Before Cee-Lo was a TV personality and after DJ Dangermouse got famous for mixing Jay-Z and The Beatles, they were known together as Gnarls Barkley. They only produced two albums, and only one was any good, but that album was very good. Very, very good. In addition to a cool Violent Femmes cover and some quirky original tunes, it produced the monster hit Crazy—which the Femmes in turn covered in 2008.
Between 2006-2008, Crazy was as ubiquitous as Tears For Fears’ “Shout” was two decades earlier. It came at the time that digital music was overtaking CDs—it was the first ever song to get to the top of the UK charts solely off mp3 sales, and it sat there for nearly two months, and Rolling Stone Magazine named it the best song of the double-aught decade. And it won a Grammy.
THE GREATEST OF ALL TUNES (G.O.A.T.) is a series of posts, producing my 100 favorite songs of all time. The master list is here, and I update it about every two weeks or when I have another 10 songs or so. When I do, this song will be #22, right under “This Old Heart of Mine” and above “Come and Get Your Love.”
Further listening: Gone Daddy Gone (Violent Femmes cover).
Covers: Everyone has a version of this, including porn star Paris Hilton. These are a few of the more interesting ones:
