Remember the wonderfulness of the typography treatment of the lyrics in the original video for Cee-lo's "Fuck You" last summer? It started a trend—Hype Williams used a similar, though more photosensitive-epileptic-seizure-inducing, effect in his video for Kanye West's "All of the Lights" last month. Now, the new video for a remix of another song from Cee-lo's Lady Killeralbum, "Bright Lights Bigger City," puts a new spin on the idea. I think it's great. And, God, I love that Billie-Jeanie bassline. I'm not sure how much the addition of Wiz Khalifa adds, though, other than the cache that comes from his recent no. 1 single, "[...]
"This began as a very random idea I had on my dad's patio after we watched our beloved Georgia Bulldog football team get robbed of a win at the hands of the referees and LSU last year. I knew I wanted to pay homage to my favorite team in song but didn't have any idea how to begin. Once I heard Cee Lo's 'Georgia,' I was immediately smitten and figured that's as good as any tribute to any state I've ever heard. It wasn't until I heard his cover of our song though that it occurred to me: Duh, we should return the favor. Incorporating the Redcoat marching band [...]
The followup to Cee-Lo Green's gleefully profane "Fuck You" is, perhaps out of necessity, a love song, albeit one that takes just as many sonic cues from the past as its predecessor. (A matched set! Aw, just like in real love.) The track is pleasant enough, with Cee-Lo's scratchy-sweater voice sounding quite fine over a seemingly endless loop of strings; the abrupt segue on this British radio rip actually makes me wonder if there's another minute or so to the track that got cut off by the overly excitable DJ who introduces the thing. [Via]
If you'd like to hear the radio-friendly version of Cee-Lo's "Forget You," which is the version of "Fuck You" that the world is allowed to hear on the airwaves, go to Trevor Green's BBC show and fast-forward to minute 52. It really kind of doesn't work. Radio! You have to wonder why it exists sometimes.
Atlanta's Cee-Lo has been a favorite artist of mine for a long time. But this song, released last month on the Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack, and apparently slotted to appear on his forthcoming album, Lady Killer, has taken a while to grow on me. His delivery is so affected and ceremonious, and together with the echoey chime of the guitar and the double-time drums, it takes on a costume-era mid-'60s vibe. Like, you imagine him in Revolutionary War get-up like Paul Revere and the Raiders or something. But grown on me it has. The melody is pretty irresistible. And affected or not, his voice always sounds awesome. [...]
With all the fun Cee-Lo's been having with the mid-'60s vibe, and animated typeography and the color pink in putting together his new album, The Ladykiller, it's kind of surprising he hasn't just gotten Blake Edwards to direct a video for him.
Shut up. No one is tired of this song. The cast of "Mad Men" loves it. Cee-Lo played the BBC's Later… With Jools Holland last night and they let him sing the real lyrics. He wore an incredible suit and his band was like Rizzo and the Pink Ladies from Grease. The bass was fat and fuzzy and at the end Cee-Lo says "Fuck you" to everybody, but everybody knows he means that he loves them.
Here's the official video for Cee-Lo's beloved late summer smash. It's very good-looking-pastel and neon vintage diner decor. (Though maybe not as good-looking as the original typeset treatment?) My favorite part is when Cee-Lo throws the ol' from-the-chin Italiano-style kiss-off. Vaffancul!
Man, it really seems like everyone has had a pretty crappy summer, doesn't it? Everyone's just in a foul mood. The thing about Atlanta's Cee-Lo, though, is that even when he's in a foul mood, he can make music that sounds as joyous and terrific as this most recent single from his forthcoming Lady Killer album. Enjoy! And here are five other songs from this summer that similarly express very similar feelings: A full handful of musical middle-fingers!
Today's reason to hate myself: for missing Prince play "Crazy" with his opening act Cee-Lo at Madison Square Garden last night. God, that guitar! (This video will disappear soon too, because Prince, copyright, etc. Which is funny, since this isn't even his song!)
Hey, remember a couple weeks ago, when Cee-Lo performed that great, uncensored version of "Fuck You" on Later With Jools Holland? Well, turns out he performed another song from his soon-to-come Lady Killer album that night, too. "Old Fashioned," it's called. And that's the way it sounds, too. But in a really good way.
Cee-Lo has a supercool cover picked out for his Lady Killer album, which is due next month. It's classic-looking. And very familiar. The sunglasses, the relaxed pose, the close-up headshot.
Of course, sunglasses go with music stardom like cocaine goes with more cocaine. There are lots of famoussongs about the subject. Some of them are great. Thusly, there have been many album covers similar to Cee-Lo's.
"Ironically, this week the Pajamas Media site ran a piece reporting that Egyptian Islamic scholar and self-proclaimed jihadist Abd al-Muti Bayum has condemned the 'Ground Zero mosque' as a devious 'Zionist conspiracy' to discredit Islam by linking it to the September 11 attacks. This was cited as an argument against the Cordoba Center. This is strange logic: the center shouldn't be built because radical Islamists will like it…. or because they will hate it." That's Reason's Cathy Young, whose colleague Radley Balko gave us such a good angle on the "NYC Terror Mosque" controversy last week.
Huh. The new video for Eminem and Rihanna's "Love The Way You Lie" (which, man is that chorus jarringly disjointed from the verse) is almost like a stay-at-home-version of the video for Cee-Lo's "No One's Gonna Love You More Than I Do." And it starts out just like the video for Cee-Lo's "What Part of Forever." The only difference, really, is that Dominic Monaghan and Megan Fox burst into flames into flames in the Eminem and Rihanna video. Remember when MTV wouldn't let rappers show fire in their videos? Weird.
