Cee-lo is
grinding gears in a black Ferrari Testarossa down a seedy Miami sidestreet and
does a perfect 75mph-Tokyo-drift-break-slide-parallel park in front of Mac’s
Club Deuce. Herbie Handcock rocks a
pink keytar while Steve Stevens does his Top
Gun era guitar acrobatics in M83’s barband rendition of Thriller. It’s 2 am and they all fill a gangster booth
in the back of the bar to discuss a rock opera based on Dexter. Two years later, Outrun emerges with a bullet. It’s 1986.
If you are
asking yourself, “Who would listen to that shit?” Well, the 10 year old in me hasn’t had as
much fun with my headphones on since I was rocking out to Thriller and The Miami Vice
Soundtrack. It just works. I don’t want to love it and I don’t even want
to admit that I love it in public. But,
I want everyone to listen to it because it’s so ridiculous in the same way that
the song “Thriller” and the accompanying video “just work.” Would you think putting Vincent Price and
Eddie Van Halen on the same album as Michael Jackson would ever sell 65 million
copies?
Of course, the
world will not fall in love with Outrun. Kavinsky creates a world that listeners would
be afraid to visit but can’t fight the curiosity to see for themselves. Kinda like a vacation in Detroit - take the
tour to Eminem’s boyhood home, check out Motown, and the Henry Ford
Museum. Most would have the reaction,
“You’re kidding, right? All that stuff sounds cool…but, it’s Detroit. There’s murder, poverty, no vegetables…Kid
Rock.” Most of us would at least drive
through, right? I have and I loved it!
It’s
difficult to pick standout tracks as it works loosely as a concept album, but
to get the idea check out “First Blood.” B -