Brian Joseph Burton
, better known by his stage name Danger Mouse
, is an American artist and producer. He came to prominence in 2004 when he released The Grey Album
, which combined acappellas from Jay-Z's The Black Album
with instrumentals from the album The Beatles
(also known as The White Album
).
He formed Gnarls Barkley with Cee-Lo Green and produced their albums St. Elsewhere
and The Odd Couple
. He produced the second Gorillaz album, 2005's Demon Days,
as well as Beck's 2008 record, Modern Guilt
. He was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Producer of the Year category. In addition, Burton worked with rapper MF DOOM as DANGERDOOM and released the albums The Mouse and the Mask
and Occult Hymn
.
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DANGER MOUSE TICKETS
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Biography
Early life and career
Brian Burton was born in
White Plains, New York; he spent much of his childhood in
Spring Valley, New York and lived in
Athens, Georgia for a long time where his
electronica (more specifically,
trip-hop) work was released under the name "Pelican City". He also remixed work by several local artists, including
Neutral Milk Hotel [1] and
DJ'd for
University of Georgia radio station
WUOG-FM. From 1998 to 2003 Burton also created a series of remix CDs and records under the stage name Danger Mouse. He used to do sets in a mouse outfit because he was too shy to show his face, and took his name from the British cartoon series
Danger Mouse
.
While in Athens, Burton took second place in a 1998 talent contest and was asked to open for a concert at the
University of Georgia featuring
OutKast and
Goodie Mob. Afterwards, Burton approached
Cee-Lo, a member of Goodie Mob, and gave him an instrumental demo tape. It would be several years before the pair made contact again, but the two would eventually collaborate as
Gnarls Barkley.
[2]
2001–2004
Burton moved to
England for a couple of years, living in
New Cross in London and working at the Rose
[3] pub near London Bridge. While he was in the
U.K., he sent a demo to
Lex Records, who signed him. Burton's first original releases under the name Danger Mouse were his collaborations with
rapper Jemini, including the album
Ghetto Pop Life
, released in 2003 on Lex Records. While the Danger Mouse debut was well received by critics, he did not rise to fame until he created
The Grey Album
, mixing
a cappella versions of
Jay Z's
The Black Album
over beats crafted from samples of
The Beatles'
White Album
. The remix album, originally created just for his friends, spread over the Internet and became very popular with both the general audience and critics, with
Rolling Stone
calling it "the ultimate remix record"
[4] and
Entertainment Weekly
ranking it the best record of the year.
[5] He discusses his feelings about any controversy the album may have created in the documentary
Alternative Freedom
. Danger Mouse was also named among the Men of the Year by
GQ
in 2004 and won a 2005
Wired
Rave Award.
[6]
2004–2007
The Grey Album
also got the attention of
Damon Albarn, who enlisted Danger Mouse to produce the
Gorillaz' second studio album,
Demon Days
. Danger Mouse technically shares production credits for
Demon Days
with Jason Cox and James Dring. However, these two are engineers, so Danger Mouse was that album's sole producer for all intents and purposes (though a few songs feature musical contribution from talents such as Ike Turner and Simon Tong).
Demon Days
earned Burton a
Grammy Award nomination for
Producer of the Year.
Danger Mouse's next project was
The Mouse and the Mask
, a collaboration with
MF DOOM (as
DANGERDOOM) about and for
Cartoon Network's
Adult Swim. The two had previously collaborated on the Danger Mouse remix of
Zero 7's "Somersault", on the
Prince Po track "Social Distortion", and on
Gorillaz' "November Has Come". A year later, DANGERDOOM released a follow-up EP called
Occult Hymn
. The 7-track EP featured new songs as well as remixes of tracks from
The Mouse & The Mask
and was released exclusively as a free download on Adult Swim's site.
In 2006, Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo (as
Gnarls Barkley) released their first album,
St. Elsewhere
, which included the international hit single "
Crazy". "Crazy" became the first
UK number-one single based solely on
downloads.
[7]
He also produced two tracks on
The Rapture's 2006 album
Pieces of the People We Love
. In August and September 2006, Danger Mouse collaborated with British graffiti artist
Banksy to replace 500 copies of
Paris Hilton's album
Paris
in English music stores with altered album artwork and a 40 minute instrumental song containing various statements she had made.
[8]
2007–present
In January 2007, Danger Mouse produced another collaboration with Damon Albarn on
The Good, the Bad and the Queen
, along with
Clash bassist Paul Simonon, former
Verve guitarist
Simon Tong and
Afrobeat pioneer and Africa 70
drummer Tony Allen.
In March 2008,
The Odd Couple
, the sophomore album of his and Cee-lo's
Gnarls Barkley project, was released. In May 2008, an album with
Martina Topley-Bird, titled
The Blue God
, was released. Martina collaborated on "All Alone", one song on the Danger Mouse produced
Gorillaz second LP,
Demon Days
. Also released in May 2008 was
Replica Sun Machine
, an album with the band
The Shortwave Set, including a collaboration with Van Dyke Parks and the Velvet Underground's John Cale, according to British music magazine
New Musical Express
.
NME
also reports that Danger Mouse is going to produce The Shortwave Set's third album.
