Twin Sophomore Success

I explained in an earlier post of the disappointing sophomore albums in the past few years, and how it looked as if Gnarls Barkley might nullify the streak with their upcoming album, 'The Odd Couple', based on the first single they released 'Run'. The release date for the disc was said to be April 8 but because the album leaked over the web, they changed the date to March 18 for Amazon and iTunes and March 25th everywhere.

When I first listened to the album my first thought was that it was a bit scary. 'The Odd Couple' is filled with..well...odd music. Danger Mouse mixes in beats that show more of a dark side to the duo, and Cee-Lo fills it in with beautiful lyrics. The album comes across as different, but I feel that is what the music scene is lacking, originality. Gnarls Barkley is definitely not afraid to show their originality and they pull it off with excellence in a CD that maybe doesn't match up with their brilliant debut, but still reserves them a spot in my mind as a praise worthy group today.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

Jack White is one of the supreme musicians left on this earth today, being the lead for both The White Stripes and his "side project" The Raconteurs. The Raconteurs debut album 'Broken Boy Soldiers' has to be one of my favorites in the last couple years, and even with the success of the new band, there were speculations of them not releasing a second album. Even recently I hadn't heard any news on the band releasing a new record until..well...it was released! I was hoping dearly that this band wouldn't be another sophomore failure, but as you can probably speculate by the title of the post, it wasn't! Jack White and The Raconteurs 'Consolers of the Lonely' is filled with bangin' garage tunes and that classic vintage sound. They pulled of a sophomore album that I can say impressed me, and it isn't an easy feat to follow up 'Broken Boy Soldiers'. Every song flows well and leaves you with more than a satisfied feeling when the album closes out with the excellent"Carolina Drama". I give major props to the band as they set the bar pretty high for 2008 with this sophomore release.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars