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...have produced alone. It is towards the latter end of this spectrum that we find Broken Bells, the new collaboration between James Mercer, lead singer of The Shins, and producer/musician Brian Burton a.k.a. Danger Mouse. The folk guitar strumming and soaring voice of Mercer fits impeccably into the hip-hop beats and electronic ambiance of Danger Mouse. However, a true synergy of the two styles never really comes across, leaving, simply, an undeniably catchy, though not terribly innovative, pop record...
...example, “The Ghost Inside” is arguably the most beguiling track on the album, yet it never transcends what the two individuals have previously created on their own. The song starts with a strong hip-hop beat and finds Mercer singing in a reverb-rich falsetto. Two-thirds in, it takes a turn and Mercer drops his voice down to his normal range where he is accompanied by the somewhat hackneyed vacillation of strings and heavy bass. The yearning and nomadic nature of Mercer’s voice traveling through Burton’s trip-hop...
...never been easy to understand the connection between—let alone the mass market success of—a band made up of Britpop star Damon Albarn, comic book artist Jamie Hewlett, and a series of featuring artists that now includes hip-hop producer Danger Mouse, rock legend Lou Reed, and the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music. It is even more surprising that these disparate figures, who collectively form Gorillaz, have built a reputation as a hip-hop group. In fact, Gorillaz has always been more influenced by comparatively esoteric genres...
...unexpected pairing. Burton's music tends toward the funky side - a bit of hip-hop here, a few tape loops there - whereas the Shins are the melodic band skinny kids in Converse sneakers name-drop if they want to sound sensitive. "People tend to be split on this album," says Burton by phone from his Los Angeles home. "They either think it sounds like what they'd guess the two of us together would sound like, or they say it wasn't like anything they expected...
Through Friday, Quadlings will not be able to hop on the shuttle in front of Currier House. Instead, they'll have to go to Linnaean Street between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. because of construction on Shepard Street...