Gnarls Barkley didn’t just take over the global zeitgeist with their 2006 hit single, “Crazy.” The soul duo ushered in a new era of musical consumption, marking a definitive shift in how artists could expect to distribute their singles and albums to their audiences most effectively. That “Crazy” was the lead single off their debut record, St. Elsewhere, makes this feat even more impressive.
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Since that historic pop culture moment, musical distribution and consumption have never been the same.
Gnarls Barkley Made History With Lead Single “Crazy”
Gnarls Barkley’s hit song “Crazy” was unavoidable in the mid to late 2000s. The debut single off the duo’s first album, St. Elsewhere, was an instant hit. This momentum started months before the official release, thanks to an anonymous leak in late 2005. By April 2, 2006, “Crazy” made history by being the first track to top the U.K. charts on digital downloads alone. Gnarls Barkley’s success only grew from there. “Crazy” stayed at the top of the U.K. charts for nine weeks, marking the longest tenure at No. 1 in over a decade.
The fact that the soul duo, composed of CeeLo Green and Danger Mouse, managed to capture lightning in a bottle on their debut single is no small accomplishment. But the impact of their history-making hit expands far beyond the reaches of their entire discography as duo or solo artists. “Crazy” marked a shift in the way the masses consumed media. Tapes and vinyls had already achieved a dusty layer of antiquity. Now, CDs appeared to be on the way out, too. Digital was the new king, and the members of Gnarls Barkley were the trumpeters announcing the royalty’s arrival.
Interestingly, some other band might have snagged this monumental accolade if the Official U.K. Charts Company hadn’t changed its charting rules in the mid-2000s. Prior to the release of “Crazy,” only singles available in-store were eligible for chart positions. Fortunately for Gnarls Barkley, the charts company modified the rules to include online sales if physical copies were in record stores within a week of its digital release. Stateside, “Crazy” peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 but managed to snag the No. 1 spots on the U.S. Adult Alternative Songs and Pop Airplay charts.
Six Years Later, Another Major Musical Shift Occurred
Gnarls Barkley climbing to the top of the U.K. chart with their debut single “Crazy” in April 2006 marked an unavoidable shift in the music industry. Audiences were making a mass exodus from physical musical formats and flooding into the world of digital downloads. “Download” is the operative word here. Unless you were file-sharing your music (RIP LimeWire), digital downloads required you to pay for it before you could listen. Within six years of Gnarls Barkley making downloading history, Carly Rae Jepsen would usher in another transition, still reigning supreme today.
Knocking digital sales off its online throne in the mid-aughts was something we’re all well familiar with in the 2020s: streaming. Six years after the Official U.K. Charts Company shifted the rules to accommodate online sales, the organization once again revisited how it tracked songs’ successes, this time, through streaming. In May 2012, Carly Rae Jepsen made history by landing the first No. 1 single on the U.K. Singles Official Streaming Chart with her infectious pop hit, “Call Me Maybe.”
To this day, streaming remains king. At the time of this writing, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reported the total value of the recording industry in 2024 to be 29.6 billion dollars. Over half of that revenue comes directly from streaming. Those groundbreaking digital sales that helped Gnarls Barkley make history? They’re holding on at a modest 2.8% of the total revenue.
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