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Biography
Infobox musical artist | name = Gnarls Barkley| image = Gnarls Barkley.jpg| caption =| landscape = yes| background = group_or_band| origin = Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta , Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia , United States | genre = Alternative rock , alternative hip-hop , soul music|soul | years_active = 2004present| label = Downtown Records|Downtown , Atlantic Records|Atlantic | website = url|gnarlsbarkley.com| current_members = Danger Mouse Cee Lo Green Gnarls Barkley is an American soul music|soul duo composed of the artists Brian Joseph Burton (known professionally as Danger Mouse ) and Cee Lo Green . Their first studio album St. Elsewhere (album)|St. Elsewhere was released in 2006; along with its first single " Crazy (Gnarls Barkley song)|Crazy ". Both single and album were a major commercial success and have been noted for their large sales by music download|download . The duo released their second album The Odd Couple (album)|The Odd Couple in March 2008.
History
Background
Cee Lo first entered the scene as part of the Atlanta hip hop music|hip hop group Goodie Mob which had a large hand in the Southern hip hop|Dirty South movement of the 1990s. Cee Lo left the group after their third album in 1999 and started his solo career. That year he sang on "Do You Like the Way" along with Lauryn Hill on Santana (band)|Santana 's multi-platinum Supernatural (Santana album)|Supernatural album. Cee Lo has three solo albums as of November 2010.
Danger Mouse has produced albums for a number of hip hop and rock artists, including Gorillaz ' Demon Days . He received international attention for his Mashup (music)|mash-up The Grey Album , which blended the acapella edition of Jay-Z 's The Black Album (Jay-Z album)|The Black Album with samples from The Beatles ' The Beatles (album)|White Album .
The two men first met while Cee Lo was on a tour for which Danger Mouse happened to be the DJ. They became musical partners and worked together on the songs that would become the St. Elsewhere ; prior to the release of that album they collaborated on the songs "What You Sittin' On? " for Lex Records in 2004, and "Benzie Box" from the Danger Doom album The Mouse and the Mask in 2005.
Band name
Danger Mouse explains that the name Gnarls Barkley came from "fictional celebrity names like Prince Gnarls and Bob Gnarley " ( parody|parodies of Prince Charles and Bob Marley , respectively) made up by their friends. When Heavens (band)|Heavens band member Josiah Steinbrick came up with "Gnarls Barkley", a parody of basketball star Charles Barkley 's name, Burton wrote it down.cite web | last = Fontina | first = Katalin | title = Heavens Interview| publisher = Spin Magazine | date = 2006-12-09 | url = http://www.spinrecords.com/articles/heavens| accessdate = 2008-01-13 In fact earlier in their career, various radio DJs incorrectly attributed their songs to the basketball star instead of the band.
According to a Billboard article: "Burton and Cee Lo have been cagey about what the name of the act means, and each live performance is an opportunity to play dress-up as tennis players, astronauts and chefs, among many other get-ups. The costuming extends to photo shoots, as Burton and Cee-Lo would rather impersonate characters from such films as Back to the Future or '' Wayne's World .
About Gnarls Barkley, Cee Lo said in an interview: "That is that electric industrial Euro soul, that's what I call it... if I can call it anything. It truly is shapeless and formless. My style and my approach is still water, and it runs so deep. So, with that project I got a chance to be a lil' zany, of course a continuation of eccentricity, abstract and vague, and all of those wonderful things that make art exactly what it is. And that's subject to interpretation. As far as the artiste himself, it does cater to and extend the legacy of Cee Lo Green, and showcase the diversity and range and intention of Cee Lo Green. It is a great project that I'm very, very proud of".cite web|url= http://www.thickonline.com/interviews/index.php? mod=cnt& act=cnt& id=1143& page=2 |title=Interviews |publisher=ThickOnline.com |date=2006-07-31 |accessdate=2011-05-09
St. Elsewhere (20062007)
Downtown/Atlantic in the U.S. and Warners Bros. Records in the UK signed the band after several songs including " Crazy (Gnarls Barkley song)|Crazy " were played for them by Danger Mouse 's management company Waxploitation .cite web | year=2006 |title= Interview - Josh Deutsch, A& R for Gnarls Barkley (No.1 UK) - Sep 04, 2006 |url= http://www.hitquarters.com/index.php3? page=intrview/2006/September4_0_0_1.html | publisher = HitQuarters | accessdate=2006-11-09 "Crazy" was released as their first Single (music)|single on April 3, 2006, preceded by its release as digital download and 12" vinyl record single in March 2006. It gained some of its popularity due to its use on primetime BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe 's television advert, and it was also made Record of the Week by Ken Bruce of BBC Radio 2 , Scott Mills and Jo Whiley of BBC Radio 1 as well as being made 'Weekend Anthem' by DJ Spoony and Sara Cox (also of Radio 1).
