Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

OutKast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Critic Score
Based on 19 reviews
2003 Ratings: #11 / 355
User Score
2003 Rank: #65
Liked by 318 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Q Magazine

Speakerboxxx takes up where Stankonia left off ... The Love Below isn't really hip hop at all. Its sound and lyrics owe a huge debt to, inevitably, George Clinton.

100
The Independent

Cruising smoothly into pole position for album of the year, Outkast's Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below is a landmark hip-hop release, fit to be set alongside the likes of 3 Feet High & Rising, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and The Marshall Mathers LP - the kind of album that changes the game completely, that renders its competitors suddenly obsolete and old-hat.

100
Entertainment Weekly

Packaged together, they make a twofer whose ambition flies so far beyond that of anyone doing rap right now (or pop, or rock, or R&B), awards shows may need to create a special category for it.

100
The Guardian

Both albums are sublime. Taken together they're hip-hop's Sign o' the Times or The White Album: a career-defining masterpiece of breathtaking ambition.

90
Drowned in Sound
If you can name me just one rapper that made a more complete record in 2003 than either of these two Southern boys' efforts, I’ll call you a liar.
90
HipHopDX
Outkast has once again broken new ground (double solo albums) and their continued experimentation has found another winning formula. Some will prefer Big Boi's disk, some will prefer Dre's (like myself), but either way, 'Kast has got something for everyone.
90
AllHipHop
Venturing to the left, particularly Mr. 3000, when everyone expects you to go right might ostracize you from your contemporaries and fair-weather fans, but in this case, that diversion has led to more great music, which is what really matters.
90
AllMusic
Both records are visionary, imaginative listens, providing some of the best music of 2003, regardless of genre.
85
Coke Machine Glow
These are two separate albums with two very separate ideals, both very successful at what they aim to accomplish but fundamentally important because of the different angles they choose to blow wide open. To want to combine them, though awfully tempting, is wanting to make the album something it isn't, at the same time ignoring the breadth of ideas and directions both members have offered through their hit-and-miss artistic indulgence.
80
Slant Magazine

The Love Below is more consistent than Speakerboxxx. Still, as was probably intended, the double-album is greater than the sum of its parts, and this kind of expertly crafted pop and deftly executed funk rarely happen at the same time—not since Stankonia, at least.

80
NME
Two Technicolor explosions of creativity that people will be exploring, analysing and partying to for years.
80
Uncut

The Love Below ... comprises the most sublime pop music heard on record this year.

80
Mojo
The genius of past Outkast isn't diluted or diminished across these disks, rather it's doubled, expanded and explored.
80
NOW Magazine
In total, the sheer breadth of material here is staggering. Few others, hiphop or otherwise, seem even half as inspired as these guys.
80
The Observer
OutKast seem unstoppable. Big Boi's 'Ghetto Music' and Dre's 'She Lives in My Lap' set the scene with swampy southern beats and sonic handbrake turns melting the rhymes into gorgeous soul and P-funk. Superfreaky.
80
Pitchfork

Big Boi's Speakerboxxx coolly upstages its counterpart: Although it, too, provides the world with one earthshaking single, it differs from The Love Below in that it also manages to maintain a consistent level of brilliance and emotional complexity.

70
Tiny Mix Tapes

This album just doesn’t keep you mesmerized from start to finish like Stankonia did; you have to search for the best tracks. But, if this had been cut down to one disc of the best material, if Andre’s songs had Big Boi’s rapping, if Big Boi’s songs had Andre’s off the wall sounds, if all that had happened, it could very well have been that elusive defining rap album.

60
Rolling Stone
Each of these albums is as noteworthy for what's missing as for what's there.
bl0nded
95

This is one of the most polarizing albums of all time. Particularly on Andre's end. You either have people saying this is a masterpiece, or people saying this sucks, mainly because of Andre's part, "The Love Below". I am on the side of those who think this is amazing. On both albums. It slaps. I'm gonna split this into two different reviews, because it's so, so different, yet so amazing on both sides. There's a reason this is the best-selling hip-hop album of all-time. It's not just ... read more

knewnie
60

EDIT: THANK YOU ALL SOOOOO MUCH FOR 1,000 FOLLOWERS!!!!! πŸ₯°πŸ₯° MWAH MWAH XOXOXO πŸ’— ITS A BLESSING TO BE HERE AMONG SUCH GENEROUS FUNNY ELOQUENT CULTURED SILLY PEOPLE !!!! AAAAAH ITS OVERWHELMING THANK UUU πŸ˜­πŸ’—

heyyyyyyy!!! ummm this is my 3,000th rating πŸ™ˆ ive never been good at communicating my emotions or like, summing up the totality of an experience, so iii'll try to make it brief. i love music, i love this website, finding AOTY in 2019 a month after leaving rym has ... read more

LonelyHipHopFan
70

OUTKAST DISCOGRAPHY DEEP DIVE #5

So, here we are! The obligatory double album of every mainstream act ever. They said multiple times that they are not breaking up and that they didn't make this, because they were going to different places with their music, but I can't accept that answer. These two albums are completely different in style which I think is the indication that André wanted to do a more pop sound, while Big Boi wanted to make a regular hip hop record. Well, whatever their ... read more

Koman67
85

I like this.

91

The closest we'll get to an andre solo album and it remains one of the best pieces of art to come out of hip hop

GetInVan
92

Apparently, it's a controversial take, but this is my favourite Outkast album. Both sections hold different parts of the essence of what made Outkast such a once-in-a-generation band. The feeling of going from the confident and hopeful Speakerboxxx to the deep and introspective Love Below is just such a fantastic juxtaposition and really brings to light the respective headspaces that Big Boy and Andre were at while making their final album as Outkast. While the separation between the artists' ... read more

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