OutKast – Speakerboxxx / The Love Below [4× 180g Vinyl LP]

OutKast – Speakerboxxx / The Love Below [4× 180g Vinyl LP]

Details

• Format: 4× Vinyl LP, Album, Reissue, Gatefold, Stereo, Explicit
• Catalogue Number: 889853 92121
• Barcode: 889853921218
• Genre: Hip-Hop / Funk / Soul / Experimental / Pop
• Label: Sony BMG / Arista Records
• Originally Released: 23 September 2003
• Reissue Released: 5 May 2017
• Pressing: 180 Gram Vinyl
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

Speakerboxxx / The Love Below is the fifth studio album by OutKast — André "3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton — released on 23 September 2003 on Arista Records, and one of the most ambitious and consequential double albums in the history of popular music. Conceived as two simultaneous but entirely separate solo albums — Speakerboxxx (Big Boi's Southern hip-hop record) and The Love Below (André 3000's genre-dissolving soul opera) — packaged together under a shared OutKast banner, it runs to 40 tracks across 138 minutes and moves through hip-hop, funk, jazz, electro, classical, pop, psychedelia and gospel with complete authority throughout. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 — the first OutKast album to reach the top after three consecutive number two debits — and went on to become one of the bestselling hip-hop records of all time, certified Diamond and 11× Platinum by the RIAA, with over 10 million copies sold in the United States and approximately 16 million worldwide. At the 2004 Grammy Awards it won Album of the Year — only the third hip-hop record in Grammy history to receive that award — alongside Best Rap Album and Best Urban/Alternative Performance for "Hey Ya!".

All recording took place at Stankonia Recording in Atlanta, Georgia, with production handled almost entirely by André 3000 and Big Boi themselves — a departure from their earlier work with Organized Noize — producing two records that are entirely distinct in mood, structure and subject matter. Speakerboxxx is mastered by Bernie Grundman; The Love Below by Brian Gardner. Big Boi's contribution is a P-Funk and Southern rap album of formidable rhythmic precision and lyrical density — the "GhettoMusick", "The Way You Move" (featuring Sleepy Brown, number one on the Hot 100 for ten weeks) and "Church" singles demonstrating a mainstream commercial instinct deployed without compromise or dilution. André 3000's record is something altogether more radical: a 21-track exploration of love, romance, sexuality and emotional vulnerability filtered through jazz-inflected live band production, orchestral arrangement, spoken word and theatrical performance. "Hey Ya!" — released as a single in August 2003, spending nine weeks at number one on the Hot 100 — is simultaneously the most commercially accessible and the most formally experimental single in their catalogue: built on an irregular metre borrowed from the Beatles, featuring André 3000 performing all vocal and instrumental parts, and accompanied by a video in which he plays all nine members of a fictional band.

Guest appearances across both records are exceptional: Killer Mike appears twice on Speakerboxxx; Jay-Z features on "Flip Flop Rock"; Ludacris on "Tomb of the Boom"; Kelis on "Dracula's Wedding"; Norah Jones on "Take Off Your Cool"; Rosario Dawson on "She Lives in My Lap"; and Cee-Lo Green, Khujo Goodie and Lil' Jon on "Reset". The unlisted track "The Letter" plays before "My Favorite Things" on Side H — a characteristic OutKast structural surprise retained in full on this pressing.

This 2017 EU reissue on Sony BMG / Arista presents the complete double album across 4× 180 gram black vinyl on 8 sides, housed in a gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves reproducing the original artwork and credits in full. Includes a digital download coupon. Made in the EU.

Tracklist

Side A — Speakerboxxx

1. Intro
2. GhettoMusick
3. Unhappy
4. Bowtie (ft. Sleepy Brown & Jazze Pha)
5. The Way You Move (ft. Sleepy Brown)

Side B — Speakerboxxx

1. The Rooster
2. Bust (ft. Killer Mike)
3. War
4. Church

Side C — Speakerboxxx

1. Bamboo (Interlude)
2. Tomb of the Boom (ft. Konkrete, Big Gipp & Ludacris)
3. E-Mac (Interlude)
4. Knowing
5. Flip Flop Rock (ft. Killer Mike & Jay-Z)

Side D — Speakerboxxx

1. Interlude
2. Reset (ft. Khujo Goodie & Cee-Lo)
3. D-Boi (Interlude)
4. Last Call (ft. Slimm Calhoun, Lil' Jon & The East Side Boyz & Mello)
5. Bowtie (Postlude)

Side E — The Love Below

1. The Love Below (Intro)
2. Love Hater
3. God (Interlude)
4. Happy Valentine's Day
5. Spread
6. Where Are My Panties?

Side F — The Love Below

1. Prototype
2. She Lives in My Lap (ft. Rosario Dawson)
3. Hey Ya!
4. Roses

Side G — The Love Below

1. Good Day, Good Sir
2. Behold a Lady
3. Pink & Blue
4. Love in War
5. She's Alive

Side H — The Love Below

1. Dracula's Wedding (ft. Kelis)
2. My Favorite Things (unlisted; preceded by hidden track "The Letter")
3. Take Off Your Cool (ft. Norah Jones)
4. Vibrate
5. A Life in the Day of Benjamin André (Incomplete)

Credits

• André "3000" Benjamin – Vocals, Instruments, Producer (The Love Below)
• Antwan "Big Boi" Patton – Vocals, Producer (Speakerboxxx)
• Cutmaster Swiff – Scratches
• Bernie Grundman – Mastering (Speakerboxxx)
• Brian Gardner – Mastering (The Love Below)
• Jonathan Mannion – Photography (Speakerboxxx)
• Torkil Gudnason – Photography (The Love Below)
• Label – Sony BMG / Arista Records