格纳尔斯·巴克莱

Gnarls Barkley is an American soul duo, composed of singer-songwriter CeeLo Green and producer Danger Mouse. They released their debut studio album, St. Elsewhere, in 2006. It contained their hit single "Crazy", which peaked at number two on the US Hot 100 and topped the UK Singles Chart. It was nominated at the 2007 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, and was platinum certified for shipping over 1,000,000 records. St. Elsewhere also received a nomination for Album of the Year. Their second studio album, The Odd Couple, was scheduled for release in April 2008, but due to a leak of the album over the internet, they decided to release it early. The album in its entirety received similarly positive reviews. The project was revived in 2026, where the duo released their third and final album Atlanta that March.

History

Background

CeeLo Green first entered the scene as part of the Atlanta hip hop group Goodie Mob which had a large hand in the Dirty South movement of the 1990s. Green left the group after their third album in 1999 and started his solo career. That year he sang on "Do You Like the Way" along with Lauryn Hill on Santana's multi-platinum Supernatural album.

Brian Joseph Burton, better known by his stage name Danger Mouse, has produced albums for a number of hip hop and rock artists, including Gorillaz' Demon Days, and The Black Keys' Attack & Release, El Camino, and Turn Blue. He received international attention for his mash-up The Grey Album, which blended the a cappella edition of Jay-Z's The Black Album with samples from The Beatles' White Album.

The duo first crossed paths while Green was performing at the University of Georgia and Danger Mouse won a contest to DJ. They became musical partners and worked together on the songs that would become St. Elsewhere; prior to the release of that album they collaborated on the songs "What You Sittin' On?" for Lex Records in 2004, and "Benzi Box" from the Danger Doom album The Mouse and the Mask in 2005.

Band name

The band was named while Burton was in a cafe in Silver Lake, California, Burton and friends began playing a game of creating fake celebrity names such as Prince Gnarls and Bob Gnarly. When the name Gnarls Barkley was invented, Burton wrote it down. The name was chosen purely on its sound and not on any basketball fandom by the duo. Despite this, Charles Barkley has said he is honored by the homage.

According to a Billboard article: "Burton and CeeLo have been cagey about what the name of the act means, and each live performance is an opportunity to play dress-up as tennis players, astronauts and chefs, among many other get-ups. The costuming extends to photo shoots, as Burton and Cee Lo would rather impersonate characters from such films as Back to the Future or Wayne's World." They also have dressed up as characters from films A Clockwork Orange and Napoleon Dynamite.