Genius

This is such a superb album it is kind of hard to describe. I listined to this album because of all the hype surrounding it. By nature i am not a rap fan, and don't usually even like rap, but this album really captured me like nothing else has in awhile. Listen to the Love Below, and that alone makes it an incredible album. THe love Below is... very creative, to the point of exhaustive genius, and is structured in a way that is like absolutely nothing else. It is very eclectic, with styles ranging from funk to rock, to soul, to almost beat poetry. It enthrolles you with a magnet affect. It is also very artsy, and unconforming to all the rap crap that is spread over the stations with boring stereo typicalisms. These guys are actually willing to concern themselves with the music, the lyrics, and anything else to make an artistic triumph rather than a number one hit. Any band or artist that is willing to be concerned with THE Album, not the hit, is ok in my book. i really hate commercial songs for the sake of popularity, and thankfully they do none of that.

Now... disc two does stray from what Andre 3000 is trying to accomplish, and doesn't provide the same "loveliness" if you will; the melodies are not as creative, the mood is different, but it is still enjoyable. Overall this is an achievement in music i wish i saw more of. Superb.

Andre 3000's The Love Below is BRILLIANT

I love their latest double CD Album:-Although Big Boi's Speakerboxxx side has some brilliant tracks on them, Andre 3000's The Love Below is HIGHLY ADDICTIVE. I cannot stop playing these tracks on The Love Below CD.



( In order of preference )



1) Hey Ya.......(The best song this millennium..PERIOD)



2) Spead ...... (The hook and pull on this song is out of this world. Its like you're speeding home in your car during the night)



3) Happy Valentines day .....(Designed for ALL parties and clubs)



4) Love Hater ....... (This song is full of STYLE)



5) Love in War ...... (Well put together)



6) Dracula's Wedding ......(Exciting cartoon superhero style type of tune)

best outkast album

great cd

best outkast album.



every song on both cd's are great.

i like speakerboxx a little better b/c ts rap but there both good(speakerboxx and the love below)



buy this if u dont have it

it dosent matter if u get clean or explicit version

good but need to go back 2 basics

this cd's cool,but the love below is why i gave it a 3. andre sucks now because before he actually used to be a rapper . now ,he sounds like he's a pop star, he sings now. he needs to go back 2 being a player and gangsta. big boi is keepin' it real.

Seriously Refreshing!

This is a really good album right here, and I can say this both honestly and ojectively. Being objective is sometimes difficult when I like a group as much as, and have liked them for as long as I've liked Outkast. Outkast have built a reputation by being consistently excellent, creative, and innovative. They continue that tradition and at the same time blow all previous expectations out of the water with this excellent release. This album is good, and not just by today's standards of good either. This album is not just good in terms of hip hop standards either. Anybody who honestly loves music should find something to appreciate about this inventive double album. If I had to rate them separately, I would give Big's album a solid 3.5 stars and Dre's would get 4.5 stars. Big Boi's album is solid. The rapping is just as good as it has always been and he goes in a different direction with the production. The tunes are generally more melodious and he uses a lot of crisp live instrumentation this time around. 'Bowtie' and 'The Way You Move' sound like he has Earth Wind & Fire's horn section or the Tower of Power backing him up. He does have a few too many guest appearances and I really could do without the skits and Lil Jon's presence on 'Last Call', but "Speakerboxxx" is still a really solid album. Dre's album is phenominal. "The Love Below" really is essentially a concept album, and really has to be taken as a whole. He has basically written a movie or a play in music form, except it is much truer to life than most plays or movies. Johnny Vulture is struck by love, swept away by love, and ultimately left confused by love,... how true to life is that?:-) Unlike the skits on Big Boi's album, the skits here on Dre's really enhance the story. I could do without 'Good Day Good Sir' though. It actually does fit in well and make a lot of sense as the intro to 'Behold a Lady', I just think his back and forth with Fonsworth Bentley is really annoying. Dre's album is all over the place in terms of styles and types of music, yet it all sounds distinctly Outkast. He runs the gamut from 40's-ish jazz to drum & bass, and from hardcore funk to one of the sweetest melodies that I have heard in years on his Norah Jones collaboration, "Take off your cool". He ends it all off with his indirect Beatles nod, "A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre" ( He gives a much more direct nod earlier on his huge hit "Hey Ya!"). This song is similar to "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles in that it's the final song on the album, and in that it's a huge departure from the rest of the album. Dre goes out of his way to be as unconventional as possible so if you like your music nice and neat with distinct form and boundaries, then you probably won't enjoy this album. Personally, I love the fact that Dre's album is so unconventional because I love the genuineness of the fact that it is honestly driven by both earnest ideas, and a drive to be as freely creative as possible. Like many great albums this may take you a few listens to grasp, but once you do, it will remain just as rewarding throughout future listens. I encourage all music lovers to check it out.

