Cee‐Lo Green… Is the Soul Machine

It's funny that most of the poor reviews here aren't even about the album. They are about CeeLo's height, weight, personality, other projects, it completely other people.

The album is great. It's super well produced. It's full of excellent guest performances. CeeLo is on his game.

Pleasant but unremarkable.

I’ve always struggled with Cee-Lo Green’s voice—its high, whiny tone has never clicked with me, so I came into this album hoping it might change my mind. Unfortunately, Cee-Lo Green… Is The Soul Machine didn’t win me over.

I found the record long and ultimately boring. The production rarely landed, the lyrics felt pointless, and I couldn’t understand how this ended up on the 1001 list. It was a slog to get through, and it’s not something I’ll return to.

Favourite track: The art of noise was an OK track.
Least favourite track: Several tracks were weak, but Childz Play stands out as a low point grating vocals paired with clumsy production. I Am Selling Soul also felt completely out of place, adding to the album’s lack of cohesion.
Album artwork: Standard rap/hip-hop cover, nothing special.

I thought it was going to be a two. However, a few songs are really good and bumped it up to three. Unfortunately, the lyrics we’re not appropriate for the girls so there’s no information as to whether they liked it or not.

Can't get behind his voice. It's super corny. Some of the music is actually pretty good, but 1 hour and 5 minutes is just too much of Cee-Lo.

2.0/5.0: Disappointing

great beats which isnt suprising given the great producers credited on this album. ceelo has a really unique voice which is hard to put up with for an extended period of time. with a few strategic cuts this couldve been a 3.

I only ever knew Fuck You/Forget You from this guy.
This had some nice beats but overall felt mediocre and not that interesting. Def not worthy of this list. 2*
Vocals in scrap metal really irked me.

Incredibly imaginative beats and flows on this one, I guess I had never been properly introduced to Southern Hip Hop’s game. Agreed that the runtime might make a full future listen a bit daunting, but track for track, just about the whole thing made it into Liked Songs, so....

”Damn CeeLo, what can't you do??
Fuck arouuund 🤪🥁🥁"

Standouts: The Art of Noise • Living Again • I’ll Be Around • The One • My Kind Of People • Childz Play • I Am Selling Soul • All Day Love Affair • Glockappella • Let’s Stay Together • Die Trying

This isn't bad you know. It's pretty upbeat and funky and I can get on-board with that. It's quite musical, and the music and production in general are pretty much on-point. There's also a good amount of variance across the album, with various styles thrown in.

A lot of it breezed past quite quickly, and I very much enjoyed myself. That said, it did start to feel overlong coming into the last quarter, especially as further tracks dropped that felt very much like filler (eg. 'Sometimes').

I'm less enthused with his rapping. It feels off, and I'm not buying him as a gangster rapper. I was looking at a 3.5 rounded up, but for all the reasons mentioned above, I'm going....

3.5 rounded down.

The music behind the vocals is pretty decent and well put together, but this guy can't rap and does not have the voice to rap. I mean, every feature was just so much better than CeeLo even if they weren't great themselves, to the point where every time CeeLo came back to rap I winced.

Did not have to be over an hour long neither

1.94

Respectfully, the beat on Childz Play is garbage. This whole thing is very 2004. There are other better projects from the time period. Ehh. Favorites were The Art Of Noise and I’ll Be Around.

Despite it being Cee Lo Green, this album is pretty good. The beats are good, the features are good, Cee Lo's voice is good, but he's a much better singer than rapper in my opinion and also a few songs too long. Much better than I expected, but unfortunately I have to knock down a star because Cee Lo is a piece of shit.

Wish he was a little bit Skee-Lo.

I enjoyed this way more than I expected. Great beats, flow and vocal harmonies. Lyrics that are refreshingly heartfelt.

eh... ruim...
não foi PÉSSIMO. tem uns beats que passam, mas a voz de kermit desse mano é difícil demais

While the cover art did not make me expect good things, I do like Goodie Mob and Gnarls Barkley, so I expected to have at least a little fun here. Unfortunately, I just did not like this, and I think there is a reason this isn't brought up a ton any more (at least in spaces that I'm around). Like I said, I feel like I should at least be having a little fun here, and a lot of these songs aren't terrible, but there's almost *always* something bugging me about this thing, just getting in between me and enjoying this almost constantly. Firstly, the overall sound of this is *very* dated, this is not my era of music, and it isn't quite old enough or good enough that it sounds truly classic to me. This probably wouldn't be a problem if one of these songs came on in public or in a car or something, but when listening to this as a whole, it really becomes apparent how stiff and sort of awkward even some of the better beats sound. Now let's discuss CeeLo Green himself, I do not like his presence on here. It feels like his approach should be interesting, he is kind of getting into a pocket with a very sing-song-y cadence and a lot of push and pull. However, to sell some kind of soul adjacent persona, he gets like really growly in a way that's sort of hard to explain, but as a consequence his annunciation on here is awful, especially when he hits faster flows, and it all just turns to mush. Additionally, he is usually mixed *bad*, like way to low, it feels like he is competing for space in the mix with the beat most of the time, which compounds with the cadence to make his presence *super* grating. Additionally, his singing voice itself is really not that good, sometimes it sounds fine, but on a song like All Day Love Affair, he doesn't sound confident and, sometimes, especially on the first verse of evening news, I'm not even sure if he's in key. It's also worth noting that his lyrics don't do much for me, he isn't saying much that's especially interesting, and especially when he's in double time flow he even gets into a "spiritual lyrical miracle" pocket every once in a while (on I Am Selling Soul he kicks off with "I am the actual and factual supernatural sight and surrounds..."). Also, it feels kind of weird and awkward whenever he tries to get kind of sensual on here because of his allegations, it just rubs me the wrong way. Now, usually, only one of these things is bugging me at a time, but there are a couple of songs here that are, at times like *bad*. Some minor offenders include the off singing on Evening News, and the extremely obnoxious, blown out chorus on Scrap Metal. However, the worst song on here is *easily* Childz Play. I understand this is going for a particular tone, but it just isn't pulled off well, and I think it sounds *awful*. The like, toy store xylophone beat is grating and unnecessarily busy, and the effect is like jaw dropping, it's like circus music, I'm baffled. Then CeeLo comes in with mushy double-times for like the whole song, and he even hits what sounds like a Carol of the Bells interpolation in the chorus. Even more annoying, the Ludacris verse buried on this song is one of the very best verses on the entire album. He is charismatic and fun, and there's like a beautiful 30 seconds during his verse where the worst tendencies of the beat drop out and its like the only part of the album that I can just enjoy. Speaking of Ludacris, the other features on here are *all* better than CeeLo Green, with the notable exception of Timbaland, who starts his verse with "Here comes Timbaland, I'm also from the South" which is one of the most clunky, inelegant ways anyone could ever start a verse. This album's final crime is the 75 minute runtime, which is not warranted, especially after you realize that there are really only like two main types of songs here. Like I said, most of these songs aren't independently terrible, but as a whole, there is almost nothing here that I can just sit back and enjoy. While I am calibrating the lower end of my scale, I found this a *lot* less enjoyable than the 2s I've been giving, I think this may really get a 1 from me.

I like his vocals in Gnarls Barkley, less so on this album. It was okay, but mostly fell into background music.

The guy sometimes sounds like Steve Urkel.

3.5