OK, yeah, the Star Wars costumes. It's
the Star Wars costumes the band wore at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, especially
Cee-Lo's dapper Darth Vader, which set the tone. If you dress in Star Wars gear
on stage, or anywhere in the world for that matter, you are nerds.
But even beyond Gnarls' proclivity for playing dress up (including
nods to Oz, "Donnie Darko" and the Roman Empire, pictured here), the music the
duo makes is a few notches smarter, a little more steeped in diverse musical
traditions, and a great deal more nuanced than most anything else being produced
in the last few years. But mostly? Yeah, mostly the Star Wars outfits.