991. Cee-Lo Green - Cee-Lo Green is the Soul Machine (2004)

Track Listing

1. Intro
2. Soul Machine
3. The Art of Noise (feat Pharrell)
4. Living Again
5. I'll Be Around (feat Timbaland))
6. The One (Feat Jazze Pha & T.I.)
7. My Kind of People (Feat Jazze Pha & Menta Malone)
8. Childz Play (with Ludacris)
9. I Am Selling Soul
10. All Day Love Afair
11. Evening News (with Chazzie & Sir Cognac the Conversation)
12. Scrap Metal (with Big Rube & G-Rock)
13. Glockapella
14. When We Were Friends
15. Sometimes
16. Let's Stay Together (with Pharrell)
17. Die Trying
18. What Don't You Do? (Outro)

Review

Unlike Kanye's this is a really fun and original album which does its stuff perfectly, mixing hip-hop, soul and funk into a seamless one in what sounds more like Andre 3000's half of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below than anything else.

And this comparison is really not that strange. Cee-Lo is like Outkast from the South where the hip-hop scene has been revealing itself as the really fresh third power after the East and West Coasts.

However, unlike Kanye Cee-Lo never got the sales or the popularity, something he would remedy by forming Gnarls Barkley only two years later, so I imagine he is happy with sales now. Really good album.

Track Highlights

1. Scrap Metal (with Big Rube & G-Rock)
2. The Art Of Noise (feat. Pharrell)
3. Glockapella
4. I'll Be Around (feat Timbaland)

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Though not as ambitious or abstract as his first, this album shows diversity in style; in addition to fellow Dungeon Family producers and MCs, Cee-Lo brings in outside influences such as Jazze Pha, Timbaland, Ludacris and Pharrell.


I'll Be Around: