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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
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Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
by OutKast
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).
| LABEL: |
La Face |
| RELEASE DATE: |
23 September 2003 |
| DISCS: |
2 discs |
| GENRE(S): |
Rap |
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...
100
Dot Music
Their records sound very different, but they're both astounding.
100
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.
100
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]
100
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.
100
Playlouder
No one musical entity, or group in the world comes close to the sum of their parts.
100
Blender
This 'boxxx holds an explosion of creativity that couldn't have been contained in just one LP. [Nov 2003, p.118]
100
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.
91
E! Online
Double the pleasure, double the fun? Definitely, definitely.
91
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.
90
All Music Guide
Both records are visionary, imaginative listens, providing some of the best music of 2003, regardless of genre.
90
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]
90
PopMatters
Imperfect and ambitious, sometimes startling and always smart.
90
Village Voice
Where Dre twists Prince remnants to his own astroboyish amorous ends, Big Boi holds up OutKast's P-Funk revival tent.
90
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.
90
Nude As The News
Flaws aside, Speakerboxxx more than lives up to its billing.... The Love Below, however, is a revelation.
80
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]
80
New Musical Express
Two Technicolor explosions of creativity that people will be exploring, analysing and partying to for years.
80
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.
80
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.
80
Uncut
The Love Below... comprises the most sublime pop music heard on record this year. [Dec 2003, p.118]
80
New York Magazine
Speakerboxxx--by itself the album of the year--makes the failings of The Love Below all the more evident.
80
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.
76
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.
67
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.
60
Rolling Stone
Each of these albums is as noteworthy for what's missing as for what's there.
The average user rating for this album is 9.1 (out of 10) based on 200 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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