“Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley

"Crazy" was the first single from Gnarls Barkley, the soul duo of Danger Mouse and CeeLo Green, and the calling card for their 2006 debut album, St. Elsewhere. Danger Mouse produced it and wrote the music, Green wrote the words, and Gian Franco and Gian Piero Reverberi share the songwriting credit too. It sounds like nothing else from that year: a stalking, minor-key groove, half vintage soul and half fever dream, with Green's voice swooping over the top like a man teetering on a ledge and enjoying the view.

It escaped months early. Leaked in late 2005, it was already on BBC Radio 1 and in TV ads for Zane Lowe's show before its official release. Once it was out, it became the first single to reach number one in Britain on downloads alone and sat there nine weeks, the longest stay at the top in more than a decade, until the band and their label pulled the physical single from shops so people wouldn't tire of it. It was still Britain's best-selling single of 2006. It topped the charts in Canada, Ireland and New Zealand too, and got to number two on Billboard's Hot 100.

The prizes followed: a Grammy for Best Urban/Alternative Performance in 2007, top honors in the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll, and Rolling Stone's pick as the best song of 2006 and, later, of the whole decade.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.