The Speakerboxxx disc starts off pretty rough, at least for me. "Ghettomusick" manages to combine pretty much everything I dislike about rap songs-- backing music that sounds like it was generated by hacking a Super Mario game from 1990, several extended samples that seem to have dropped in from a completely different song, Big Boi's inordinate fondness for spelling out words. The next couple of songs are better, but not by much, and on first listen, I was beginning to fear I'd wasted my fake money.

It improves dramatically right around "The Way You Move," though, and sustains some reasonable momentum through the next few songs. "The Rooster" has a great hook, and "Bust" is pretty good. "War" is a bit of a misfire-- a little too complicated for its own good-- but "Church" has a sort of doofy charm (a comment which would no doubt get my ass kicked in person, but it's meant well), and it carries on reasonably well from there. The music never really loses that Nintendo quality, but Big Boi's delivery is actually kind of interesting to listen to, and the best parts of the lyrics are pretty clever. There's one guest appearance (Cee-Lo on "Reset") that's a little too Dr. Evil to take seriously, but everything after "The Way You Move" is pretty solid. Not entirely my thing, but there are a few songs I like enough to consider putting on a mix tape, and I can understand how people could really get into it.

Then there's The Love Below. If you took copies of Let's Get It On and Midnight Love, and collided them at high speed with Prince's Greatest Hits and the previous disc, you might expect this to emerge from the rubble. On some levels, it's a major improvement over Speakerboxxx, at least by my standards, in that it features music that sounds like it was made by actual instruments. In places, though, it's some of the weirdest shit I've ever bought.

The inclusion of weird little interlude tracks isn't unique by any means-- there are half a dozen on the Speakerboxxx disc, and I dimly recall something similar from Train's Ice Cube tapes back in the early 90's-- but this record takes the form to new heights, if that's the word. You've got weird prayers, fan mail, and internal monologues, mixed up with a bizarre little Vaudeville routine. It's really sort of puzzling. "God" is sort of amusing, and "Where Are My Panties" isn't too awful, but I have no idea what "Good Day, Good Sir" is doing here, or anywhere else. And "My Favorite Things?" What?