Two Distinct Tastes make One Classic Flavor

Let it be heard: Outkast is one of the groups keeping rap's tired, materialistic vitals from flat-lining. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is a double disc offering that individually showcases the talents of both Big Boi and Andre 3000's individual states of artistic growing pains and exploration.



Rumors have abounded of the duo possibly breaking up. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is achieved without smacking of the weak marketing other rappers use when they swear they're breaking up or closing shop after this one, then come back with the same kind of stuff next year (kinda like these furniture stores in town).



Speakerboxxx may appeal most heavily to the brothers. It begins with a fat, 808 bass rolling intro that is a perfect marriage between the military snare cadences of FAMU's marching 100 and trunk-rattling, Miami bass. "Ghettomusick" takes up the Miami crunktivity and adds a change of pace with a sentimental, ol' school break of Patti Labelle's "Love Need and Want You."

Its break-neck tempo changes are guaranteed to pull the disco diva out of that overly-neat male cousin you always had doubts about and cancel the benefits of Ritalin in any ADD kid. "Reset" is a grown man's rap song, with the same atmosphere and pensive mood as the ATLiens CD. Here Ceelo and Khujo Goodie back up Big Boi in discussing the need for us all to regroup instead of give up when obstacles present themselves.



Big Boi's maturity sometimes in theme and the sensibilities of his music is slowly creeping into appealing to the forty-somethings and up who are even more intolerable of the stale state of hip hop than I am. "Church" is an example, where the song actually ends in a brief gospel double-time jamboree. "Bowtie" as a fun-loving romp for that great uncle still wearing Member's Only jackets and armed with Viagara. The little skit where Big Boi has his son in the booth hollering MF's is not appealing at all; there's too many kids with no childhood at all on account of hip hop excess, though he addresses the woes of single parenting and the inability of contemporary black couples to stay together in "The Rooster."



Andre 3000's "The Love Below" will draw the females with a quickness. It is probably what Prince would've attempted with "The Black Album" if he hadn't approached it with such a condescending attitude towards hip hop. Dre's "She Lives in My Lap" is the new "Ballad of Dorothy Parker." Needless to say, "The Love Below" easily goes down as the most courageous hip hop effort of the decade. Andre leaves himself emotionally vulnerable in songs like "Love & War" and "Prototype." This is virtually unheard of in a genre of music that is crippled with fear of being seen as weak in any light. The instrumentality and strings employed in "Love Hater" makes such candidness seem organic. In fact, he pushes the envelope of what hip hop can be the way Wyclef's solo joints did. The techno-tinged arrangements and mantra-like lyrical pattern in "Vibrate" is a spiritual sister to Big Boi's "Reset."



The disc is supposedly based off of a relationship with a woman. As with relationships, everything definitely isn't high notes and "Roses" ;Andre brings Big Boi in on the track to tell off a hoochie convinced that her meal ticket's strictly how fine she is. Affirmation-starved sistahs need not get their Hanes her ways in a bunch: Andre immediately follows with "Behold a Lady", as if to direct the same hoochie in "Roses" to the laid back, classy sistahs "standin' on the wall", you know the kind that don't blow the whole weekend chasin' the cars of visiting rap stars or pro ball players. 3000 comes close to makin' anyone listening remember the feel of pajamas that cover the feet and the smell of Mama's hair from her hugs in the winsome "She's Alive." The jazz flavor in "The Love Below" intro is does not come off as lazy shortcuts to depth and style. Acoustic guitars are aplenty as well in cuts like "Take Off Your Cool." Brothers will be skipping that song when out with the fellas, saving it instead for a ride alone or somewhere with their lady. There is no need to wonder: Outkast has dropped another classic that's too good to be just downloaded.



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