An 'Odd Couple' for this century

Highlights abound. On the poppier side especially, the record comes up trumps, with melodic gems ranging from the Ray-Charles-on-helium vibe of "Blind Mary" to the driving, ecstatic "Surprise," which is the closest the album comes to topping the chorus of "Crazy." And those are among the weaker pop-oriented tracks on the album. More impressive is the opening "Charity Case," whose intricate mesh of instrumental samples and vocal hooks signals a significant step up in the level of songwriting. And while first single "Run (I'm a Natural Disaster)" won't be tearing up the charts any time soon, it's far from a disappointment; it's an utterly unhinged gospel-pop song that tears past at such a pace that it takes at least five or 10 listens to realize just how complex the track is. Check out the Day-Glo, effervescent video, too, which would be getting my vote for "best 1970s music video made in 2008" had Snoop Dogg not already snagged it with his brilliant "Sexual Eruption." Special credit should also go to "Run" for being perhaps the most buoyant, upbeat song ever written about heroin addiction. Cee-Lo sings the line "can't you feel the pain / when the needle hits the vein" in such an ecstatic fashion that I didn't even notice what the lyrics actually said until the third or fourth listen.

And that is perhaps the greatest strength of "The Odd Couple": Every time you listen to it, you notice something new, whether it's realizing that a sweet song like "Whatever" is actually about clinical depression or finding new, earworm-catchy hooks in the most unexpected places. It's this brilliant balancing act between off-the-wall, wacko ingenuity and pop smarts that guarantees Danger Mouse's place as one of the most talented producers in contemporary music. Seriously, no one else would think of doing something as downright insane as dropping random, gorilla-like grunts and moans right into an otherwise (fairly) normal pop song like "Open Book." And as long as he doesn't pull a Timbaland and start slouching just as he hits his commercial peak, we can expect a lot more top-notch work soon. He's manning production duties for everyone from the Black Keys to Beck in the year to come.

But let's not forget the other indispensable ingredient to Gnarls Barkley's success, the yin to Danger Mouse's yang: Cee-Lo Green. Without his keening, gorgeous voice - gravelly and marshmallow-sweet at once and undoubtedly one of the most remarkable, instantly identifiable voices in pop - it's unlikely that anything on this album would be half as good. It's on the weirder songs that Cee-Lo's fundamental role in the band comes out especially strongly because he is able to make even the most oblique and tripped-out of Danger Mouse's production pieces listenable and oddly infectious. Even a song as creepy and utterly bizarre as "Would Be Killer," which sounds like Massive Attack and James Brown collaborating for the theme song of a '50s horror movie, becomes compelling in Cee-Lo's hands (or should I say, vocal chords...), and it's hard to imagine it being anything but alienating with any other vocalist behind the mike.

Now, "The Odd Couple" isn't absolutely perfect. The track listing, for instance, does tend to place similar songs one after another, and there are a few songs that could be pruned, such as the ever-so-slightly bland pop/rock of "Going On," which is the closest the album gets to the mainstream. On the whole, though, "The Odd Couple" is a significant move forward from the duo's promising but flawed debut. What it proves above all else is that Gnarls Barkley is anything but an "odd couple": The duo is not just a one-hit wonder, not just a goofy, oddball combination of geeky white producer and charismatic black rapper. Gnarls Barkley really has the chance to create something special and lasting, and now we'll have to wait and see whether it can pull the same trick twice.