generation timbo: TIMBALAND TRACKS POLL RESULTS

rest in peace Aaliyah

rest in peace Static Major

rest in peace Pimp C

FRICKY FRICKY

http://i52.tinypic.com/eqxgrr.gif

HOT BEATZ

http://i53.tinypic.com/1199w21.gif

WHAT I WANT

a total of 36 ballots came in for this poll with votes for a total of 270 different tracks. and now, we count down the top 50.

ILM PLEASE COME OUT HERE AND TELL THESE FOLKS WHAT YOUR JAM IS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoYymnKUhZQ

50. Bubba Sparxxx - "Jimmy Mathis" (240 points, 7 voters)
from Deliverance, 2003
#98 R&B/Hip-Hop
One of the best things about early-to-mid 2000's rap videos was the tendency toward 'split videos' featuring more than one song, usually with a non-single tacked as a little minute-long snippet before or after the main track being featured. With Timbaland's artists, that usually meant you got to hear two great beats instead of one when the video came on, and I always found myself watching the "Deliverance" video just to hear that funky little tag of "Jimmy Mathis" at the end and started to wish the video was for that song. (some dude)

that harmonica is badass

Sparxxx was basically unknown to me before this poll. I like him a lot now, didn't quite vote for him but this'd be one of my favourite 2 or 3 of his.

that's great, underscores my continuing ??? at yelawolf adoration on this board

^^^^ reignites my ??? at people acting like Yelawolf and Bubba do the same thing

voted for two other cuts off of Deliverance, but I don't think either of them will place

yeah Yelawolf and Bubba are such fundamentally different types of rappers with the most superficially similar subject matter discussed in a completely different way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAcRug1saTY

xxpost haha otm. theyre pretty different dude

some good jokes guys you almost got me to listen to that mixtape again

anyway don't mean to derail this so quickly, please carry on

Love Deliverance - such an unexpected palette of sounds for Tim to be working with.

i feel sad that i just didn't have anywhere near the time to contribute to this

deliverance is an all-time classic album imo, i wonder if "nowhere" will show up? the full length version that segues into the CMAR sample. kiley dean is magnificent on it

yeah lex it bummed me out to do the final count and realize you never got a ballot in! oh well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErMSF2YUiO0

49. Aaliyah - "4 Page Letter" (245 points, 8 voters)
from One In A Million, 1996
#59 Hot 100 Airplay, #12 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay (charted 1997)
The title track of One In A Million was kind of the beginning of all those crazy drum fills and hi-hat triplets, but in a way other songs on the album like "4 Page Letter" feel like a mellower early Timbaland where the beat doesn't quite take priority over the song as much as it sometimes would later, and he'd just assert himself with a slightly busier kick drum than other producers of the time would have put on the track. (some dude)

by the time i noticed the noms thread it was like 200 answers long and i just couldn't (been stressed out of my mind this fortnight with just STUFF) (also literally my computer just couldn't, with that amount of youtubes)

Man, Nowhere is amazing. Forgot about that - voted for She Tried.

After the Beatles I realised there was no point in missing polls by deliberating endlessly and pulled a Timbaland list together in 10 minutes after some dude extended the deadline. I find it too frustrating not to be involved.

^ this, unless I can't handle the artist at all

4 Page Letter is really great, was delighted to find that lurking down the bottom of the playlist

I find it too frustrating not to be involved.

i am so getting this bcause only now am i thinking "ooh i hope kiley dean shows up in her own right" and "ooh that unreleased track that was the only time timbaland worked with kelis" and GGNNNNNGHHHH i didn't nominate or vote and i genuinely hate what my life has been over the past few weeks

4 page letter is so weird. like the loop doesn't even quite join up, & she sings in that kinda low range towards the end - there's something slightly off kilter about it (like the volume bumps at the start drawing your attention to what the backing track even is) & yet it sounds so lovely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qfMuYOYJyU

48. Total featuring MIssy Elliott - "Trippin'" (247 points, 6 voters)
from Kima, Keisha, and Pam, 1998
#7 Hot 100, #3 R&B/Hip-Hop
Although Timbaland increasingly utilized co-producers like Danja later in his career, "Trippin'" is a rare example of him co-producing with someone from outside his inner circle of collaborators, Total in-house producer Darryl Pearson. As a result, "Trippin'" kind of sounds less like a 'pure' Timbo track and more of a fusion with slightly more traditional '90s R&B production, which is fascinating to hear. (some dude)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9DAtktg4gc

