The outsiders

Like clockwork Cee-lo, left, and Danger Mouse don’t quite fit in.

Three women in their early twenties are standing around during a set break at a rock show in the basement of Lower East Side bar Fontana’s. Suddenly, the DJ plays what sounds like a remix of an old Al Green side and they spring to life, dancing and screaming purposefully, so that everyone can see they know the song. It’s “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley—a.k.a. maverick producer Danger Mouse and former Goodie Mob member Cee-Lo—and it’s the No. 1 single in the U.K. Here, just knowing it exists is a sign of savvy, but that may be about to change.

The song is the first in U.K. history to top the charts on download sales alone, and it rings radio-ready: a danceable beat, a contagious loop, a sing-along chorus. But unlike the typical stateside smash, “Crazy” isn’t performed by an attractive female vocalist or platinum-selling rapper. Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse are a portly hip-hop has-been and a dorky knob-twiddler, respectively. And the album they made together, St. Elsewhere, is characterized by a twisted blend of Danger Mouse’s forward-looking studio trickery and Cee-Lo’s Southern-fried soul croon. The record is a remarkable artistic achievement, but not a surefire hit here in their home country.

Indeed, it’s hard to say whether the two artists’ bizarre personae will help them catch on in the U.S. They appeared on the U.K. television show Top of the Pops dressed in airline-captain uniforms, and their publicity photos riff on A Clockwork Orange. It’s easy to picture them performing to an adoring crowd at the Coachella Valley Music Festival, where they kicked off their American tour on April 30, but without the urban appeal of an OutKast, or the rock charm of a Coldplay, they may not win over America’s LCDs. “We’re not four guys with tight jeans and cool hair,” says Danger Mouse, “but we’re trying to resonate with people in our own way.”

Pop stardom was hardly a concern for Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo when they conceived Gnarls Barkley in 2003. Danger Mouse, then largely unknown, was producing the album Ghetto Pop Life for New York MC Jemini, when Cee-Lo visited the studio to do a cameo. “I had an idea for another record that would pull from ’60s psych and old soul records,” Danger Mouse recalls, “and Cee-Lo seemed to get it.” For the next two years, the artists worked on songs via e-mail, Cee-Lo contributing lyrics and melodies, and Danger Mouse developing the backing tracks. With each exchange, the music became more eccentric. “Whatever I was doing to his head, he was trying to do back to me,” Danger Mouse says.

It’s fitting that St. Elsewhere might not exist without the Internet, because neither would Danger Mouse as we know him. He’s responsible for the 2003 download hit The Grey Album—which paired Jay-Z’s Black Album vocals with the Beatles’ White Album instrumentals—and its ensuing copyright controversy. Since that debacle took him from underground DJ to hot producer, Danger Mouse has displayed exceptional skill at handling oddball artists: His recent clients include a rapper who obscures his face with a metal mask (MF Doom) and a bunch of cartoon characters (Gorillaz).

Gnarls Barkley puts Cee-Lo in the limelight, where he can show off his exaggerated gospel wail and get as preachy as he’d like (which is a lot). But he doesn’t fancy himself the flamboyant character he was made out to be after the release of his two solo albums (2002’s Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections and 2004’s Cee-Lo Green…Is the Soul Machine). The lyrics on St. Elsewhere, he asserts, have universal appeal. “What I would classify as bizarre would be ranting about something that makes no sense,” Cee-Lo says. “The greater part of what I say is pretty damn sensible.” Still, an album with a song called “Feng Shui” and an update of Violent Femmes’ “Gone Daddy Gone” may be irresistible only to indie types. No doubt, St. Elsewhere will be the soundtrack to the summer, but it remains to be seen whether it’ll be only for the kind of people who hang out on the Lower East Side.

St. Elsewhere is in stores now. Gnarls Barkley plays Webster Hall May 22.