Psychedelic Soul Band At #1 ! Paul Fuzz decides internet "not all bad!"
With the rolling gait of a Harlem pimp loaded on high-balls, Gnarls Barkley's low-slung neo-psyche soul hit 'Crazy' has loped hazily & lazily up to the #1 spot of the Top 40 on the back of a gazillion down loads, and then again this week on the back of huge sales clocked up by some retrograde 20th century confection they used to call the 'CD single.' What's great about Gnarls Barkley's wonderful funk 'n' strings smasheroo topping the charts on downloads alone is that it completely puts knuckle draggin' luddites & .com cynics like me to shame. While I don't imagine for a second that every big internet hit will be of this quality (I mean, how could it be, right?) it sure as heck is nice to have my neanderthal fear (that an mp3 dominated Top 40 would consist of nothing but novelty junk, lowest common denominator trash & fad-driven tweenager pap) totally debunked. Instead, i-tunes et al have produced one of best #1's of this decade....I'll still be buying vinyl for the forseeable, but I'm pleasently surprised to learn that download culture isn't the death-knell for quality Top 40 pop music I thought it might be.