Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 30/10/06
Label: SonyBMG

The star status achieved this year by Thomas "Cee-Lo Green" Callaway is long overdue. For years a satisfyingly singular presence on pop's periphery, the suspicion had formed that maybe the very idiosyncrasies and subtleties that made his music so compelling were the reasons why his records - whether as a member of Goodie Mob, a participant in posse cuts by his similarly singular superstar mates OutKast, or on his own - seemed doomed to elude the masses.

That all changed one day in late March, when Cee-Lo sang his way in to Britain's hearts and minds. "Crazy", undeniably the finest single of the year, at last got people taking notice of his immense talent and wonderful voice. It is therefore no surprise that SonyBMG, the company that owns the rights to Cee-Lo's two solo albums, should seek to cash in on what could be termed its foresight. Unfortunately, in their haste to make good their mistake (they terminated his contract after the second LP, "Cee-Lo Green Is The Soul Machine", sold poorly in 2004), they've botched what could have been one of the albums of the year.

It would have made sense to take both albums ("...Soul Machine" was preceded in 2002 by "Cee-Lo Green And His Perfect Imperfections") and either re-release them, or compile them into a double CD package. Instead, they have cobbled together a single disc in a manner so haphazard the tracklisting reads like it was collated by someone in a blindfold throwing darts at the original album sleeves. Adding to the stupidity, there is a US version, with a different title, different sleeve, and a totally different song selection. And the record business wonders why it's in crisis.

There is nothing wrong with any of the music here, which runs the gamut from African-tinged electro-soul ("Bad Mutha") to trance techno introspection ("I Am Selling Soul"), but by taking an arbitrary selection from two masterpiece albums, "The Collection" does justice to neither. Those records were complete thoughts, making exquisite good sense when listened to from one end to the other; this release even omits the most obvious stand-out, the one track that could, with some promotion and marketing, have done a "Crazy" two years early (the Pharrell Williams-produced, Al Green-referencing, Oasis-quoting "Let's Stay Together").

"I didn't like it," Cee-Lo said of this collection late last month. "I always think you've got to be creative, and if they'd done that they could have come up with something we all could get behind. It's flattering, too," he added, alluding to the US version's subtitle. "'The best of Cee-Lo Green' has a nice ring to it! - but I've not done my best work yet." Don't doubt it.

    by Angus Batey