Danger Mouse.

So, I decided to try a new format for this week’s piece and instead of talking about a somewhat recently released album that I particularly like, I thought I’d talk about an artist whose work I have the utmost respect for, the enigmatic, multi-faceted producer, Danger Mouse.

Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, has had an incredibly diverse career, stemming from an underground record as a mash-up DJ to being the man behind the boards on the most recent U2 album. A typical trajectory this is not. Like most, I heard about Danger Mouse first for his early work in cross-sampling, when he took The Beatles’ fabled White Album and mashed it together with Jay-Z’s comeback success, The Black Album, making the somewhat uncreatively titled The Grey Album. Though the title may not be terribly original, it would be hard to say the same about the actual work. Nowadays mash-ups are common if not passe, but when this album dropped in 2004, the concept and maturity of the mash-up song was still nascent. This was not Danger’s first album, having dropped the hip-hop collabo with Jemini, Ghetto Pop Life, the year before, but this was his breakthrough into the industry and the album that would help define him as a creative force.

Shortly after this, Burton’s career would take off, not the least because of his involvement in his next project, the 2005 hit, Demon Days, by Gorillaz. His highest profile album to date, tracks such as Feel Good Inc., and DARE, would skyrocket his popularity and of course give him access to another prolific artist in the industry, Damon Albarn. DM and Gorillaz never made another album together, however in 2007, Albarn brought him into the fold of one of many interesting side projects he had in the works around then, The Good, The Bad and the Queen. A mighty collaboration that saw the bringing together of vastly different artists from The Clash’s Paul Simonon on bass, to The Verve’s Simon Tong on guitar and legendary Afrobeat percussionist Tony Allen on drums. The album was never a commercial success, but brought much lauding from critics and was the first of many albums that would provide Burton with the chance to work with a truly ensemble cast.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself, let’s rewind a few years. 2005 and 2006 were hugely formative years for Danger Mouse as he was able to release three of his most influential albums. Besides the aforementioned, DM dropped one of the biggest alternative hip-hop albums of the decade, and probably one of my all-time favorites, The Mouse and the Mask, with the bizarre genius MF DOOM. This record defies all hip-hop conventions, using a variety of samples from glamrock such as REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling as featured on Bada Bing, Keith Mansfield’s acid jazz melodies on Space Ho’s and Adult Swim cartoons as shown on A.T.H.F. and Sofa King. Cerebral beats purvey consistently throughout the album that provide the perfect accompaniment to DOOM’s psychedelic hip hop style. His second major foray of the time period is arguably his biggest to date in the mainstream community, his partnership with Cee-Lo Green to form Gnarls Barkley, and the release of their 2006 debut, St. Elsewhere. This album is now overshadowed by the success of the single, Crazy, however there is much depth to it such as the tracks Go-Go Gadget Gospel and St. Elsewhere, and provides a great snapshot of the potential of reviving gospel music using modern day themes and technology.

Another major turning point in DM’s career came from another unlikely place, not content with flipping hip-hop and r&b on its head, Burton set his sights on conquering one of the highest peaks of the musical mountain range, good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll. In 2008 he partnered with a little known band from Akron, Ohio that had just begun to see a turnaround in their fortunes, but even with the rising popularity of their latest work they were still far from famous. The band I’m referring too is The Black Keys, and the album is Attack & Release, home to such iconic “early” Black Keys tunes as I Got Mine, and Strange Times. Though the Keys had begun to drift from the purist bluesrock that embodied their first albums, it was the teaming up with Danger Mouse which really brought them into the richer, fuller, quasi-classic rock sound they so familiarly play today. DM has continued with the Keys ever since, being the producer for 2010’s Brothers, 2012’s El Camino and 2014’s Turn Blue, with each release bringing the Black Keys closer and closer to rock godhood.

Danger Mouse doesn’t take breaks. He’s consistently been producer on a release every year since 2003, sometimes only one album, sometimes as many as four. 2010 was another great year for Burton, it saw the birth of another new band of his that would make a big splash in the world of electropop, and also saw the release of his second album with multi-instrumentalist Sparklehorse. Broken Bells, the pop duo consisting of DM on keyboard, bass and drums and James Mercer of The Shins providing guitar and vocals, released their self-titled debut that year, featuring the utterly catchy tunes of The High Road, The Ghost Inside and October. Try listening to those songs only once, it’s just not possible. Less popular, but in my opinion the more musically powerful album, Dark Night of the Soul also came to be in this year and stands out as a magnificent album that defies true definition and features a very broad range of featured artists from Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, to Iggy Pop to Susanne Vega. Released just months after the suicide of Mark Linkous aka Sparklehorse, this album features all of the emotionality of a man on the brink, with melancholy dirges such as Insane Lullaby with James Mercer, or Just War featuring Gruff Rhys, alongside more uptempo songs such as Little Girl with Julian Casablancas.

One could go on at extreme length about the man’s storied so far career, but I think the best way to wrap up this discussion on one of the greatest producers of the last 15 years is to recap his major contributions since 2010 and what that has done for him, and us. In 2011, Burton engaged in his most ambitious project yet, the album Rome, featuring two legendary singer/songwriters Jack White and Norah Jones, alongside Italian composer Daniele Luppi, that aimed at reproducing the scoring of spaghetti westerns in the 60s and 70s. Only a master like Danger Mouse could take these individually powerful yet unrelated elements, and mix them into something arguably bigger than the sum of individual parts. In 2012 he brought the talents he learned in Broken Bells to a new duo on the electropop scene, Electric Guest and produced the groundbreaking debut, Mondo. The following year he produced Evil Friends, arguably the best record released by the Portland-based indie rock band Portugal. The Man. Finally in 2014, he made one of the biggest leaps of his career by producing the album Songs of Innocence by U2, arguably the biggest band in the world. Now I haven’t enjoyed a U2 release in a very long time, and this particular record does nothing to break that trend, but from the viewpoint of a musicians career, going from being a mashup DJ to producing the latest U2 album is a huge leap. Whether or not this last move will be beneficial for his artistic integrity or creativity, only time will tell, however I’m sure it helped his bank account.

No one knows whats over the horizon, perhaps Danger Mouse will be a megastar, beloved and respected by all, or called a sell out and lose touch with his core fans. Maybe he will retreat to a different style of indie music or go back to his roots. Whichever path lay before him, he need only look backwards to see a truly great modern music career.