How insane has the success of the Gnarls Barkley song Crazy become?
According to Josh Deutsch, chairman and chief executive officer of the group's record label, Downtown, Crazy is currently in rotation on seven different radio formats in the US, "including smooth jazz," he says with a laugh.
In addition, Crazy appears on no less than 11 Billboard charts -- including pop, hip-hop/R&B, and dance -- and is being played everywhere from Top 40 outpost to alt-rock signals. You can even hear that now familiar blend of plucky bass, warped strings, and aching falsetto while shopping at department stores.
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Nelly Furtado's Promiscuous may be the current No. 1 song in the US, but Crazy, sitting at No. 2, has captured the hearts and minds of music fans of all ages. That includes Furtado, who is one of a growing list of artists -- folkie Ray LaMontagne, Jack White's new outfit the Raconteurs, and '80s sneer king Billy Idol among them -- who've already begun covering the song in concert.
The commotion comes as something of a surprise to Gnarls Barkley, the sonic architects behind the song that will forever be linked with the summer of 2006. Singer Cee-Lo Green (ne Thomas Callaway), late of the Atlanta rap group Goodie Mob, and producer Danger Mouse originally envisioned the Gnarls Barkley album St. Elsewhere as a quirky one-off between likeminded mavericks with idiosyncratic careers.
In addition to his membership in the critically revered Goodie Mob, Cee-Lo has released two deliciously freaky, funky solo albums and is well-known to OutKast fans for contributing his raspy vocals to albums like Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. He also co-wrote the Pussycat Dolls' 2005 breakout hit Don't Cha. Danger Mouse, a.k.a. Brian Burton, made his first big splash in 2004 with his underground release The Grey Album, a mash-up of the Beatles White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album. Last year, he won accolades for his production work on the Gorillaz's Demon Days.
The pair -- who along with their 13-piece band don different costumes for every performance -- collaborated sporadically between those projects to produce St. Elsewhere and recently called the success of Crazy a "double-edged sword."
"It's bittersweet," Cee-Lo told Billboard.com. "We didn't plan on touring for [St. Elsewhere], but here we are, three months into a tour. The dominoes are falling just as they should."
And as the dominoes fall it's becoming clear that Crazy isn't just a song, it's a movement, with an eclectic list of followers from every facet of the music world.
In addition to LaMontagne and Idol, other artists who have worked the song into their own repertoires include alt-rockers the Twilight Singers, pop rocker Butch Walker, upstart Brit garage band the Kooks, and even Kanye West's string section. When Gnarls performed at Lollapalooza in Chicago last weekend it was just one of several acts playing the song.
"It's almost disconcerting," says Deutsch. "People don't generally cover songs that are that current. Its impact has definitely been felt among the artist community for sure."
Among the many admirers of Crazy is Ryan Miller, lead singer of pop band Guster.
"I think it's one of those rare times when there's a hit song that's also a great song," says Miller, also a fan of Cee-Lo's solo albums.
"Cee-Lo's always been a rock star, and I'm glad it took Brian to take it out of him and put him on a platform that he's seen that way," says Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, drummer for hip-hop band the Roots and sometime collaborator and friend of the singer. "To me Cee-Lo has the most soulful voice in music right now."
Pinning down the song's appeal beyond the obvious sweetness of the sound -- and the fact that we've all felt at one time or another like we're going crazy -- is elusive. Mike Patton, leader of the avant-rock act Peeping Tom, thinks that might be for the best.
"It's something that strikes a chord with people, and it just so happens it strikes a very large chord with a large number of people," says former Faith No More frontman Patton. "What the secret ingredient is -- who could know? And it's better that we don't. It appeals to emotion and all sorts of deep dark secret things, and I think that's what's great about it."
Whatever the secret is, for Jim James, lead singer of Kentucky rockers My Morning Jacket, what's more important is the collective unity that is nurtured when so many people groove on something of such quality.
"The music is combining so many elements of what so many people enjoy -- rock, pop, soul, experimental -- that it's really pushing people's minds to think and listen different," says James via e-mail. "I think it also helps our souls, it gives us all something in common when we can meet someone on the street and know some of the same music is in our heads. That gives us a powerful connection, that's what makes me hopeful."
While the duo might not have anticipated the insanity, their label head Deutsch certainly did.
"I knew it was an instant classic, so our expectations were very high from the very beginning," says Deutsch of Downtown's inaugural release, in a joint venture with Atlantic Records. After watching the song smash records in the UK -- it was the first song ever to hit No. 1 on the strength of digital download sales alone -- Deutsch says it was obvious it would be a hit in the US.
He also believes that St. Elsewhere is deep enough to spawn other hits. "It's true that sometimes one song can really eclipse the rest of the album, but the way this album as a body of work has been received, I don't think that will be the case," he says pointing to the success of the second UK single, Smiley Faces, and the fact that US radio stations have already supplanted Crazy with Gnarls' cover of the Violent Femmes' '80s classic Gone Daddy Gone unprompted.
Considering that St. Elsewhere has now sold more than both of Cee-Lo's previous albums combined, 668,000 copies according to Soundscan, it's natural to wonder if the duo plans a follow-up to its wacky, left-field success.
"A lot of things have been pushed on the back burner by the success of Gnarls -- which is a good thing," Cee-Lo told Billboard.com. Those things include a solo album he recorded with crunk maestro Jazze Pha and Danger Mouse's work on the new Sparklehorse album.
But Deutsch says Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse are committed to seeing where -- and in what costumes -- Gnarls Barkley takes them. "They've actually recorded a lot of material for their next record already."
So maybe we'll be crazy for a different Gnarls Barkley song next summer? Possibly.
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