47. Nicole featuring Missy Elliott and Mocha - "Make It Hot" (258 points, 9 voters)
from Make It Hot, 1998
#5 Hot 100, #2 R&B/Hip-Hop
I kind of feel there was a lost generation of Missy/Timbo hits, that wave after the initial Bachelor/One In A Million/Supa Dupa Fly run, and before the big classics of '99 and 2000, songs that were great but a little less remembered and by less prominent artists, so it's been really nice to see the poll end up including some of those '98 hits like Nicole and Total. (some dude)

"outside the inner circle" is a bit iffy man, pearson was a big part of devante's formative da bassment crew with tim and collabo'd with him throughout his career

oh ok, i'm totally full of shit there then

btw you didn't vote, did you?

btw i'm heading out for a while soon, anyone gonna be around and posting for the next few hours that wants me to e-mail them some results to post?

xp nah

i know it's been acknowledged over the years but it's still a fun nerdy subplot squaring tim's longevity with his role as director/delegator at the head of a familial production house. most obv with (what's listed as) missy-produced stuff the lines become impossibly blurred - something like 'trippin' really is toss-of-a-coin whether it comes under the poll's remit

looking fwd to seeing where kanye 'stronger' places though

lol "Good Life" was on one ballot and i was like really?

i predict the next track will be the first that incites cries of TOO LOW

by the looks of things if you hear a guitar crop up with tim it'll have been played by pearson fwiw

do you know who did all the live bass on "Get On The Bus" and the other Why Do Fools Fall In Love sdtk stuff? i LOVE that stuff, kinda wish Tim had more session player instrumentation back then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT9TVuoLN9k

46. Tweet - "Call Me" (264 points, 9 voters, one #1 vote)
from Southern Hummingbird, 2002
#31 Hot 100, #9 R&B/Hip-Hop
Timbaland has such a penchant for huge, attention-grabbing lead singles that a lot of times his artists are left trying to chase that success for the rest of their careers, always risking being defined by that one song. It happened to Bubba, Petey, even Ginuwine to some extent. So "Call Me" is in some ways forever in the shadow of "Oops," but I'm really happy people remembered how great and popular it was in its own right. (some dude)

TOO LOW!

love "call me" so much

ok, i gotta go out. Tim has some of the results he may be posting over the next hour, and if a hoy hoy shows up later i sent him some more. whatever hasn't been posted when i get back later in the day i will post. bye!

"Call Me" was in my top ten.

damn that is too low, at least my no1 placed though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opkRF3UZSJw&ob=av2n

45. Missy Elliott - "She's A Bitch" (266 points, 9 voters)
from Da Real World, 1999
#90 Hot 100, #30 R&B/Hip-Hop
Missy never had to worry about being looked at like a one hit
wonder, but she was still always defined by her lead singles, the
first big single off pretty much every album was a big game-changing
smash, and "She's A Bitch" was the one exception, the only one that
never really got into heavy rotation and was quickly eclipsed by its
follow-up. So it's kind of true to that legacy that it was one of the
sleepers of the poll. It only got one mention from the first 15 voters
and looked like it'd have no chance of placing, until the last few
ballots started bumping it up the list. And when I realized that that
I'd actually forgotten that first vote in its total, I did a last
minute recount and it moved up a couple more spots. (some dude)

Great song. It mainly missed my ballot because I love Da Real World so much and had included too many other cuts already.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCVnjBJZ3To
44. Jay-Z - "Come And Get Me" (283 points, 11 voters)
from Vol. 3... Life And Times Of S. Carter, 1999
"Come And Get Me" is probably the least outwardly dazzling of Tim's
consistently incredible contributions to Jay-Z's fourth album, but it
was the one that grabbed me most immediately after the album dropped,
just because the whole tempo of the song changed a minute or so in,
and then went off in a completely different direction for the rest of
the 6-minute track, which was an unexpected structure even by Tim's
standards. (some dude)

a surprising number of these are represented only by karaoke versions on spotify >:|

The best thing about these polls is being able to spend a week or more listening to and gassing about the artist incessantly. Especially when it's someone you don't know, but doing this gives you an in and it's really rewarding.

