"Crazy" (Gnarls Barkley)

I was living in Charlotte back in 2006.  And hating it.  (Sorry to anyone who lives there now.  But I've never lived anywhere so insular and blind to its own problems yet so ready to admire itself in the mirror every chance it gets.)
The only saving grace of the whole experience was that I was working for an online video marketing start-up that I believed in.  I mainly interviewed clients and then scripted their online commercials, but I also was composing and recording all of our production music (to avoid copyright issues) and running a video blog that covered community events around the city.  It wasn't unusual for me to put in a full day of work and then have to head right back out with my camera to interview the organizer of a charity run or street fair, and then come home to eat a late dinner by the glow of the video editing suite on my laptop before working on some new production music for Client A, who'd specifically requested "something that sounds like Duke Ellington" for her commercial.
After spending my late night hours chopping up video or channeling the spirit of Billy Strayhorn, I'd crawl into bed around 1 a.m. to try and sleep before doing it all again.  Inevitably, my asshole upstairs neighbor (I lived in a ground floor apartment) would come stumbling home around the same time—often with an entourage, fresh from some bar downtown, and the afterparty would continue into the wee hours of the morning.  This was on weeknights, by the way; weekends were their own, unique frat house kind of hell.  (I had to wonder how a salesman for Rubbermaid Industrial Products could literally and figuratively afford to live like Vince Neil, circa 1989, seven days-a-week.)
Point is, the days were long, and I wasn't getting much sleep.  I was enjoying the work, but I wasn't making any money (none of us were).  There were lots of external stressors—from lingering college debt to family drama—making life tricky.  And I was in a relationship that wasn't working.
It all began to take its toll.
One sweltering afternoon in the summer of 2006, I came home after a very long day.  We'd had a brand new laptop stolen from our reception desk (all signs indicated that a client's wife had walked off with it while we were shooting the husband's commercial in our studio), and my faith in humanity was pretty shaken.  I simply was exhausted and sick of the whole Charlotte experience.
Anyway, I'd been hearing about this song called "Crazy" that supposedly was a collaboration between Thomas Callaway (a.k.a. CeeLo Green) and Brian Burton (a.k.a. Danger Mouse).  But I'd yet to actually hear it.  So I was poking around iTunes, trying to get inspired to do some more backing music for an upcoming production, and I finally had a chance to preview the track.  It was just a :30 snippet, and all I heard was the end of the second verse (You really think you're in control?) and that now-famous chorus.  Chalk it up to extreme fatigue, but it hit me hard, and I started to bawl. 
CeeLo's Nina Simone-like delivery seemed to capture all of the frustration I was feeling, but he also seemed to be channeling the world's anguish in his man-in-the-wilderness wail.  It was cathartic.  Necessary, in fact.  
It was no surprise to me when it became a massive worldwide hit.
As Burton told New York magazine in 2006, the basic track (which samples the instrumental "Last Men Standing" by Italian composers Gianfranco and Gian Pero Reverberi from the 1968 film Viva! Django) was a blatant homage to Spaghetti Westerns and the music of Ennio Morricone (think: "The Theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly").  
In a separate 2006 interview with The New York Times Magazine, Burton expanded on this by saying he'd played the instrumental track for Callaway, who was blown away by it.  From there, that sparked a conversation between the two about artistry, insanity, and the public's perception thereof, leading them to the conclusion that no one takes artists seriously unless they're perceived as being crazy.
Said Burton, "So we started jokingly discussing ways in which we could make people think we were crazy.  We talked about this for hours, and then I went home.  But while I was away, CeeLo took that conversation and made it into 'Crazy,' which we recorded in one take.  That's the whole story.  The lyrics are his interpretation of that conversation."

"Dirty Harry" (Gorillaz)

For a band that doesn’t actually exist, Gorillaz has crafted some damn good music over the past decade—particularly the album Demon Days (2005).
In reality, Gorillaz is a clever vehicle for social and political commentary by way of comic book-style characters and a unique hybrid of alt rock and hip hop.  The brains behind it all are musician Damon Albarn, graphic artist Jamie Hewlett, and producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton. 
Based on a 2003 demo by Albarn called “I Need A Gun,” the track “Dirty Harry” (referring to Clint Eastwood’s gun-toting vigilante cop) is a great example of the “band’s” genius, combining a danceable rhythm track, sing-along verses--complete with children’s choir, and insightful observations about the state of the world.
The commentary in the song is twofold: first, it’s a look at our society—kids carrying guns to feel safe in everyday situations (I need a gun, ‘cos all I do is dance).  Second, it’s a rumination on the 2003-2011 Iraq War.  It’s not so much a criticism of the politics or motivations behind the war, though; it's more of a reminder to listeners that there were young men and women on the ground there, facing very real danger.  
Rapping from the point of view of a disillusioned young soldier, the Pharcyde’s Romye “Bootie Brown” Robinson makes direct reference to our 43rd President’s infamous declaration of “Mission Accomplished” while the war was still raging:

And I'm filled with guilt from things that I've seen
Your water's from a bottle, mine's from a canteen
At night I hear the shots
Ring so I'm a light sleeper
The cost of life, it seems to get cheaper
Out in the desert with my street sweeper
“The war is over,” so said the speaker
With the flight suit on
Maybe to him I'm just a pawn
So he can advance
Remember when I used to dance?
Man, all I want to do is dance.

