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Apr 17, 2012OutKast's duo have made a cohesive statement that not only cries at the boundaries of rap music but vaults over them to a place where the music sounds like neon colors and the only rule is that you must free your mind. Your ears will follow.
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MojoThe genius of past Outkast isn't diluted or diminished across these disks, rather it's doubled, expanded and explored. [Sep 2003, p.99]
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Speakerboxxx--by itself the album of the year--makes the failings of The Love Below all the more evident.
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Their records sound very different, but they're both astounding.
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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.
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Double the pleasure, double the fun? Definitely, definitely.
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Imperfect and ambitious, sometimes startling and always smart.
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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.
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Both records are visionary, imaginative listens, providing some of the best music of 2003, regardless of genre.
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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.
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Where Dre twists Prince remnants to his own astroboyish amorous ends, Big Boi holds up OutKast's P-Funk revival tent.
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[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.
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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]
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Combining the two discs might have insured an unbeatable follow-up; however, the flawed, fascinating separation reveals what makes this partnership so special.
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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.
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UncutThe Love Below... comprises the most sublime pop music heard on record this year. [Dec 2003, p.118]
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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.
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It's like Lennon and McCartney solo albums: plenty of solid tunes, but the pen held together is mightier than a solo sword.
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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.
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Flaws aside, Speakerboxxx more than lives up to its billing.... The Love Below, however, is a revelation.
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Q MagazineSpeakerboxxx 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]
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No one musical entity, or group in the world comes close to the sum of their parts.
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Two Technicolor explosions of creativity that people will be exploring, analysing and partying to for years.
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BlenderThis 'boxxx holds an explosion of creativity that couldn't have been contained in just one LP. [Nov 2003, p.118]
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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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 356 out of 401
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Mixed: 23 out of 401
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Negative: 22 out of 401
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MalikM.Jul 15, 2007This IS THE GREATEST ALBUM I EVER HEARD ANDRE 3000 IS A MUSICAL GENIUS
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rickrOct 16, 2003holy what? this cd is too funky-fresh to exist. i dont believe its real....i wanna concieve my first child to this album.
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Oct 4, 2018