Wiki
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Release Date
23 September 2003
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Length
39 tracks
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is the fifth studio album by American hip-hop duo OutKast, released September 23, 2003 on LaFace Records in the United States. Issued as a double album, its playtime of more than two hours is distributed over solo albums from each of the group's members.
Speakerboxxx is the solo project of Big Boi, performing tracks that are rooted in Southern hip-hop, while The Love Below, the solo project of André 3000, covers musical styles such as soul, pop, funk, and jazz. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below received general acclaim from most music critics, earning praise for the consistency of Big Boi's Speakerboxxx and the eclectic musical style of André 3000's The Love Below. The album was supported with the hit singles "Hey Ya!" and "The Way You Move", which both reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. As part of its success, the album won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, making it the second hip hop album to win the award. 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."
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