Outkast - Stankonia

Reviews of Stankonia

Rating Summary
4 by Rolling Stone "Ball if you want to, but do it with some class, G," scolds Big Boi of OutKast. On their fourth album, Stankonia, Big Boi and Andre 3000 prove that they may well be, as they claim, the coolest motherf... Read more
n/a by www.ew.com Stankonia reeks of artful ambition rendered with impeccable skill -- or as one song title so concisely has it, ''So Fresh, So Clean.'' Read more
n/a by www.newyorkmag.com On their astonishing new Stankonia (LaFace/Arista), Outkast explore their own disappointment with hip-hop's self-satisfied acquisitiveness. But though it attacks the genre's tunnel vision, the album -- which takes its name from George Clinton's vision of funk as expressing the raw, unruly side of life -- does so with joy (and huge doses of absurdity) instead of with the polemics of Public Enemy.... Stankonia is among the most exciting albums of the year, not only because it brazenly addresses hip-hop's spiritual emptiness (other well-intentioned rappers have tried) but because it musically surpasses the most innovative work of street production dons like Swizz Beatz, Manny Fresh, and Timbaland. By offering something for both the mind and the ass, to borrow from George Clinton's slogan, Outkast, like Gang of Four and Funkadelic before them, make revolution you can dance to. Read more
n/a by avclub.theonion.com Many rappers derive inspiration from Clinton, but OutKast has constructed its own far-reaching and experimental mythology, drenching its surrealistic, Southern-fried flows in brilliantly executed funk, blissful soul, rattling live drums, spacey synthesizers, and psychedelic guitars.... In its messy brilliance, OutKast has created a hip-hop Sign O' The Times, a messy, vital classic and a major step forward for both its members and hip-hop as a whole. Read more
n/a by www.vibe.com Stankonia leaves nothing to be desired as it is energized by Outkast's clever lyrics coupled with their cutting edge production, which is an expansive take on the original Atlanta sound. Read more
n/a by www.villagevoice.com When talking about an album as multilayered, thematically diverse, and sonically rich as OutKast's Stankonia, though, the best thing is to boil it down to its essentials, its influences, its approaches. You know, the uppercase conceptual stuff. This album, the acclaimed Atlanta duo's fourth and best, contains so many hummable hooks, so many snap-your-head beats, so many break-'em-out-and-talk-about-'em metaphors, that it's easy to get lost in the sauce. Read more
n/a by www.cdnow.com Throughout, the music (produced almost exclusively by the group and its DJ) shines with the glint of successful experimentation. However, it never outshines the words, which is where the group has as much to offer, if not more so. Read more
n/a by wallofsound.go.com Outkast's fourth album, Stankonia, is a far more complex effort than the critically acclaimed Aquemini. While Aquemini dealt with Big Boi and Dre's -- the self-described "player and poet," respectively -- contradictory personalities, Stankonia addresses the contradictory impulses of hip-hop itself. Read more
n/a by www.nudeasthenews.com OutKast are hip hop’s version of Radiohead: the only consistently platinum act concerned with not only pushing the limits of their genre to another level, but moving music as a whole. Read more
n/a by www.q4music.com Dre and Big Boi (alias Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton) fill their technicolour vision with the ghosts of Sly Stone, James Brown and, most notably, Funkadelic-era George Clinton. Factor in some distinctly unorthodox production and you've rap at its risk-taking best... Read more
n/a by www.inkblotmagazine.com Scattered among the jewels are shiny bits of glass that aren't as valuable as they might be. Read more
n/a by www.sonicnet.com Their songs still bulge at the seams with clever ideas, but they're veiled in deep grooves and hooks.... Outkast have developed a major sweet tooth for P-Funk, but what they've picked up from their former collaborator George Clinton isn't his low-end bounce. It's rather his hovering, serpentine vocal arrangements and his acidic political fantasies.... [but] Stankonia's conceptual sprawl isn't all good for the album -- the collection is hampered by more than a little filler. Read more
n/a by www.hob.com As the tracks shift from smooth R&B to frantic, drum machine driven beats, Outkast prove able to pull from a big enough bag of tricks as rappers to remain unpredictable. The problem is that they come out of it all without having left any defining mark on the songs. It's almost as if Stankonia would be more memorable if the duo stuck to one sound, one rhythm, and one train of lyrical thought. Read more
9 by Aftonbladet Även om det under året släppts ett gäng riktigt bra och intressanta hiphopskivor har jag ändå saknat “den där” speciella skivan som har det lilla extra som skiljer den från de övriga och s... Read more
9 by Dagensskiva.com Även om det under året släppts ett gäng riktigt bra och intressanta hiphopskivor har jag ändå saknat “den där” speciella skivan som har det lilla extra som skiljer den från de övriga och s... Read more