Danger Mouse? More like Underrated Mouse!

Wow.  Apologies for that headline.  I promise I'll never do that to you again.  Anywho, I took the wife and kids parents to see Broken Bells last week--Mom Dukes loves them--and it got me to thinking: when is Danger Mouse going to officially blow up?  I mean, it's not like he's super under-the-radar or anything, but he's also far from a household name.  James freakin' Mercer got a bigger hand than he did at the show.  This is outrageous, considering the work he's done.  Let's have a look, shall we?

2004: Releases The Grey Album: Takes the Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album and makes them one.  Gives it to a couple of friends.  Who give it to some of their friends.  Goes on to become the standard to which all mash-ups are measured.

2005: An off year.  Produces Gorillaz' Demon Days, which, on the strength of it's little-known single "Feel Good Inc," has sold a meager 10,000,000 units to date.  Goes on to record The Mouse & The Mask  with the brilliantly bizarre MF Doom and, for good measure, most of the cast of Adult Swim.  One of my all time favorite albums.

2006: Along with Cee-Lo Green releases St. Elsewhere under the name Gnarles Barkley.  Perhaps you've heard of one of the singles from that album, "Crazy"?  No?  Rolling Stone's Song of the Decade?  Of course you have.

2007: Took some well earned time off, touring pretty much constantly with Gnarles.  Issued this quote: "When I got to college, I saw 'Manhattan' and 'Deconstructing Harry.' I thought to myself: Why do I relate so much to this white 60-year-old Jewish guy? Why do I understand his neurosis? So I just started watching all of his movies. And what I realized is that they worked because Woody Allen was an auteur: he did his Thing, and that particular Thing was completely his own. That's what I decided to do with music. I want to create a director's role within music..."

2008: Let's see here: Releases the second Gnarles Barkley album, The Odd Couple.  Because he felt like he wasn't collaborating with enough badass ahead-of-the-curve musicians, he also produced the Black Keys' Attack and Release and, um--oh right!--Beck's Modern Guilt.

2009: Along with the band Sparklehorse, releases a... book of photographs!  By David Lynch! (?)  Toured some more.

2010: Who knew that the exact thing the Shins needed to go from being a just-ok band to an excellent band was the infusion of one 6'3 funky mulatto?  Releases Broken Bells with Shins front man James Mercer to great critical acclaim.  Produces one track--the best track--on the Black Keys' Brothers.

2011: Producing the forthcoming album by Scottish up-and-comers U2.

I mean I guess the person to compare him to is Rick Rubin: another producer who, in spite of his mammoth success, isn't really a household name.  That said, I'm trying to increase readership of the blog, so: until Danger Mouse gets his due, with, like, an adoring article in the NY Times Magazine section written by Chuck Klosterman (oh, wait), I'm officially labeling this lack of respect RACIST.