The rooster is going to jump off the mic stand when he hears this piece of crap.

[I cut out the part where he talks about how he hated Speakerboxxx/TBL for brevity's sake]

But here it is: Idlewild is a terrible album.

It's still not a proper OutKast album; Andre and Big Boi only come together to rap on two tracks, both of which have already leaked. It's basically a sequel to Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, except that now the solo tracks are on the same disc, and they're sequenced so they're all jumbled up next to each other. It's clear from the opening skit, where Andre brings back his fucking irritating fake British accent, that we're in for another pretentious mess. But it's even worse now, since Andre's wannabe Prince nonsense has bled over to most of Big Boi's solo tracks. Big Boi still manages to come up with the occasional great moment; he still has that great overenunciated speed-rap flow, and he gets gorgeous, summery vocal hooks out of Sleepy Brown and Scar. "The Train," one of the recently-leaked tracks, has a breezy horn riff that reminds me of Earth Wind & Fire; I sort of love it. But more often, his tracks are messy, unstructured blurts like the single "Morris Brown," and Big Boi himself sounds awkward and out of place. There wasn't a whole lot of information given at the listening session, so I don't know whether Andre produced the Big Boi tracks, but it sure sounds like he did. I much preferred last year's underrated Got Purp?, Vol. 2, Big Boi's label sampler. That album was full of crisp, airy electro and bright, joyous R&B. It was a pop album, not an experimental opus, and Big Boi always sounds a lot more comfortable when he's giving his public utilitarian trunk-rattlers than when he's getting weird and trying to keep up with Andre.

As for Andre's parts, they're worse than I could've ever imagined. He's really gone off the deep end, ditching anything resembling coherence. He doesn't embarrass himself on those rare occasions when he deigns to rap, but he's much more interested in singing in that unbelievably annoying pinched falsetto. "Idlewild Blue (Don'tchu Worry Bout Me)" is an acoustic blues song with big, chunky drums and trite, self-impressed ad-libs ("Y'all know about the blues, right?"). "Chronomentophobia" is a breathy falsetto sketch about, apparently, "the fear of cults, the fear of time." "Life is Like a Musical" is all Herb Alpert tiki-drums and Stereolab synths, and it's one of several songs that Andre sings lounge-style. "Makes No Sense At All" completely justifies its title; it's Andre's stab at jazz, with walking bass and tinkling pianos and gibberish lyrics that I guess are supposed to have something to do with scatting. "Greatest Show on Earth" is Andre's duet with, seriously, Macy Gray; it's a piece of all-over-the-place jazzhands big-band, and it fails completely. Christina Aguilera also has a few big-band songs on her new album, and it's also annoying when she tries it, but she at least makes some attempt at translating it into a pop context. Andre is content to build his own little playground and fart around in it, never so much as offering a hook for the rest of us to latch onto. And "A Bad Note," the album's last song, is a squiggley instrumental guitar solo that goes on for damn near forever; by the time it was half over, everyone in the room was losing patience and talking over it.

It's not a critic's place to talk about an album's commercial prospects, but there has to be a reason Jive is leaking tracks like crazy this week. It's like the label realizes that there's no "Hey Ya" on here, that the album doesn't stand much of a chance without one, and it's throwing everything against the wall to see if anything sticks. It doesn't much matter to me whether the album does well or not; I've listened to it once, and I don't intend to put myself through that ever again.

Maybe the movie will be good. I don't know. It's possible.

another pretentious mess. But it's even worse now, since Andre's wannabe Prince nonsense has bled over to most of Big Boi's solo tracks.

I think that means awesome, not terrible.

BlaqueKnight said:

I said the same thing about 'Batman' when it was released.....

Love OutKast, but I kinda figured that this CD would be bad . The movie don't look so hot either.

nurse said:

But you haven't even heard it yet! Don't give up on it already just based on what some biased hipster who heard it once at a listening party has to say about it...

I'm reserving all judgement until I've heard and seen with my own ears and eyes...respectively.

