Arista
2004
Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine (Explicit)
About This Album
Cee-Lo's debut album had been an interesting listen but resonated with very few listeners, so some changes were due for his second go-round, Cee-Lo Green Is the Soul Machine, which is indeed a drastically improved effort. Arista head honcho L.A. Reid had no doubt let Cee-Lo fly his freak flag high and mighty for Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections (2002), for what resulted was an album that was, in a word, curious -- a sprawling carnival of Dirty South-inflected soul singing that knew no boundaries whatsoever, willfully professing its weirdness on out-there songs like the lead single, "Closet Freak," the closest Cee-Lo came to crossing over commercially. In other words, cross over à la OutKast he didn't -- not by a long shot. In fact, most listeners took him at face value and wrote him off as a freak. It'd be a real shame if that happened again with Cee-Lo Green Is the Soul Machine. Sure, the big guy is still fairly weird here, but he's tastefully weird and, above all, focused this time. He's written a stronger batch of songs and has aligned himself with some of the best producers in the industry (the entire industry, that is): Timbaland and the Neptunes, most notably, and also Jazze Pha, Organized Noize, and DJ Premier.
Track List (try tracks 3,5,6,7,8,10,12,13,15 and 17)

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