That's where I'm at with pretty much everyone on this poll. I never cared for Missy before - only knew the singles - but she's so great I ended up putting half-a-dozen of hers pretty high. Not this one though I don't think, but it's still excellent.

pah, massive xp

^^OTM. I now kinda regret I didn't dig into Tim's catalogue earlier and more thoroughly

I get what al is saying above about "Come & Get Me" being "least outwardly dazzling" (tho obv this is a relative statement) but "Come & Get Me" is just so striking and memorable to me, so perfectly really. It's not just the way the song pivots on that weird spaced out ambient section early on (though that's great) but also the fact that the beat that comes in at that point actually feels like a place you have to journey to arrive at, a "shit just got real" moment that'd sound really weird just going straight into it from the top. And what a beat - paranoid as fuck, the interplay between the bullet-kick bass riffs and the eerie synth chords such a perfect encapsulation of raw aggression and deceptive poise, the simultaneous depiction of the grace of being at the top and what it took to get there and stay there. Not to mention the minor modulations between each element, the way Tim adjusts the levels constantly to evoke the sense of constantly traveling further into Jay's paranoia.

a surprising number of these are represented only by karaoke versions on spotify >:|

i have always said spotify is shit and this is one of the major reasons why

/a surprising number of these are represented only by karaoke versions on spotify >:|/

i have always said spotify is shit and this is one of the major reasons why
--i asked for "HALF" a glass of wine, because i am TEMPERENT (lex pretend)

Wah this thing that didn't even exist a year ago won't let me stream every single song in recorded history. What a piece of shit!!!!

luckily the poll-runner will combine votes imo

"90s/'classic' southern rap"

Probably our best bet.

― raunch you raw (Spottie_Ottie_Dope), Monday, September 19, 2011 4:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

MF Doom lives in Atlanta now, so there goes that poll

Lol.

i had never heard this track that "come and get me" (the first part anyway) samples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqF6AQzTa_Y

boy does that take the fun out of that lol

this was such a fun poll

yeah, good times!!

boy does that take the fun out of that lol

i know right (assuming you're talking about my last post)

Missed this poll somehow. Slowly absorbing the Spotify playlist. Had no idea he did half of these songs! "Pony" for chrissakes! Wow.

you had never heard pony??????

or you just didn't know it was tim?

RIP polls that I care about.

well, did we ever do a top hop hop albums of 1992 poll?

idk

Oh, I know Pony! Just had no idea it was Tim, basically I knew him for the Missy, Bubba, Furtado and JT cuts, and "Oops." Didn't know he did "Hola Hovito" either.

the ginuwine albums are easily some of the best shit he ever did

haven't listened to this yet but a 77-minute demo tape of Swing Mob stuff has surfaced: http://confessionsofacurlymind.com/2011/12/29/da-bassment-crew-aka-swing-mob-the-rise-fall-rise-of-one-of-the-baddest-motherfucking-crews-in-modern-music-history-the-recently-unearthed-77min-cassette-demo-tape-you-must-hear/

damn, nice find!

the virginia stuff is so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVZnQwbOX3I

fuck this is amazing https://soundcloud.com/confessionsofacurlymind/ginuwine-come-inside

wait that's not the one on the demo. the one on the demo is absurdly good.

okay it's actually this song, wtf this is insanely good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj7JiGbt3lM

this tape is insanely good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emeilbi7iX0

think we discussed danny boy stuff a while back iirc

the other virginia song on there ('slow drag') is amazing

devante was basically incredible and has never gotten nearly enough attention outside of a timbaland bias

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsjZ9i658V8

another dope ginuwine/devante unreleased cut from 96

there's a fair few bits around if you look, tim stans go super hard

yeah "slow drag" is amazing. they were fucking around using cricket chirp synths like it was nothing.

oh damn, I never posted that shit? sorry I was bogarting. There's also another zip in there full of random unreleased Jodeci/Swing Mob shit including like a track for Al Green(!)

uh. maybe NOW you can share?

It's on that page! Just scroll down

it's actually down now... ysi?

oh ok, give me some time

coolio

Still absorbing the Spotify playlist from time to time. "Jeeps, Lex Coups, Bimaz & Benz" is today's discovery. It bounces well - but Wikipedia says it was produced by Easy Mo Bee. What's the story?

I'm not sure who put it in the playlist, shouldn't be there -- you'll notice it's not in the poll countdown itt -- but it's next to Lil Kim's Tim-produced "The Jump Off," which features Mr. Cheeks from The Lost Boyz performing the chorus from "Jeeps"

Woah - didn't realize Mr. Cheeks had any kind of career outside of "Lights, Camera, Action!" Good to know. Yeah, it didn't really sound like Timbaland but I was thinking, well, it's early-to-mid-90s, maybe his sound evolved or something.

