Outkast
Speakerboxxx / The Love Below

Arista
2003
A+
Reviewed by: Nick Southall
Reviewed on: 2003-09-23



Posted 06/18/2004 - 12:06:37 AM by theomills:
 I'm fed up with all the glowing reviews and accolades this album is receiving. I genuinely feel the only reason the album has been heralded as classic is because everyone is so happy it doesn't sound like recycled hip-hop. I love Outkast, but I feel their older albums, such as Aquemni, are much more consistent in quality and vision. I can't believe anyone can honestly say every track on "Speakerboxx/The Love Below" is good. And for the love of God, enough with the skits. Any album with skits in it should automatically be barred from being labeled a "classic". I end having to re-burn the CD with all the crap narratives removed. Don't get me wrong, I love Outkast, but I think I just witnessed them self-destruct with their latest effort. It's all downhill from here.
 
Posted 06/22/2004 - 04:42:16 AM by NickSouthall:
 This review, despite the 10, isn't as glowing as it seems. It's a 10 with a caveat - each individual album get's a five, because they're both very much flawed (today I'd probably give Big Boi 6 and Dre 4 to make the 10, on the balance of quality). It gets a 10 cos it's a special case, a conceptual mark for a conceptual album. I'm far from saying every track is good, but, as expressed in the last para, there is, in the folds of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, an album that would be pretty damn near a 10 if it had been made lean of all the fat. But view the fat as a bonus! It only cost the same as a single disc!
 
Posted 10/01/2005 - 11:08:57 AM by BeingaBunny:
 That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. It would make a thousand times mores sense to average out the score. I mean, 5 is mediocre work. Two 5 albums does not make a 10 album. It makes two 5 albums, two mediocre works.