video features a band entirely made up of Andre 3000 playing a London stage sometime during the 60's. There he is, digitally duplicated, as the bad-boy drummer, the cool hipster bass guitarist, the cheerfully nerdy acoustic guitarist, the mop-topped lead singer, and even the triplets-in-jockey-costume backup singers.
   
   Families watch at home on their black-and-white tv's as crowds of screaming girls obey the startling directive to "shake it like a polaroid picture" --after all, Andre 3000 is their neighbor. Even the skeptical middle-aged white woman in the audience (presumably the chaparone-ing mother of one of the young fans) is eventually won over by the gleeful enthusiasm of the lead singer (an apt symbol for the song's seduction of the "crossover" audience). As you see his face, you can tell that he loves the music, and that singing it makes him the happiest man in the world.

2. Reviews: Roses

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   Once again Outkast and crew provide a visual feast, but in a completely different vein from their previous outing. Here, the Tension inherent in their double-solo-album is made manifest, as Andre and friends, (including Bentley Farnsworth) play the drama nerds putting on a high school musical, while Big Boi and crew (including Sleepy Brown) are the playground-bully gang of jocks-in-letter-jackets.
   
   The bizarre song with the unforgettable chorus ("roses really smell like poo-poo") is complemented by the mile-a-minute visual jokes, allusions and cameos. "West Side Story" is referenced several times, most notably in a brief shot of Big Boi and crew doing the infamous macho-finger-snapping dance of the Sharks and Jets.
   
   For me, however, the most clever moment was when Andre's naughty wish for "Caroline" to crash into a ditch is acted out onstage with campy bargain-basement special effects --thus highlighting both the play-within-a-play structure and the consequent sense of doubled narrative.
   
   In some ways this is a less successfully cohesive video than "Hey Ya!", but it's definitely worth seeing because of its inventiveness and clever sense of humor.

3. Analysis

   The interesting thing about the disk is that it was so different, and heard by so many people, that it may well be a seminal influence in creating a new sound. Only the future will tell.
   
   CRAFT (Consonance): The production and rhymes on Speakerboxxx are top notch hip-hop, where as the craft on TLB seems a little more tentative -- an artist exploring new horizons.
   
   ORIGINALITY (Tension): Speakerboxxx has a definite personality and vitality. But TLB is the truly original side of the disc, although originality must be described (as it usually is) as stealing from influences no one else is even thinking about.
   
   DEPTH (Verity): Big Boi touches (lightly) on serious topics on Speakerboxxx --including religion, terrorism (and the response thereof), the challenges of keeping a long term relationship together. It's deeper than the average hip-hop thug track, but nowhere near the classic socially conscious raps. Andre 3000 goes a different route, including a loopy dialogue with God, and exploring the nature of love and lust. Again, it gets good marks on emotional depth, but doesn't begin to approach the classics.
   

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