I think I’m now officially a fan of Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton.
I mean the guy has always interested me ever since he popped onto my radar with The Grey Album. I dug how his remixing of The Black Album wasn’t just a mash-up, in that he layered different pieces of various songs when he made his compositions.
And I enjoyed The Mouse and the Mask, but that came at a time when “one mc/one producer” projects had me open. I think when I really started to give the guy his due was when he took over for The Automator as producer of the Gorillaz.
I’m a fan of Dan the Automator. I’m not a big enough fan to follow him anywhere, but I dig the man’s aesthetic. He’s quirky and skewed, and works well with Kool Keith and Prince Paul. So when Dan the Automator bounced from the Gorillaz, I was worried. And at first I was unsure of Danger Mouse taking over.
Obviously, my fears were assuaged. Demon Dayz was a different beast than its predecessor but it bumped just as unexpectedly. That’s when I began to really pay attention to Danger Mouse.
Gnarls Barkley was almost over-hyped. All of the wrong people jumped on the “Crazy” bandwagon, but St. Elsewhere was a solid album. I’ll never get tired of hearing the title track; that song is sick. But I still wasn’t completely waving a Danger Mouse banner.
One of the last pieces to fall in place for me was last year’s The Good, the Bad & the Queen by the still-unnamed band, which was produced by Danger Mouse. That album was so dark and murky, yet it completely resonated with me. It stayed in rotation for a good deal of time. That’s when I began formulating the notion that I just might be a fan of Danger Mouse.
But it wasn’t until this year that this was fully realized. The past few months I’ve had Modern Guilt (Beck’s latest album, produced by Danger Mouse) and The Odd Couple (the latest Gnarls Barkley album; either the original version or the instrumental version) in heavy rotation. Those are my go-to albums when I don’t know what I feel like listening to. And I’ve got nothing against Cee-Lo, but the instrumental version of The Odd Couple is amazing. It really made me appreciate all of the work that Danger Mouse puts into a beat—the nuance, the flourishes; they’re all there when the vocals are stripped.
Danger Mouse is pretty much a sign of quality in my book at this point. When I see his name on an album I know I can expect something dope and something that sounds familiar and unique at the same time.
I believe in Danger Mouse and I can’t wait to hear what he produces next.
