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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Universal acclaim
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 201 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: La Face
Release Date: 23 September 2003
Discs: 2 discs
Genre(s): Rap
Summary
This Grammy-winning follow-up to their smash 2000 hit 'Stankonia' is an OutKast album in name only, as it is structured in the form of two solo discs: one each for Big Boi (Speakerboxxx) and Andre 3000 (The Love Below).
Also By This Artist: Idlewild Stankonia
Also On Metacritic
TV: Class Of 3000 Class Of 3000 Class Of 3000
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Onion (A.V. Club)
What's lost is considerable: namely, the justly vaunted lyrical chemistry between Andre 3000 and Big Boi. But what's gained is even more remarkable: the powerful, singular, undiluted visions of two of rap's most fearless sonic explorers.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
[The album's] ambition flies so far beyond that of anyone doing rap right now (or pop, or rock, or R&B), awards shows may need to create a special category for it. [19 Sep 2003, p.83]
The Guardian
Both albums are sublime. Taken together they're hip-hop's Sign o' the Times or The White Album: a career-defining masterpiece of breathtaking ambition.
Read Full Review >Playlouder
No one musical entity, or group in the world comes close to the sum of their parts.
Read Full Review >Blender
This 'boxxx holds an explosion of creativity that couldn't have been contained in just one LP. [Nov 2003, p.118]
Stylus Magazine
You could of course, if you like, rip the best tracks from each album and burn them together into some kind of RIAA-baiting SuperLoveBoxxx CDR that creams all opposition with its x-ray vision, amazing strength and ability to leap multiple genres in a single bound, but that would be missing the point.
Read Full Review >Village Voice (Consumer Guide)
No "Ms. Jackson," no "Rosa Parks," no "Bombs Over Baghdad," no "The Whole World" either. Just commercial ebullience, creative confidence, and wretched excess, blessed excess, impressive excess.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
Both records are visionary, imaginative listens, providing some of the best music of 2003, regardless of genre.
Read Full Review >Mojo
The genius of past Outkast isn't diluted or diminished across these disks, rather it's doubled, expanded and explored. [Sep 2003, p.99]
Village Voice
Where Dre twists Prince remnants to his own astroboyish amorous ends, Big Boi holds up OutKast's P-Funk revival tent.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
If you can name me just one rapper that made a more complete record in 2003 than either of these two Southern boys' efforts, I’ll call you a liar.
Read Full Review >Nude As The News
Flaws aside, Speakerboxxx more than lives up to its billing.... The Love Below, however, is a revelation.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
Speakerboxxx takes up where Stankonia left off.... The Love Below isn't really hip hop at all. Its sound and lyrics owe a huge debt to, inevitably, George Clinton. [Sep 2003, p.97]
New Musical Express
Two Technicolor explosions of creativity that people will be exploring, analysing and partying to for years.
Read Full Review >Launch.com
Combining the two discs might have insured an unbeatable follow-up; however, the flawed, fascinating separation reveals what makes this partnership so special.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
Big Boi's Speakerboxxx coolly upstages its counterpart: though it, too, provides the world with one earthshaking single, it differs from The Love Below in that it also manages to maintain consistent brilliance and emotional complexity throughout.
Read Full Review >Uncut
The Love Below... comprises the most sublime pop music heard on record this year. [Dec 2003, p.118]
New York Magazine
Speakerboxxx--by itself the album of the year--makes the failings of The Love Below all the more evident.
Read Full Review >Flak Magazine
The discs are dense, musically diverse, sometimes phenomenal, sometimes foolish and long-winded, elegiac and uneven. It's a singularly interesting failure -- a noble miss along the lines of Radiohead's last three albums and Steve Earle's Jerusalem.
Read Full Review >ShakingThrough.net
[Speakerboxxx:] A worthy addition to the impressive OutKast catalogue.... [The Love Below:] Unfortunately, Attention Deficit Disorder just isn't a workable substitute for craft, nor is a preoccupation with sex quite the same as art.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle
It's like Lennon and McCartney solo albums: plenty of solid tunes, but the pen held together is mightier than a solo sword.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
Each of these albums is as noteworthy for what's missing as for what's there.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 9.1 (out of 10) based on 201 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Richard B. gave it a10:
Best album I've ever bought.
James gave it a10:
Outkast is the greatest hip hop group out there today!
Alex gave it a10:
Not to sound fanboyish or anything but OutKast is arguably the greatest music group to ever come out during the 21st century.
Chris R. gave it an8:
60 Rolling Stone Each of these albums is as noteworthy for what's missing as for what's there. What the fuck type of beating around the bush bullshit is this? I hope that their headquarters burns to the ground along melting all their cappuccino machines. I didn't listen to this album BTW, just guessing how good it is from the singles.
Scott W. gave it an8:
The secouned is a tie at 8.0 Very fun guys to listen to, and without a dull moment once again makes this a fine secound installment.
Malik M. gave it a10:
This IS THE GREATEST ALBUM I EVER HEARD ANDRE 3000 IS A MUSICAL GENIUS
Dan A gave it a10:
Funking amazing album. Can never stop listening to it. The Love Below is genius, and Speakerboxxx is like an extension to the previously awesome style Outkast has been known for. A classic.
