Cee-Lo's 'Soul Machine'
deserves an audience

SOUND BITES: Audio reviews

updated 4:37 p.m. ET March 1, 2004

In this week's Sound Bites, we look at the second album from Atlanta-based rapper Cee-Lo and the second U.S. album of Norgewian soprano Sissel.

“Cee-Lo Green Is the Soul Machine,” Cee-Lo
Cee-Lo proved his musical courage two years ago with his genre-busting solo debut, which was critically acclaimed but sold poorly.

In his second album, “Cee-Lo Green Is the Soul Machine,” the diminutive former Goodie Mob frontman mostly drops the rock influences, but retains his special Atlanta-bred blend of rap, soulful singing and rhythmic spoken word (longtime OutKast fans know the style well).

Featuring jazzy horn blasts, the melodic and funky production here is a perfect match for Cee-Lo’s scratchy voice.

While his sometimes opaque lyrics can be tough to decipher, they display a refreshingly expansive range: he celebrates his skills and the power of music, lashes out at doubters, but also smartly examines love, friendship and the trials of the music business.

Cee-Lo’s recent split from Goodie Mob was bitter, and the resulting anger surfaces throughout “Soul Machine.” Though they’re not named directly, his former bandmates appear to be the target of “Glockapella,” a vitriolic battle rap over the sounds of gunshots and clattering bullet casings.

Guests mostly match their host’s adventuresome spirit. Timbaland’s “I’ll Be Around” and Jazze Pha’s “The One” are conventional bouncy club songs, but the Neptunes offer two unique N.E.R.D.-styled songs and Ludacris effectively matches his delivery to the choppy “Child’s Play.”

His unique voice can wear on the ears, but Cee-Lo’s boundary-pushing hip-hop deserves an audience.
— Ryan Pearson

“My Heart,” Sissel
Sissel has a pure soprano voice that’s suited to multiple genres, and she runs the pop-to-classical gamut effortlessly on her second U.S. album, “My Heart.”

The Norwegian singer is equally at ease with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s somber “Pie Jesu” as with “Someone Like You” by Richard Marx or the opera of Camille Saint-Saens on “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix (My Heart Opens at Your Voice).”

No matter the setting, Sissel sells her song, using a coquettish soprano for Puccini’s “O Mio Babbino Caro (Oh, Dear Daddy)” and a rich mezzo for the Saint-Saens, then belting to the back rows with “You Raise Me Up,” a song made popular by Josh Groban.

Adding to a delightful mix are the orchestrations of Jorge Calandrelli, whose interpretation of “Pie Jesu” takes a thoughtful turn from the Lloyd Webber-Sarah Brightman version.

Sissel and baritone Bryn Terfel also revisit Schubert’s “Ave Maria” dynamically in an album that’s worth a quiet listen or just a play in the background — if your ears will let you keep it there.
— Tom Gardner

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