The track is based on an Italian song named Nel cimitero di Tucson (''In Tucson's cemetery ) by composer Gianfranco Reverberi and is part of the soundtrack of spaghetti western Preparati la bara! (1968), starring Terence Hill .
"Crazy" is the first ever single to top the UK Singles Chart purely on download sales as it was released online a week before it was released as a CD single.cite news |title= Crazy song makes musical history |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4870150.stm | publisher = BBC News | accessdate=2006-04-02 | date=April 2, 2006 It is also the first single to top the UK Singles Chart for nine weeks consecutively since 1994 when Wet Wet Wet 's " Love Is All Around (The Troggs song)|Love Is All Around " was number one for 15 weeks (the last song to spend exactly nine weeks on top was "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood in 1984). It has also equaled the Queen (band)|Queen 1975 classic " Bohemian Rhapsody ", which also topped the UK singles chart for nine weeks. Gnarls Barkley announced that as the record had spent its ninth week at number one, it was to be deleted as a vinyl/CD listing from May 28, 2006, so people will "remember the song fondly and not get sick of it".cite web|url= http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/therazz/tm_objectid=17140356%26method=full%26siteid=66633%26headline=gnarls%2dgo%2dout%2don%2dtop%2d-name_page.html|title=Gnarls Go Out On Top|accessdate=2006-05-28|work=The Daily Record
"Crazy" is also the longest number-one on the UK Official Download Chart with its stay lasting eleven consecutive weeks. In late 2009 the song was voted as the best song of the decade by Rolling Stone magazine.cite web |url= http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/31248926/100_best_songs_of_the_decade/25 |title=100 Best Songs of the Decade |date=9 December 2009
The group released their debut album, St. Elsewhere (album)|St. Elsewhere , on April 24, 2006, in the UK and on May 9, 2006, in the U.S. For their American television debut on '' Late Night with Conan O'Brien , May 24, 2006, the band performed "Crazy".
They performed along with Christina Aguilera , AFI (band)|AFI , and Wolfmother at the MTV Movie Awards 2006 on June 8, 2006. http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1530297/story.jhtml 2007 Movie Awards Story he is also known as eating apple pie on thanksgiving yayyy!!!| Justin, Luda To Appear At Movie Awards - Show Story | Headlines | MTV They were dressed as characters from the film series Star Wars . Rebel Alliance pilots, Imperial officers, Imperial Stormtroopers|Stormtroopers , Chewbacca , Jango Fett , Obi-Wan , with Cee-Lo singing as an unmasked Darth Vader .
In October 2006, Gnarls Barkley recorded a live session for Live from Abbey Road at Abbey Road Studios .
St. Elsewhere has been certified Platinum by the RIAA for selling over 1,000,000 albums in the U.S. A limited edition deluxe package of St. Elsewhere was released on November 7, 2006. The CD+DVD package includes a 92-page booklet, four music videos and bonus songs from live performances. From January until March 2007, they toured with the Red Hot Chili Peppers through the U.S.cite web|url= http://www.redhotchilipeppers.com/news/news.php? uid=333 |title=NEWS |publisher=Redhotchilipeppers.com |date=2010-07-24 |accessdate=2011-05-09
They did a collaborative short film in both the Spring of 2006 and 2007 with the international TV series Kung Faux which airs heavily on Channel V around the world, and they also toured Australia in March and April 2007 as part of the Channel V Festival.
The song "Go-Go Gadget Gospel" appears in the show The Boondocks (TV Series)|The Boondocks . It was sung by Rev. Rollo Goodlove, who was voiced by Cee-Lo.
The Odd Couple (2008)
In early March, 2008, Gnarls's much anticipated sophomore release, The Odd Couple (album)|The Odd Couple , was leaked over the internet prompting the duo to push the release date up from April 8. On March 18, 2008, the album became available via download on the iTunes Music Store and Amazon MP3 . Hard copies of the album were released on March 25.
