Bandwagon Jumper: Know The Facts

Danger Mouse

Now that the whole of the populated world has well and truly fixed themselves to the Danger Mouse band wagon we, as musical enthusiasts need to be able to claim prior knowledge and scoff in disgust at the ignorance of others. These are age old traditions, passed down from generation to generation of music wankersand they must be sustained in our modern music loving era. In order to be part of this elite fraternity of arrogance that we all strive to one must "know the facts" and the sooner the better. Here's the run down.
Brian Joseph Burton AKA Danger Mouse was born in White Plains New York and released his first electronica material under the moniker of "Pelican City". Between 1998-2003 he released a series of remix cds under his new persona of "Danger Mouse", named after the British cartoon series of the same name. During 1998 Danger Mouse placed second in a talent contest and landed a gig opening for "Outkast" and "The Goodie Mob". Here was his first contact with Cee-Lo, a member of "The Goodie Mob" and a future collabor on his "Gnarls Barkley" project.
His first original project was a collaboration with the rapper Jemini on the "Ghetto Pop Life" release which despite garnering critical acclaim, failed as a commercial success. Widespread recognition didn't come until Danger Mouse released the most controversial of his projects, "The Grey Album", a mash up of Jay-Z's A cappella release of the "Black Album" and The Beatles "White Album". Originally created to entertain his friends the album spread accross the internet recieving enthusiastic critical and public feed back.
This massive amount of attention attracted interest from former "Blur" frontman Damon Albarn who recruited Danger Mouse to produce the second "Gorillaz" album "Demon Days". This was much to the disdain of the Gorillaz record company EMI who also own the Beatles rights and had issued Burton a cease and desist order for the use of their material in his Grey album. I also earned his first Grammy nomination as Producer of the Year. His next project came in the form of a collaboration with underground rapper MF Doom called "DANGERDOOM". Their first release "The Mouse And The Mask" was made about and for The Cartoon Network's cult cartoon "Adult Swim" and surprised critics with its excellence. However, Burton's most successful work was still to come with his Cee-Lo collaboration "Gnarls Barkley" releasing it's first album "St.Elsewhere" which spawned the worldwide hit single "Crazy" which i'm sure you've all heard 1 quadrillion times.
He is one of the most sought after producers on the planet and bizarrely likens his own career to Woody Allen's saying "Woody Allen was an auteur: he did his Thing, and that particular Thing was completely his own. That's what I decided to do with music. I want to create a director's role within music, which is what I tried to do on this album. I have to be in control of the project I'm doing. I can create different kinds of musical worlds, but the artist needs the desire to go into that world.... Musically, there is no one who has the career I want. That's why I have to use film directors as a model." Well, I Hope you both enjoyed and was educated by the writings of me about the music of a guy in a giant Mouse suit. Here's some of his work.

DANGERDOOM - Sofa King

Danger Mouse & Jemini - Knuckle Sandwhich 2

Gnarls Barkley - Smiley Faces

Gorillaz - Dirty Harry

Enjoy