Slate rolls in with a misguided dichotomy regarding Gnarls Barkley:

Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse want to have it both ways, flaunting their Olympian ironic distance while still delivering an emotional stomach punch. But music this stylized and knowing does not lend itself easily to pathos. When Cee-Lo bellows “Oh, I’ve been entered by evil/ So someone best love me right now,” it sounds less like a cri de coeur than another impeccably wrought flourish.

Isn’t it possible to be both detached and deadly serious? Two other articles today seem to indicate that it is: Juergen Teller (above, with Charlotte Rampling, for Marc Jacobs) and Norman Mailer are both hailed for their both/and qualities, not either/or. But I haven’t even heard the new album, so there. To be continued …