They appeared as the musical guest on the April 12, 2008 episode of NBC 's Saturday Night Live . They were supposed to be in a SNL Digital Shorts|Digital Short parodying amateur music videos according to the scrolled text but only appeared in the singing performances of the live broadcast.
On November 11, 2008, they released an Extended play|EP , ''Who's Gonna Save My Soul , featuring four versions of the song which originally appeared on The Odd Couple'', along with a live version of "Neighbors" and a previously unreleased song, "Mystery Man". A music video for "Mystery Man" was directed by Walter Robot and premiered on Yahoo& #33; Music .cite web |url = http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp? vnu_content_id=1003876348 |title = Gnarls Barkley Bares Its 'Soul' On New EP |accessdate = 2008-10-28 |author = Cohen, Jonathan |date = 2008-10-22 |publisher = Billboard (magazine)|Billboard
2012
At Virgin Festival|Virgin Fest in September, 2011, Cee Lo Green stated during his performance that Gnarls Barkley will be releasing another album in 2012.
Discography
Studio albums
Year
Album details
Peak chart positions
Certifications ( List of best selling music artists
US cite web
US R& B cite web
US Dance cite web
US Indie cite web
AUS cite web
CAN cite web
CHE cite web
NZ cite web
SWE cite web
UK cite web
2006
St. Elsewhere (album)
First studio album
Release date: May 9, 2006
Label: Atlantic Records
4
4
1
28
6
8
2
1
9
1
style="text-align:left;"
Australian Recording Industry Association|AUS : Goldcite web|url= http://www.aria.com.au/pages/ARIACharts-Accreditations-2006Albums.htm|title=ARIA Charts - Accreditations - 2006 Albums|publisher= ARIA Charts |accessdate=October 17, 2010
Canadian Recording Industry Association|CAN : Platinumcite web|url= http://www.cria.ca/gold/0706_g.php|title=Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA): Gold & Platinum - July 2006|publisher= Canadian Recording Industry Association |accessdate=January 24, 2011
British Phonographic Industry|UK : Platinumcite web|url= http://www.bpi.co.uk/certifiedawards/search.aspx|title=British Phonographic Industry search results|publisher= British Phonographic Industry |accessdate=October 17, 2010
Recording Industry Association of America|US : Platinumcite web|url= http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php? table=SEARCH_RESULTS& artist=Gnarls%20Barkley& format=ALBUM& go=Search& perPage=50|title=RIAA - Gold & Platinum - October 17, 2010: Gnarls Barkley certified albums|publisher= Recording Industry Association of America |accessdate=October 17, 2010
2008
The Odd Couple (album)
Second studio album
Release date: March 18, 2008
Label: Atlantic Records
12
14
1
20
21
16
20
59
18
"" denotes releases that did not chart
Singles
Year
Single
Peak chart positions
Certifications ( List of best selling music artists
US: 2Χ Platinumcite web|url= http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php? table=SEARCH_RESULTS& artist=Gnarls%20Barkley& format=SINGLE& go=Search& perPage=50|title=RIAA - Gold & Platinum - November 14, 2010: Gnarls Barkley certified singles|publisher= Recording Industry Association of America |accessdate=November 14, 2010
St. Elsewhere
" Smiley Faces "
38
37
37
47
57
10
" Who Cares? (Gnarls Barkley song)
60
" Gone Daddy Gone "
35
26
92
2008
" Run (I'm a Natural Disaster) "
114
35
51
65
38
32
The Odd Couple
" Going On "
88
79
143
" Who's Gonna Save My Soul "
"" denotes releases that did not chart
Awards
2006 MTV European Music Awards , Best Song ("Crazy") and the Future Sounds Award
2007 Grammy Award , Grammy Award for Best Urban/Alternative Performance|Best Urban/Alternative Performance ("Crazy") and Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album|Best Alternative Music Album ( St. Elsewhere ) http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/02/11/grammy.awards/ CNN.com, February 11, 2007
2007 BET Award for Best Group
2008 MTV Video Music Awards , Best Art direction and best choreography for the video 'Run'
Rolling Stone 100 Best Songs of the Decade - #1 Crazy
Gnarls BarkleyCee Lo GreenUK best-selling singles (by year) 19902009 Category:Electronic music duos Category:American soul musical groups Category:Neo soul singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Musical groups established in 2003 Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Alternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)
