Taking Sides: Timbaland vs. Neptunes

Yeah, cos he started first...? I don't think Tim's done all that much bomb shit of late, but rep him fully anyway.

Hrm! This is innaresting, cos if it was true then, it isn't now. I don't know if it *was* true then, since you knew Tim's records by the wicky wicky been a long time bits.

It was just...*throws up hands* I mean, what WAS the point?

[three minute one-handed guitar solo]

Anyway, I'm intrigued to see that at the time I was starting to feel much more charitable towards the Neptunes, though that changed again. At this point a single or maybe a double disc comp could probably be made that I wouldn't mind, but it ain't Clones that's for damn sure (as for Timbaland, a box set a la the Jam/Lewis promo-only genius YES PLEASE).

Around page 6 he gets Timbaland and Pharrel to fite:
Timbaland struck up a relationship with the popular rapper Jay-Z, and the two subsequently made some of their best work together, including the 2000 Top 20 hit ''Big Pimpin'.''

''That's one of my biggest classics,'' Timbaland told me as we sat and talked in the studio. ''That record didn't sound like nothing else on the radio. I made about seven classics that you can still play to this day and still rock in the club. And I tell Pharrell, 'When you do that, that's when you get your veteran stripes.' I think he's got about three -- that Nelly song, ''Hot in Herre,'' Mystikal's ''Shake It Fast'' and Jay-Z's ''Give It to Me.'' I'm not talking about records that are hits, but records that still get played for years and years,'' Timbaland continued. ''I like to make it complex because that way, it stays around longer, and you can always listen to it. 'Are You That Somebody?' is still playing, 'Try Again' is still playing. Gotdang 'Cry Me a River' is phenomenal, wipes 'em out. 'Pony' I still hear, 'One in a Million' I still hear; they play it all day down here on the radio, all day radio airplay, 'Get Ur Freak On,' 'I Can't Stand the Rain,' they play 'Love 2 Love U,' that's the all-time classic. I could start naming, boy. I got title belts, you understand?''

Timbaland acknowledged his old bandmate and competitor with complicated praise. ''I love everything Pharrell does,'' he said. ''I like 'Clones' '' -- the album the Neptunes released last year under their own name -- ''but I did hear comments, people saying it's whack. I like that record no matter what, because I know all the hard work he put behind it.''

Timbaland professed to have a simple, unassailable philosophy. ''My thing is 'Who sold the most records?' '' he said. ''That's my friendly competition.'' And who sold the most records? ''Me. That's without a doubt. If you look at the charts, one year, I broke three artists, back to back, and they all sold at least 900,000 copies. Petey Pablo sold 900,000, 'Raise Up' was an anthem, and they still play it in the armies and over in Kuwait.''

When I told him Timbaland's theories, Williams shook his head vigorously. ''No way,'' he said. ''That's cancerous to my spirit. Knowing how many times a song got played on the radio? No. I'd much rather be in the studio, listening to a Burt Bacharach record, listening to chord progressions, studying them and teaching myself to go somewhere else. I want to pull energy from other worlds into my music. Life, love, science, religion, history, that's what I want to pull into my music. Let's face it -- you make a certain amount of money, and after that, no matter how much money you make, it all feels the same. The only real true joy that is new to me every day is discovering music. I don't know how Tim thinks about sales and then goes and makes a beat. That ain't my world. Tim's a genius, though.''

Ahem,

La la la la-la/warm it up
La la la la-la/the boys are waiting

La la la la-la/warm it up
La la la la-la/the boys are waiting

Quoting lyrics (which were no doubt written by Kelis) is hardly a refutation of Pharrell's point. He said he wants to pull those things into his music.

this is weird to think about now just cuz if I'm comparing old Timbaland to old pre-superstar Neptunes, Timbaland wins no question, but now I'd say Neptunes/Pharrell overall. Used to be more into the "quirky" aspects of Timbo's beats and ignored that with some of the tracks there's not much else there, especially sometime in the early-mid '00s/before his pop comeback his beats ring kinda hollow for me. Also this sounds purist or w/e but Pharrell can (could?) do stripped-down straight hip-hop tracks better than Timbo, although he's not generally aiming for that anyway.

Timbaland's most popular stuff & his best stuff overlaps for me in a way the Neptunes don't though, I think they got more interesting after '02 even though some bad ideas crept in too