Guess Who's Back?

No, its not Shady, its the “It” artists of 2006 are back with their sophomore album and hopefully its sound will be as eclectic poppy as their debut album St. Elsewhere. If you haven’t yet guessed who I’m referring to, its Gnarls Barkley, the musical collaboration of producer Danger Mouse and singer/rapper Cee-Lo Green who are best known for their 2006 summer hit “Crazy.” St. Elsewhere was my favorite album of 2006 and I have been waiting anxiously for their next album, The Odd Couple.

I first learned of Danger Mouse’s incredible skills as a producer after reading about and downloading his unauthorized mash-up album The Grey Album, which mixed Jay-Z’s Black Album with the Beatles’ White Album. I then rushed out and purchased his collaboration with rapper Jemini, Ghetto Pop Life, which is by far my favorite album of DM's. If you haven’t heard either of these two albums I highly recommend purchasing them along with The Mouse and The Mask, an album made with rapper MF Doom released under the name DANGERDOOM. Pretty much everything Danger Mouse touches turns gold, including his production on two different Damon Albarn projects: The Gorillaz’ Demon Days and The Good, The Bad & The Queen’s self-titled debut. Any of these albums would be a worthy addition to your collection of music.

I know the hype is starting a little early since you can't purchase Gnarls Barkley’s The Odd Couple until April 8th, 2008, but songs off of the album have already hit the internet. For those of you interested in hearing/downloading the first leaked song from The Odd Couple do a quick google search for "Gnarls Barkley - Run" (and let me know what you think).

Super Bowl XLII Commercials

Wow, what a game. I was going to write about the New York Giants surprising and defensively dominate performance over the New England Patriots, but let’s be honest, the game really spoke for itself. Many thought it was slow and boring, but I thought it was amazing. It was a truly unbelievable performance by the Giants defensive front seven and a seemingly collapse by the team of destiny. What wasn’t as spectacular were this year’s Super Bowl Commercials. I can’t believe companies spent $2.4 million per spot for some of these horrible commercials. (link)

I was very under whelmed by most of the commercials, and a few were all time lows. Every year Pepsi’s commercials seem to get worse and worse. Both their commercials for Diet Pepsi Max and Pepsi Stuff were heavy on celebrities but low on creativity and entertainment. I thought the SalesGenie.com commercials were insulting and downright horrible and, after a few years of great commercials, I thought CareerBuilder.com dropped the ball this year. Then there were the companies with multiple ads that were collectively somewhere in the middle. Bud Light, Budweiser, and Bridgestone all had multiple ads and some were good, some were bad…but none were that spectacular. I just can't get over the fact that Geico brought back the cavemen and then Bud Light jumped on the caveman bandwagon. I'm pretty sure we'd all be better off if we never had to see another caveman commercial again!

Here are my Top 5 Ads from Super Bowl XLII (what do you think?):

1. Coca Cola – Parade Balloons

What can I say, I’m a sucker for the Macy’s Day Parade and thought the use of the different balloons was so creative. Plus Coke was able to use three iconic characters, Underdog, The Family Guy’s Stewie and Charlie Brown, all fighting over the classic Coca Cola bottle.



2. Cars.com – Stone Circle Fight to Death as Plan B

Cars.com released two different Super Bowl ads this year, but only the first one really stood out in my eyes. Everyone watching the game with me was laughing over this one…it must be something about a crazy extreme tattooed fighter screaming as he roles his fists in broken glass.



3. Coca Cola – Super Bowl Ad featuring Republican Bill Frist and Democrat James Carville

This was a great year for Coke as there is already a second Coca Cola ad in The Blot’s Top 3. Its election season and Coke came out swinging with a very funny bipartisan Washington, DC based commercial. Plus who doesn’t love a good Jinx, you just don’t see those very much anymore.



4. T-Mobile – Charles Barkley Finally Adds Dwayne Wade to His Fave 5

I love Sir Charles and I love DWade and thought this continuation of the popular T-Mobile Fave 5 commercials was a winner.



5. Audi R8 Luxury Sports Car – The Godfather Spoof

While I didn’t think this commercial was amazing, I loved the riff off of the classic scene in The Godfather when a strong message was sent to a rival with the deposit of a bloody horse head into the rivals’ bed.