Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer

Storming charts and radio with the album's first single 'Fuck You,' Cee Lo Green has released his third studio album, The Lady Killer. As Max Easton writes, it's a surprisingly cohesive funk and soul outing from the voice behind Gnarles Barkley.

A few months ago, sitting in my 26 year old car waiting for it to warm up in the depths of winter, I lazily flicked through the radio dial trying to find something that I was in the mood to not hate. Soon enough, I was flooded with the hyper-enthusiastic radio voice of Triple J's Rosie Beaton introducing Cee Lo Green's then unknown single, Fuck You. Rosie, with the innate ability to be as disproportionately lively as I am tired at any one point introduced it as a song set to storm the Super Request waves for months to come. As I slumped back in my car seat too exhausted to turn the key to a car which had just stalled itself, I decided to give Cee Lo Green a chance.

Several months later, and Rosie Beaton turned out to be right. Fuck You was the single that had absolutely everything required to send people into a fucking frenzy. It had an irresistible funk beat that wasn't so unfamiliar to make the kids think they were listening to James Brown, it had subliminal/hypnotic references to anything from Kanye West's Gold Digger to a B. A. Baracus 'pity the fool,' and most importantly; a simple, catchy chorus with a swear word in it. Back to where I was sitting in my 1984 Mitsubishi Colt, listening with a mixture of pleasure and impending doom, I realised that in the space of about three weeks, I was going to hate this song more than anything else on this planet. 

While Fuck You (or Forget You as commercial radio and television know it) may have suffered from a bit of over-exposure, you'd be challenged to find reasons why it isn't the perfect Summer pop song. So when Cee Lo Green's latest album, The Lady Killer, was retrieved from my mailbox I was placed dead centre in the place of a serious dichotomy. For one, I knew I wasn't supposed to like this record. For two, I could write a review with two lengthy introductory paragraphs about my much-loved Mitsubishi Colt as a backdrop to the pop-brilliance that was the album's first single. 

One of the most powerful selling points of the pop music is familiarity. Sure, anyone can crack high rotation with a catchy enough hook and  chorus (see Yolanda Be Cool, Art Vs Science, Mumford and Sons,) but if you've got a voice and personality that the buying public has heard before, then your foot is so far in the door that the owner of the room you're entering is entitled to invite you in for a coffee. Crossing over with the Danger Mouse collaboration Gnarles Barkley, Cee Lo was no stranger at the door when it came to dropping Fuck You on the greater public. The combination of that very familiar voice, that undeniable chorus and some serious subliminal brainwashing (X-Box, Atari, Gold Digger, Pity the Fool, Ferrari, Fuck) made it a pretty straight-forward step onto the singles charts, but does Mr. Green have the clout to fill out an album?

The answer is a 'holy-shit-this-is-where-all-the-good-funk-and-soul-is-these-days' yes. The Lady Killer is 2010's answer to everything laid out by the funk and soul artists from the 60's and 70's. It's The Meters, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield and James Brown with the beats, rhythms and tempos of this era's dance and R&B. Probably the biggest achievement of this album is the artful repackaging of sounds well-trodden by the album's influences to a latter day audience. The very same kids rolling their eyes at 1970's Motown will be dancing in their modern-day daisy dukes to Cee Lo's Wildflower or making out to Cry Baby without batting a rolled eyelid. The flourished horns so imprinted in our brains from songs like Kool & The Gang's Celebration are all here, but the beats that hold it all together are nothing that isn't present in the Top 40 already.

Just as comfortable harnessing the soul of Solomon Burke on Please as he is with the disco-funk romance I Want You, Cee Lo Green stirs in a mixture of soul, disco, funk and R&B into a pot which is distinctly modern. Unfortunately, this formula is broken most importantly with the stupidly over-synthed Bright Lights, Bigger City, a ridiculous way to begin an album that is, for all intents and purposes, a piece of revivalist re-imaginings. Likewise, Satisfied seems a little too much of a straight throwback to The Supremes to belong on this record, but for the rest, it's a surprisingly cohesive outing that lends Cee Lo Green the credibility which many would be quite happy to see misplaced. 

The fact is, that as unpopular as the move to rate an album by a Top 40 artist so calculatingly commercial as Cee Lo Green may be, it is very difficult to find fault in The Lady Killer when taken for what it is. The Lady Killer is a slice of everything you think you're too cool to have listened to in the context of everything that you are too cool to listen to. Its place alongside the Katy Perry's, Pink’s, and Kesha’s (I refuse to use an exclamation mark or dollar sign to spell anyone's name) may be enough for you to turn away - and yes, it is at times a little too stained by commercial sheen - but The Lady Killer is worth taking another look before you turn your back. If you were ever fascinated by those hypnotic sounds from James Bond Soundtracks, hip-hop samples and Austin Powers films, then this album may well be where your curiosity has led you. As long as you then go and buy Curtis Mayfield's Roots, James Brown's Hell and Solomon Burke's Rock 'n' Soul then you can walk away with your credibility in tow. After all, isn't that what being a music fan is all about?

Cee Lo Green's Lady Killer is out now on Warner Music.