Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is a double album by the hip hop group OutKast, released on September 23 2003 on LaFace Records. The release includes a solo album from both of the group's members. Speakerboxxx has Big Boi performing tracks more representative of the older OutKast style, while The Love Below, the solo project of André 3000, is performed in a more funk-based style. André primarily sings rather than rapping on The Love Below, marking a significant departure from his past work by OutKast. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below won Album of the Year and Best Rap Album at the Grammy Awards of 2004.

Overview

André 3000's The Love Below is substantially longer than Big Boi's Speakerboxxx, clocking for almost 78 minutes, compared to 56 minutes for Speakerboxxx. Featured guests on Speakerboxxx include Sleepy Brown, Jazze Pha, Jay-Z, Cee-Lo, Killer Mike, Goodie Mob, Lil' Jon and Ludacris. Guests on The Love Below include Rosario Dawson, Norah Jones, Kelis, and Fonzworth Bentley. Songs that were to be featured on The Love Below included "Millionaire" featuring Kelis and "Long Way to Go" featuring Gwen Stefani. Those two were scrapped, and instead included in the collaborators' own albums—Tasty and Love. Angel. Music. Baby., respectively.

Big Boi included André 3000 in producing and co-writing quite a bit of Speakerboxxx. On the other hand, the only song on The Love Below featuring a rap by Big Boi is "Roses".

Critical reception

The album was released on September 23, 2003 on Arista Records. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below has been certified diamond and 11 times platinum by the RIAA for shipping more than 11 million units (in this case, 5.5 million double album sets). , The album also achieved critical success; it was voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll. the album also won the Grammy Award for Album of the year as well as the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album in the Grammys of 2004. In Australia, Hey Ya! was voted #2 on the 2003 Triple J Hottest 100, the biggest alternative music poll of its type in the country. In the jazz periodical Down Beat the album was voted as best "beyond" album.

Chart progress

The album reached the top of the Billboard 200 in 2003. "Hey Ya!" went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, topping the charts there for 9 weeks. The song also topped the charts in Canada and Australia and charted in 28 countries around the world. "The Way You Move" also topped the U.S. charts in 2004 and has charted in 17 countries around the world. "The Way You Move" knocked "Hey Ya!" off the top of the charts in the U.S., the sixth time a recording act has replaced itself at number one since Elvis Presley first did so in 1956. As well as breaking "Hey Ya!"'s run at number one, "The Way You Move" broke OutKast's overall run at the top spot, only staying there for one week before it gave way to "Slow Jamz" by Kanye West featuring Twista and Jamie Foxx. The third single released from the album was "Roses" from The Love Below while the fourth and fifth singles released were "Prototype" (The Love Below) and "Ghetto Musick" (Speakerboxxx) respectively.

"Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" is Outkast's first album to have more than three singles.

Track listing

Disc one: Speakerboxxx

Producers are noted with superscripts: (a) Big Boi, (b) André 3000, (c) Mr. DJ, (d) Carl Mo & Big Boi, (e) Cutmaster Swiff, (f) Big Boi & Mr. DJ.

1. "Intro" – 1:29 ^e
2. "Ghetto Musick" (featuring Patti Labelle) – 3:56 ^b
3. "Unhappy" – 3:19 ^c
4. "Bowtie" (featuring Sleepy Brown and Jazze Pha) – 3:56 ^a
5. "The Way You Move" (featuring Sleepy Brown) – 3:54 ^d
6. "The Rooster" – 3:57 ^d
7. "Bust" (featuring Killer Mike) – 3:08 ^a
8. "War" – 2:43 ^c
9. "Church" – 3:27 ^b
10. "Bamboo" (Interlude) – 2:09
11. "Tomb of the Boom" (featuring Konkrete, Big Gipp and Ludacris) – 4:46 ^a
12. "E-Mac" (Interlude) – 0:24
13. "Knowing" (featuring Andre 3000) – 3:32 ^c
14. "Flip Flop Rock" (featuring Killer Mike and Jay-Z) – 4:35 ^f
15. "Interlude" – 1:15
16. "Reset" (featuring Khujo Goodie and Cee-Lo) – 4:35 ^a
17. "D-Boi" (Interlude) – 0:40
18. "Last Call" (featuring Slimm Calhoun, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz and Mello) – 3:57 ^b
19. "Bowtie" (Postlude) – 0:34

Disc two: The Love Below

All tracks were produced solely by André 3000 except "Roses", which was co-produced by Dojo5.

1. "The Love Below" (Intro) – 1:27
2. "Love Hater" – 2:49
3. "God" (Interlude) – 2:20
4. "Happy Valentine's Day" – 5:23
5. "Spread" – 3:51
6. "Where Are My Panties?" – 1:54
7. "Prototype" – 5:26
8. "She Lives in My Lap" (featuring Rosario Dawson) – 4:27
9. "Hey Ya!" – 3:55
10. "Roses" (featuring Big Boi) – 6:09
11. "Good Day Good Sir" (Interlude) (featuring Fonzworth Bentley) – 1:24
12. "Behold a Lady" – 4:37
13. "Pink & Blue" – 5:04
14. "Love in War" – 3:25
15. "She's Alive" – 4:06
16. "Dracula's Wedding" (featuring Kelis) – 2:32
17. "The Letter" (interlude, only featured on later pressings) – 0:21
18. "My Favorite Things" – 5:14 (not listed anywhere in the artwork)
19. "Take Off Your Cool" (featuring Norah Jones) – 2:38
20. "Vibrate" – 6:33 (explicit CD, edited LP), 6:38 (edited CD, explicit LP)
21. "A Life in the Day of Benjamin André (Incomplete)" – 4:50 (edited CD, explicit LP), 5:11 (explicit CD, edited LP)

Samples used

• "GhettoMusick," from "Speakerboxxx," contains samples of "Love, Need & Want You" by Patti LaBelle.
• "She Lives In My Lap," from "The Love Below," contains samples of "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" by Geto Boys and "Pistolgrip-Pump" by Volume 10.
• "Pink & Blue," from "The Love Below," contains samples of "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number" by Aaliyah and "Why Can't We Live Together" by Timmy Thomas.
• "My Favorite Things" from "The Love Below" contains samples from John Coltrane's 1960 recording by the same name.

Album singles

• "The Way You Move"
• "Hey Ya!"
• "Roses"
• "Ghetto Musick"
• "Prototype"
• "Bowtie"
• "The Rooster"
• "Church"
• "She Lives In My Lap"

Chart positions

Album

Year	Album	Chart positions
		Billboard 200	Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums	Top Canadian Albums	Top Internet Albums
2004	Speakerboxxx/The Love Below	1	1	4	1

Singles

Year	Song	Chart positions
		Billboard Hot 100	Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks	Hot Rap Singles	Rhythmic Top 40	Top 40 Mainstream	Top 40 Tracks	Canadian Singles Chart	Modern Rock Tracks	Adult Top 40	Latin Pop Airplay	Top 40 Adult Recurrents
2004	"Hey Ya!"	1	9	–	1	1	1	1	16	13	34	6
2004	"Ghettomusick"	-	93	-	-	-	-	–	–	–	–	–
2004	"Prototype"	–	63	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
2004	"Roses"	9	12	5	7	4	7	–	–	–	–	–
2004	"The Way You Move"	1	2	1	4	1	1	–	–	34	–	–

See also

• List of best-selling albums in the United States

External links

• Review listing at Metacritic
• Everything You Wanted to Know About Outkast

References