"Tighten Up" (The Black Keys)

I’ve had conversations with people (okay, near fistfights) over whether or not The Black Keys sold out on their album Brothers (2010).  I’ve even had some argue that the duo's initial collaboration with producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton on the album Attack & Release (2008) was the beginning of the end of their homegrown sound.
I completely disagree.  There’s a difference between selling out and refining a good thing.  I will admit, their more recent releases have had a garage rock via Memphis kind of feel, whereas their earlier albums had a garage rock via Detroit feel.  But that’s Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney’s prerogative to take their sound in new directions.  The original fire and crunch are still there, even if the sound is a little more polished.
For my money, Brothers was the best album released in 2010—rocking and soulful with exceptional songwriting from start to finish.  It’s an album that will hold up for many years to come.
The same can be said for the track “Tighten Up,” the first single released from Brothers.  It happened to be their only collaboration with Burton on the album, and it actually came at the very end of sessions.
The bulk of Brothers was cut with producer Mark Neill at the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Muscle Shoals, AL, where artists from The Staples Singers to The Rolling Stones recorded hit records in the 70s.  Thing was, when Auerbach and Carney made the decision to record at Muscle Shoals, they weren't really aware that it hadn't been a functioning recording studio in more than 30 years; it was basically a shabby museum, sitting on the side of a highway in rural Alabama.  So Neill shipped recording equipment from his own California studio to Muscle Shoals, allowing the duo to record in the fabled studio, albeit on outside machinery.
As Neill states in an August 2011 Sound on Sound article, "Recording The Black Keys at Muscle Shoals," the natural acoustics of the studio immediately affected the way Auerbach and Carney approached writing and recording the material for Brothers.  Notes Neill, the cinderblock construction of the building and springy floors in the studio act as a sponge for bass.  So Auerbach and Carney were sort of driven to focus on drums and bass first--an approach they'd never taken before.  Likewise, Neill states that the sound in the studio's control room tends to swallow bass, too.  Therefore, his tendency was to compensate by pushing up the bass and kick drum when mixing.  
Upon playback, he was shocked at the bass-heavy sound that they were getting.
“First few takes, we literally couldn't believe what we were hearing,” says Neill. “Dan and Pat were kind of looking at each other saying, 'That doesn't even sound like us.' Seriously.”
After recording had wrapped in Alabama, Auerbach and Carney spent their downtime hanging out with Burton in New York and decided to cut one more track with him at Brooklyn's Bunker Studio.  With the Muscle Shoals sound still fresh on their minds, the track began with Carney playing around with a rhythm pattern that was inspired by the 1972 song "Vitamin C" by German experimental/psychedelic rock band Can.  Auerbach came up with the core riff and lyric, and they both decided the song needed that "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay"-style whistle in the intro as the icing on the cake.
Although the song is their biggest hit to date, Carney states in the 2011 Mojo article "Exiles on Main Street" they figured the song was a throwaway.  "We made the song, didn't think anything of it, shelved the thing for a month and a half.  That was 'Tighten Up.'  We never thought it would get played on the radio." 
I can't express my admiration of this song enough.  It is equal parts past and present, a simultaneous throwback and a leap forward that combines Stax soul and modern, club-ready blues-rock.  I completely love Auerbach's vocal and the genius shift in tempo during the last minute of the song, which gives you just enough time to catch your breath before hitting "repeat."

  
    

"The Last Time" (Gnarls Barkley)

I don't want to be that guy, but I was a fan of Thomas Calloway, aka CeeLo Green, long before Gnarls Barkley, The Voice, or any of that.  I remember my college roommate playing music from Goodie Mob's Soul Food (1995) and being impressed with CeeLo's flow and vocal on "Cell Therapy."  I also liked his contribution to OutKast's "Git Up, Git Out" from Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994).  Then there was the club banger "I'll Be Around" with Timbaland in 2004 that was completely slept on.  
Every time I'd heard something new from CeeLo, I kept thinking: Why is he not a superstar?  His style was so unique, and there was so much damn soul in everything he did.  It just confounded me why he wasn't a household name.
Anyway, unless you've been living under a rock--or, at the very least, a bunker without an internet connection, you know that CeeLo is now a huge star, largely as the result of his creative partnership with writer/producer Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse.
But I'm not going to talk about the song you might think I'm going to talk about.  Yet.
Instead, there's a brief track sitting at the very end of 2006's St. Elsewhere called "The Last Time."  It uses a sample from a somewhat obscure funk song called "Chicano Chaser" by Ian Langley, which--as far as I can tell--was recorded in 1973 as production (or stock) music for use in TV and film.  
In other words, it basically was a track intended for use under a car chase scene in a cop show. 
Which, considering how infectiously catchy "The Last Time" is, is a testament to Danger Mouse's production acumen and CeeLo's ability to sing anything from the phonebook to his damn ABC's and make it sound like church.
Like a lot of the other tracks on St. Elsewhere, there's a party vibe, but there's also a little melancholy at the bottom of that glass of Courvoisier.  It's as much a call to dance away the troubles of your day as it is to reconnect with a lost passion within oneself.  
And that's what makes it good.  That, and that funky tambourine.