July 07, 2006

The Evolution of Gnarles Barkley's "Crazy" - you've all heard it. A song that (nearly) everyone seems to dig. For once, a decent song gains the attention of the hype machine. But have you heard "Nel Cimitero Di Tucson", which is the original form of "Crazy"?

It comes from the Spaghetti Western 'Preparati la bara!', one of the classic Django movies. Musicians & arrangers like me will be interested to hear the original and divine the progression of DJ Dangermouse's sampling & remixing of elements to bring us the final song, along with Cee-lo's masterful lyrics of un-meaning. Also worth listening to are the several covers, listed on the linked page. And for those who haven't yet seen it, here is the official video for "Crazy", from YouTube (fun game is counting the images of mice that appear).

posted by Chyren 18 years ago
  • Wow. That's cool. I like that original track too, even it is highly overdramatic. I did not like the Gnarls Barkley version until seeing a recording of the seminal performance from the MTV Music Awards. Look it up on YouTube if you haven't seen it. It's awesome. The recorded version of Crazy I found too 'smooth'. It wasn't raw enough. I'd heard it on the radio but just dismissed it from mind. The live version however, blew me away. Especially with the extra synths synths they added.
  • nice stuff. i hadn't heard it. need to get out more, it seems. off topic: how on earth does youtube make money?
  • how on earth does youtube make money? From what I've come across, Youtube does not make money. It is, in fact, 'revenue free'. It's a great idea, well executed, but apparently planned from day 1 to be a buy out. Grab a sea of eyeballs then sell them and the company to Yahoo, or someone similar. Not sure how long YouTube can keep it up. Their bandwidth bills are smaller than you'd think, but still prodigious. I assume the venture caps keep financing it because it just keeps getting more and more successful, so they imagine a bigger and bigger payout. The rumours surrounding YouTube's funding suggest they might have enough cash to run for a year, at this point. I suspect, however, that the only reason YouTube hasn't been bought yet is that no one else can figure out how to make money with it either, short of breaking the service.
  • They don't need money, they're building an army of lip synching teenagers! I really wanted to hate that MTV awards performance. I mean, it has everything against it: MTV, Borat, Star Wars. But you know what, it fucking rocks.
  • ^^^ "Crazy" by way of "Freaks and Geeks", it seems to me.
  • The cover done by The Twilight Singers is outstading
  • I quite like the Nelly Furtado cover. Breathy and funky.
  • nine thumbs up
  • Youtube has bandwidth fees of a million dollars a month. I've read another article recently that went into some detail about youtube's costs, but I can't find it right now. If you youtube some other Gnarls Barkley live performances, you'll see that they always dress up for the show. Military uniforms, bath robes, whatever is odd and has a common theme.
  • I wish someone had FPP'd the question of how YouTube (and perhaps others) make money, as it is a topic of great interest to me, however I'm getting gnarly that the Crazy thread has been hijacked as that song does have legs and needs to be discussed.
  • Love that cheesy old spaghetti-western music. I must have heard this song on the radio before now but it didn't seem to register. Brings to mind the old Patsy Cline tune "Crazy", written by Willie Nelson and covered by scads of singers.
  • > I wish someone had FPP'd the question of how YouTube yeah, my bad. i'd just noticed when looking at the third link in the post that there was zero advertising. i've become so accustomed to blocking out internet ads that i'd assumed 'til now that youtube had some.
  • I wish someone had FPP'd the question of how YouTube Done
  • The Gnarls Barkley album as a whole is really good, and has led me to a more general Danger Mouse obsession this summer.
  • Fuck you for liking that shit and fuck my coworker for his Crazy ringtone. It's like a dagger in my brain everytime his phone goes off.
  • What's his phone number? And what hours do you work?
  • ...folks never phase me by callin' me cuh-ray-zee 'cause I don't cay-yuh! Way back in vaudeville days Eva Tanguay sang "I Don't Care" con brio and became famous. Her inimitable pronounciation of crazy heard later from veterans like Bert Lahr - her only hit, but great fun and very period if you can locate a copy of her singing it.
  • Without youtube, I would know that dogs can be bipedal. What an ignorant person I would be.
  • Call me crazy but I Don't Care
  • Because I seem to live in a media vacuum I must be the last person living in a first-world country who hasn't heard this song. The song is good but that inkblot video is way excellent. Thanks for the video, Chy.
  • I wouldn't know, that is.
  • *revises list of "things homunculus knows"*
  • In case you can't get enough of "borrowing" from spaghetti western soundtracks, I offer you the coolest video I've seen in a long time.
  • ohemgeedubyateaeffbeebeecue! that is the best video ever—all it's missing is pirates and it'd be an internet trend-whore's wet dream. Lawl!
  • gone daddy gone (youtube link), gnarls barkley covers the violent femmes accompanied by a very good video.