| BEST PRODUCER |
| Danger Mouse |
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Brian Burton didn't get much sleep last night, and it's all Beck's fault. On a Wednesday morning in early March, Burton is trudging toward a Starbucks near his Los Angeles recording studio, where he wrapped up a session for the next Beck album just a few hours earlier. "Some of it was fun, some of it wasn't," is all he will say about the evening's work. Inside the coffeehouse, Burton — who is better known as the virtuosic, boundary-breaking producer Danger Mouse — orders a ham, egg and cheese sandwich but no coffee. He never drinks it. A caffeine boost "seems too easy," Burton says, eyes bleary behind aviator shades: He has been working almost nonstop for the past few years, only recently starting to take weekends off.
Danger Mouse is the perfect hitmaker for Obama's America —
a hip-hop fan whose life was changed by the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix
and Pink Floyd. "Hip-hop was what I knew really well," Burton says,
drinking Vitamin Water back in his studio's control room. "But it's
not what inspired me to make music. It was the older rock stuff I
started to hear." His sound blurs the line between samples and live
instruments, slipping warped hip-hop beats under the orchestral
twang of Ennio Morricone, the analog punch of the Beatles and the
unhinged freedom of psychedelic rock. Singer-rapper Cee-Lo and
Burton just released The Odd Couple, their second album as
the experimental rock-R&B duo Gnarls Barkley. The album may not
spawn a hit on the order of 2006's smash "Crazy," but its
futuristic combination of fractured robo-beats and go-go-booted
Sixties textures does manage to sound like no other music in recent
memory. "My initial audience is Danger, and Danger alone," says
Cee-Lo. "He has impeccable taste. I aspire to impress him." Read More...
Ten
Essential Danger Mouse Tracks
Pelican City Remix of Neutral Milk Hotel's "The
Fool"
On one of his earliest projects, Danger Mouse takes a horn-packed
track from his Athens, Georgia pals and drops a rolling beat behind
it.
Danger Mouse & Jemini's "Ghetto Pop
Life"
In 2003, Burton released his first production under the Danger
Mouse moniker: an indie hip-hop collaboration with experienced New
York MC Jemini.
The Grey Album, "Encore"
Danger Mouse became a household name in 2004 for blending the
Beatles' White Album with Jay-Z's The Black
Album. The results were stunning, though litigious.
Danger Doom's "A.T.H.F. (Aqua Team Hunger
Force)"
In 2005, Danger Mouse teamed up with MF Doom for The Mouse and
the Mask, an experimental hip-hop album inspired by the
Cartoon Network's stoner-friendly Adult Swim lineup. LISTEN
Gnarls Barkley's "Smiley Faces"
Danger Mouse demonstrates his love of Sixties-style production on
this organ-heavy track from St. Elsewhere, his first LP
with Cee-Lo as Gnarls Barkley. LISTEN
Gorillaz's "DARE"
Danger Mouse replaced Dan the Automator in Damon Albarn's Gorillaz
project, and on the 2005 album Demon Days he proved he
could work up a damn fine disco groove. LISTEN
The Rapture's "Pieces of the People We
Love"
Danger Mouse provided dance-punk band the Rapture with a few tunes
for their 2006 album Pieces of the People We Love,
including this moody title track. LISTEN
The Good, the Bad & the Queen's
"Herculean"
Damon Albarn enlisted Danger Mouse's talents once again, for 2007's
The Good, the Bad & the Queen, where he conjured a
dark, dubby mood for the first single. LISTEN
The Black Keys' "Oceans & Streams"
In 2008, Danger Mouse helped Akron, Ohio two-piece blues punks the
Black Keys amp up their sound on Attack & Release. LISTEN
Gnarls Barkley's "Charity Case"
Danger Mouse steers Gnarls Barkley towards Sixties psychedelia once
again on their 2008 release The Odd Couple. LISTEN
Photo: James Dimmock
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- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC.