Background
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below represented a departure from Outkast's previous work. First of all, the album worked as two albums on a single set, with the first (Speakerboxxx) working as a Big Boi solo project and the second (The Love Below) as an André solo album. Critics pointed to this fact, and some felt what initially limits the album finally helps it succeed artistically. Stephen Thomas Erlewine compared this expanded creative freedom between each members of the group with what happened to The Beatles in 1968, saying "the effect is kind of like if the Beatles issued The White Album as one LP of Lennon tunes, the other of McCartney songs—the individual records may be more coherent, but the illusion that the group can do anything is tarnished. By isolating themselves from each other, Big Boi and Andre 3000 diminish the idea of OutKast slightly, since the focus is on the individuals, not the group. Which, of course, is part of the point of releasing solo albums under the group name—it's to prove that the two can exist under the umbrella of the OutKast aesthetic while standing as individuals."
Read more about this topic: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)