The Lost Boyz had a good little run as NY also-rans before Cheeks went solo, "Renee" is secretly one of the best rap hits of hte 90s

Checking that out now. Weird combination of touching story of love cut short by violence and some of rap music's memorable banalities e.g. "She said I'm gonna feed the dog," "I bought two franks and two drinks," and especially "She told me what she wants to be in school for / She wants to be a laywer / in other words, shorty studies law."

But I dig that, it's the banalities that you miss when someone's gone after all. And the little things that happen the first time you go over to someone's place have a way of sticking in the memory.

oh my good "Trippin'" and "Make It Hot" and "Ching Ching" and "Oops (Oh My)"

I'm not 100% on this but I feel like post-Danja Timbaland output is overall more consistent on whole albums produced (with Timberlake mainly, not gonna rep for Shock Value II, Chris Cornell or something like that lol) but earlier Timbaland has more interesting highs?

There is a point sometime between "Get Ur Freak On" and his pop reinvention where I lose interest and it makes sense to me he temporarily lost some popularity, like he stripped down his sound too much but unlike The Neptunes/Pharrell, who used to be really good at that, the tracks just sounded really dry & basic. Missy's Under Construction is one I don't come back to so much for that reason

I'm not 100% on this but I feel like post-Danja Timbaland output is overall more consistent on whole albums produced (with Timberlake mainly, not gonna rep for Shock Value II, Chris Cornell or something like that lol) but earlier Timbaland has more interesting highs?

this is crazy talk imo. 100% Ginuwine, Welcome To Our World, Supa Dupa Fly, One In A Million, Deliverance...the Danja era had good stuff but FutureSex and Loose are not really fucking with those albums.

POLL: best non-Missy album produced (mostly or entirely) by Timbaland

There's not really a duff track on any of the first three Missy albums, which is a testament to both of them during that period.

(I haven't like stared at their track lists or anything so it's possible i'm missing some random dud tune but I doubt it)

i had fun throwing this together recently, Missy's catalog is just crazy:
http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2014/05/deep-album-cuts-vol-19-missy-elliott.html

I like certain Bubba Sparxxx songs, never got into either album like that tho. Supa Dupa Fly and Miss E are both good but there's a dip in quality in the second half of both imo. I'll have to give 100% Ginuwine a closer listen, I got the same inconsistent vibe from both of his, although it's more that the good songs are sprinkled throughout, not any one half > the other

I like Indecent Proposal, and Tim's Bio complete with the stupid Lil' Man helium voice lol

WTF, the second half of Supa Dupa Fly has "Why You Hurt Me", "Izzy Izzy Ah", "I'm Talkin'", "Gettaway"... all in a row! That's an insane run.

Da Real World's her most consistent album though.

Anyway can you point to any late period Timbaland album more consistent than these? FS/LS is the only one that comes close and even that starts to tail off in the final stretch.

after "Best Friends" I don't find a ton to like about the rest of the album, kinda drab. "Gettaway" is better than the others I guess. It's really an album with select songs I love though ("Rain" and "Beep Me 911" being the top)

You're right that FS/LS second half in general isn't as good either, I just like it better overall

Da Real World is the one classic-run Missy album I've never listened to all the way through, mainly cuz what I did hear I thought was dull in comparison to her other stuff. May check it out

your opinion is objectively wrong

I kinda feel like people coming to early Timbaland productions retrospectively would find it easier to just skim and then adopt received wisdom (which is basically reaping for singles and being ignorant of the rest).

This is probably true for most production "auteurs" but Timbaland is the first I was following from nearly the start in real time so it's more jarring seeing people act like Future Sex Love Sounds is the first great Timbaland album.

yeah...i remember my brother getting Supa Dupa Fly and Welcome To Our World and before there was any real hype about Timbaland being the driving force of all that stuff it just bowled me over how different and alive everything sounded

the grizzled vet of the nineties squints at the youngster and growls "we suffered magoo so that you could have your goddam justink timbershake why in my day we clamored for a Playa album and that was the way we liked it"

It's really annoying that the only Timbaland albums available on streaming services are the Shock Value ones.

Even more annoying that they're mostly packed with forgettable collaborations with people who shouldn't be on a Timbaland album. Tim, give Magoo a call!