Customer Reviews

for once, believe the hype - By: Ian Wallbridge, 16 Mar 2008
it's ridiculous how much this album is slated. People seem unable to appreciate OutKast without comparing this to their old work. The fact is that they managed to combine hiphop with a range of musical styles AND IT WORKS. There's no need to give examples, cos cases can be made for all the songs. Admittedly there are songs which seem to be dwarfed by the rest, but that just shows the strength of the other songs.
people say they gave this album one listen & couldn't do it again. their loss. Speakerboxxx/Love Below takes a few listens to fully appreciate, but once you do, you won't regret it

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Fantastic! - By: Zinc Alloy, 04 Jan 2008
I took a chance on this & boy am I glad I did.
I'll be honest & tell you this review is based solely on the Andre 3000 cd. I'm not even bothered by the other one.
It is simply the best set of songs I have heard for longer than I care to remember. Being a middle aged white man I normally listen to rock, country, 70's, mor, aor.
I can't get over how original & fresh this sounds.
Great tunes, great lyrics, great production.
Genius.

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Outkast indeed !! - By: richie k, 07 Sep 2007
I personally have never understood OUTKAST, i mean their not REALLY hip-hop now are they? Anyhow, i would have to say that this double album is pretty good value for for money, especially if you want to listen to something different no matter what genre you into. Disk 2 (The Love Below) is muuuuucch better than Speakerboxx which has only one or possibly two good tracks on the whole thing. There is even a bonus of having 'hey ya' on The Love Below which will please all you radio heads out there no end.... Literally no end to it !!! Allin all good, but not great.

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A landmark rap album - for people who don't like rap - By: Peter Lawrence, 26 Oct 2006
Think you don't like rap much? Then definitely buy this ground breaking double album.

Oukast are a duo but this is effectively two solo albums for the price of one. Andre 3000's "The Love below" is the more adventurous of the two discs. Forget any preconceptions you might have about rap as a musical genre - this hugely ambitious project actually involves very liitle rapping. What you get instead isin effect almost a potted history of black popular music featuring everything from orchestrated show tunes, to Jazz, soul, funk, R n B & yes even a little rap woven around a loose concept about the trials & tribulations of Andre's love life. There are even a few very funny spoken interludes between some of the tracks which help to link one or two of the songs together into a lose narrative. The sheer diversity of musical styles is at times quite dizzying, yet it rarely feels self indulgent. Not many rap albums feature a duet with Norah Jones, but if you had to plump for just one musical influence exhibited here it would have to be Prince. "Shake it like a polaroid picture" indeed.

Big Boi's "Speaker-box" wouldin almost any other company sound pretty adventurous too but compared to Andre's effort it sounds a little more like a mainstream rap album, albeit one that is at times a very fine & innovative one with some great songs such as "The way you move". If you had to be critical one might say that things do get a little more self indulgent here & perhaps there are one or two collaborations which fall a a bit short of the mark.

Overall this is however a great album - one that will undoubtedly still be talked about as a classicin years to come, & with both discs clockingin at over 60 minutes it also has to rated as terrific value for money.

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AWSOME - By: mike, 01 Aug 2006
Hey ya , has gotta be one of the best songs ever made, fulls stop. I hate r n b, but i adore outkast, & there style always sounds fresh to me. Great songs on the album,other songs not so great. My favourites, "hey ya", "prootype". If u knock the album y wud u buy it?