Idlewild is definitely going to be a tough nut to crack, in my humble opinion. I mean just from listening to a couple of sample tracks, a little bit of the innovation is still here and of course the duo is still worldly. But, ever since Speakerboxxx/TLB (which was a great album if you took it in parts) something has been missing. Bottom line is: we want Aquemini-era, ATLiens-era, and even Stankonia-era Outkast back!
[Edited 8/10/06 20:14pm]

Rollingstone gives it 4 stars...

BlaqueKnight said:

"Purple Rain" was a soundtrack, too. I don't think it being a soundtrack, to a musical, after all, should be an excuse for a bad album. No, I'm not expecting SB/TLB 2...My expecatations aren't that high but I'm hoping for a good album. Sounds like the reviewer wasn't really a fan of that the prior album, so screw him or her.

Rollingstone gives it 4 stars...

Sdldawn said:

They could cut a fart and Rolling Stone would give it 4 stars.

Andre is the new Prince and that's that.

The world's biggest pop group makes an album about breaking up. It becomes a staggeringly popular crossover hit, winning them so many new fans they have no choice but to forget the solo careers and carry on together. So they come out with a new record where they barely appear on each other's tracks, recorded mostly in seperate studios. And just to show they haven't sold out, the next single is a commercial-suicide showcase for a college marching band. Ladies and gentleman... Fleetwood Mac!

Like the Mac circa Tusk, Oukast respond to the pressures of magastardom with their wierdest music yet. "Morris Brown" might feature the tubas and trombones of the Morris Brown College Band, but it is irresistible-just like Tusk, which went to number one in spite of itself. On Idlewild Andre "3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton are on different wavelengths, but they're wild idols, two of the most brilliantly warped music minds we've got, the most unpredictable pop duo since Prince and himself. Last time out, they packaged thier two solo joints together to create Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and you know what happened next: your mom liked Hey Ya more than you did. So when Andre says, "Divorce is not an option, an prenuptial is void," in "Mighty O,"he's probably talking about the group. He's stuck with Big Boi the way he's stuck with Ms. Jackson'sdaughter- they made something major together, and now the dream is gone but the baby is real.They meet up for only four of Idlewild's twenty-five tracks, but it still sounds like the burden of sharing Outkast brings out the fire in their music, by forcing them to try to top each other.

Idlewild is anything but a safe follow up to Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. The Premise is Prince's Parade, one of his nuttiest Eighties albums, chronicling his imaginary life as a 1920s European dandy, as in the movie Under the Cherry Moon. Like Parade, Idlewildis a cinematic Jazz Age fantasy, with Dre and Big Boiat a Georgia speak-easy during Prohibition. The movie has Black History Month staples such as Cicely Tyson and Ben Vereen, but it's been on the shelf for nearly two years while Outkast finished the soundtrack. It was worth it, because Idlewild mixes up swing, blues, hip hop, and R&B without losing a step. "Morris Brown" is a typical highlight, with Earth, Wind, and Fire-style vocalsover the marching band funk - it's so suave on the surface, it takes a few spins to absorb how radical it is.

"Mighty O" combines a 1980s one note electro hook and a 1920s Cab Calloway singalong, with Dre and Big Boi rapping together since the first time since Stankonia. Dre tries acoustic blues in "Idlewild Blue (Don'tchu Worry 'Bout Me)" and Cotton Club jazz in "Call the Law," while tripping out in the low-end freak funk of "Chronomentrophobia," "Makes No Sense at All" and "Life is Like a Musical." Snoop and Lil Wayne join in the dancehall falvored show stopper "Hollywood Divorce," where Lil Wayne raps, "The hurricane come and took my Louisiana home/And all I got in return was a durn country song."

Big Boi goes for smooth-operator soul in "Peaches," "N2U" and "Buggface," and peaks with the melancholic R&B of "The Train," with Al Green-style Memphis horns. Dre and Big Boi unite for the Hendrix-downer finale "A Bad Note," nearly nine minutes of maggot-brain guitar and gospel wails. With Big Boi gearing up for a solo tour and Dre trying to be a cartoon star, the OutKast group identity might be over, but together they turn their run-of-the-mill superstar alienation into the deeply eccentric richness of Idlewild. And like the Stones before them, they'll be OutKast all their lives.