Gnarls Barkley Give Away "The Odd Couple" In Reverse

This piece should have been called "esreveR nI elpuoC ddO ehT yawA eviG yelkraB slranG. Gnarls Barkley's The Odd Couple just became odder. Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo have inexplicably posted their new album as a free download. One thing, though: it's backwards. Starting with album closer "A Little Better," elpuoC ddO ehT features reversed vocals and backwards beats all in one thirty-eight-minute-long track. While sounding like the soundtrack for a film about Satanists, Danger Mouse's production still shines through, deemphasizing Cee-Lo's voice and putting the instrumentation more in the forefront. Download the thing for yourself here.

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Song Stories

“The A Team”

Ed Sheeran | 2011

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.

More Song Stories entries »

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