Gnarls Barkley – Surprise (The Odd Couple, 2008)
written by matt
As with most Gnarls Barkley tracks (and the majority of Dangermouse-produced material in general), ‘Surprise’ features incredibly catchy bass and percussion that is hard not to bob your head to. The vocalizing in the beginning and sort of oldies-sounding instrumentation does a great job of grabbing your attention, sort of like an announcement that something important is about to happen. The extra little bit of triangle and woodblock in there is like a cherry on the top of a icecream sunday, and the ragged clapping gives you a subconcious cue that other people are enjoying themselves and you should be too.
Cee-Lo’s voice weaves in and out of the instruments, not too overbearing or understated – it almost sounds like he ran across a backing track that he liked and improvised the song on a whim (not entirely unheard of, apparently). However, in this case I’m hardly paying any attention to the lyrics, which are well-written and full of good word choices, but in the face of the expert instrumentation (which includes the vocals) they’re just not important.