Plus Ca Change . . .

31. GNARLS BARKLEY, "Crazy"
Produced by Danger Mouse; written by Brian Burton, Thomas Callaway, Gianfranco Reverberi, Gian Piero Reverberi
WMI R1251791 2006 Billboard: # 2

32. SEAL, "Crazy"
Produced by Sean Chennery, Guy, Trevor Horn, William Orbit, and Tim Simenon; written by Sealhenri Samuel and Guy Sigsworth
ZTT/Sire 19298 1991 Billboard: # 7

Two snapshots of R&B, fifteen years apart, showing how far we've come and gone.

Despite what you might think, the later track is less produced. It's just drum and bass for the most part, with strings on the choruses. Even though the earlier track had Seal, the later track trusts the vocalist more, and Cee-Lo soars more on a GB single like this than he ever could with Goodie Mob, even on a beautiful track like "Inshallah." Perhaps because it has so many producers, the earlier track has more elements to its sonic surface and more outright polyrhythms.

And then there are the lyrics. Both songs are about alienation, even dissociative disorder, as a response to the protagonists' condition, but Seal's track seems to be more about the presumed conditions of African American life, so much so that Spike Lee used it for Clockers, some years after its release. The GB track, on the other hand, is less race-specific. Even when viewed from the point of view of class, it's much more of a middle class track than a working class one.

What difference does this make? Well, if the songs can be read synchronically, for the working class schizophrenia is a way of coping; for the middle class, it is a way of life. Which might make you rethink the whole question of whether society should really present assimilation as a desirable goal.