Upcoming releases include a follow-up to
Ghetto Pop Life
entitled
Kill Your Heroes
.
KYH
was scheduled to be released in summer of 2006, but its release has been pushed back to an undetermined date. A collaborative album with
Black Thought of
The Roots is said to be in the works.
[9] He was also working on an album with
The Black Keys and
Ike Turner. Turner's death was expected to cancel the album, but The Black Keys and Danger Mouse released
Attack & Release
in April 2008. Some songs must have been recorded by Turner, however, as a posthumous Danger Mouse produced album is scheduled to be released this year, as well as another collaboration with MF Doom.
[10]
Danger Mouse also produced
Beck's album
Modern Guilt
, which was released in July 2008.
[11] In April of 2009, he and Helena Costas released an album as Joker's Daughter titled the Last Laugh. Danger Mouse was also listed as one of
Esquire''
's 75 most influential people of the 21st century.
Since 2005, Danger Mouse (as a producer as well as an artist with Gnarls Barkley) has been nominated for 11 Grammy Awards: Producer of the Year (2005, 2006 and 2008), Record of Year (2006), Album of Year (2006), Best Alternative Album (2006 and 2008), Best Urban Alternative Performance (2006), Best Short Form Music Video (2007 and 2008) and Best Pop Performance (2008) He won two Grammy Awards in 2006 for Best Alternative Album and Best Urban Alternative Performance.
Danger Mouse and
Sparklehorse were due to release an album in the summer of 2009 entitled
Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse Present: Dark Night of the Soul
(together with a 100+ photo book with photographs by
David Lynch).
[12] [13] Due to an ongoing dispute with
EMI the album will not be released commercially. However, the BBC reported that Danger Mouse plans to release a full illustrated jewel case with a blank CD-R included in it.
[14] The CD-R will be labeled:
"For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will."
Philosophy
In an interview for the
New York Times
magazine, Danger Mouse described himself as an
auteur, basing his music production philosophy on the cinematic philosophy of directors like
Woody Allen. "Woody Allen was an auteur: he did his Thing, and that particular Thing was completely his own," he said. "That's what I decided to do with music. I want to create a director's role within music, which is what I tried to do on this album (
St. Elsewhere
).... I have to be in control of the project I'm doing. I can create different kinds of musical worlds, but the artist needs the desire to go into that world.... Musically, there is no one who has the career I want. That's why I have to use film directors as a model."
Interview segments with Danger Mouse speaking about the creation of
The Grey Album
are featured in the 2007 Danish documentary
Good Copy Bad Copy
.
[15]
Discography
Danger Mouse albums
- Danger Mouse & Jemini - Ghetto Pop Life
(2003)
- Danger Mouse - The Grey Album
(2004)
- Gorillaz - Demon Days
(2005)
- The Rapture - Pieces of the People We Love
(2006)
- Sparklehorse - Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain
(2006)
- Danger Mouse - From Man To Mouse
(2007)
- The Good, the Bad and the Queen
(2007)
- The Black Keys - Attack & Release
(2008)
- The Shortwave Set - Replica Sun Machine
(2008)
- Martina Topley-Bird - The Blue God
(2008)
- Beck - Modern Guilt
(2008)
- Joker's Daughter - The Last Laugh
(2009)
- Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse - Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse Present: Dark Night of the Soul
(2009)
Pelican City
- Pelican City - The Chilling Effect
(1999)
- Pelican City - Rhode Island
(2000)
- Pelican City and Scanner - Pelican City vs Scanner
EP (2002)
Promos
- Danger Mouse - Danger Mouse Promo: Volume 1
(1998)
- Danger Mouse - Danger Mouse Promo: Volume 2
(1999)
- Danger Mouse - Danger Mouse Promo: Volume 3
(2000)
- Danger Mouse - Danger Mouse Promo: Volume 4
(2000)
- Danger Mouse - Danger Mouse Promo: Remix EP 12" White
(2001)
- Danger Mouse - Danger Mouse Promo: Remix EP 12" Red
(2002)
- Danger Mouse - Danger Mouse Promo: Remix EP 12" Yellow
(2003)
Contributions
- Verve Remixed 3
(2005) - Dinah Washington - "Baby, Did You Hear?" Danger Mouse Remix
- The Now Sound Redesigned
- "To a Black Boy" Danger Mouse with MURS
This list is incomplete; you can help by [ expanding it]
.
References
- How's this for mash-up: Danger Mouse meets Cee-Lo
- The D.J. Auteur
- A game of cat and danger mouse
- DJ Makes Jay-Z Meet Beatles
- Records of the year
- The 2005 Wired Rave Awards
- Crazy song makes musical history
- Danger Mouse, Banksy Burn Paris
- Danger Mouse - The man behind Gnarls Barkley
- Danger Mouse + Beck = DangerBeck « Burnt Orange Juice
- Danger Mouse Producing New Beck Album
- Title Unavailable
- Exclusive First Listen: Danger Mouse And Sparklehorse Team Up With David Lynch
- Danger Mouse to Release Blank CD
- The Patry Copyright Blog: Good Copy, Bad Copy Documentary