longish SFJ piece on Timba and Neps in NY Times Magazine

I recommend heartily the above mentioned double CD, anyone with access to Fopp. £3!!

what are we even talking about again?

Has Godard fallen off? HELL YEAH!

Not the Co-Ed remix featuring Pharrell from Goldmember, that was summer '02.

I remember there was a week in '02 when the Neps had 4 of the UK top 20 with "Rock Star", "Work It Out", "Boys" and "Hot In Herre". Has that ever been done before, or even close to that?

I'm still surprised that, "Pass That Dutch" aside (and it's such a measely malnourished example) Diwali hasn't had more influence on what the big-name producers are doing. More polyrhythmic percussive stuff would sound great right now (cf. "Pass That Dutch" - a bass pulse with some perfunctory handclaps - and no, the fact that it's minimalist does not automatically make it good!).

"Be r*al! If somebody else stepped up with the beat from Cee-Lo's "I'll Be Around" or Missy's "Wake Up" or Timbaland and Magoo's own "Indian Flute," you'd have a heart attack and start pitching features."

that should read "discussing how" rather than "about how"

But anyway do the math:

- in 2001 Tim had Miss E, "Hola Hovito", his & Magoo's "Roll Out" and "Drop", and his tracks on the first Bubba album and the last Aaliyah album to keep his stocks afloat.
- in 2002 there was the virtually all-killer no-filler Under Construction, "Oops Oh My", "2 Many Hoes", "Cry Me A River" and the best bits of the Ms Jade album
- in 2003 there was, um, a track or two from This Is Not A Test, some (admittedly brilliant) work on Deliverance and "I'll Be Around". That's like 8 great tracks, half as many as the previous year and about a third as many as 2001.

This suggests to me a steady tapering off - although between Bubba and Cee-Lo he's left room for a new regeneration.

Anybody feel like doing up a list of Timbaland's productions from year to year - or is that just to much work.

Still nice to see Finney writing regularly on a thread again.

The Neptunes, on the hand, seem pretty good at absorbing all sorts of neat ideas and even though I would agree that this was sort of a slow year for them they did release quite a few insane/inspired singles ("Bellydancer", "Milkshake", "Light Your Ass on Fire") and they seem to have their hands in more pies (even if their dancehall stuff is pretty hit or miss.) The N.E.R.D. album is probably gonna suck though, so they're gonna have to do a lot of neat stuff for other folks this year for it not to be called a slump.

The thing that depresses me the most is not the decline in quality by the Neptunes and Timbaland (they've had an increbile run), it's the noticeable lack of new talent. Where are new puppies everybody should be comparing Timbalands/Neptune's work with, in order to show how tired sounding the T&N's productions are sounding. Don't mention Kanye or Just Blaze, as while they might be in the DJ Premier league, I can't imagine them dominating like T&N did.

Well, there's no accounting for taste, but I'd add the rest of Test (it really does amuse me how overhyped "Work It" was compared to how underhyped Test is), "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," some of the stuff off Under Construction II, "Jump Off," etc. Shit, you might as well throw "Cry Me A River" in too given how that dominated 03.

I just think the guy's been too good for too long, and was good enough in 03, for anyone to be shouting "fell off"! Respect!

I ain't even gonna bother defending the Neptunes from all the hataz around here...

the whole "country-fried" schtick really has seemed to re-ignite tim somewhat, but i'm not exactly sure where he can GO with it. some tracks on the bubba album give me a shiver, but they could also be by any journeyman producer who hit upon an effective formula. (little of it SOUNDS like timbaland on first listen, and i can't decide if that's good or bad.)

So let me see...

"he now needs to reinvent himself every year"

"little of it SOUNDS like timbaland on first listen"

Doesn't B answer A?

I have to say, I hope I disagree with you, as Clipse were my big hope for the Neptunes.

they sound much "huskier" than on the debut.

x-posts:

anyway, yeah, i never said that the country-hop stuff WASNT tim's reinvention from last year (though, it's not...go listen to "bubba talk" from the first bubba album) (and i'd argue that the "darker" sound of the this is not a test singles and "the jump off" were actually the reinvention that snagged the publics attention.) (the idiots.) but for the most part the only bit of aesthetic unity to the country schtick is the samples...the beats could be anyone, and that's something you COULDNT say about tim between 96-early99. i guess the life and times of s. carter really was the turning point: four beats so different that you had to check the booklet to see who produced them.

I like the "here is this year's sound" aspect of Tim.

When I think of the 'Neptunes sound' I always think of the plastic ray-guns sound on Kaleidoscope even though they've not done anything like that for about 3 years :(

Deliverance isn't a full country-hop album?

It looks like I'll just have to wait for Clipse to come out - any tracks that actually did stand out?

X-Post x a lot

Agreed, about "Deliverance" - a lot of the love for it comes not from country hip-hop combine as people are saying - but just because it has the best melodies in a Timbaland production for a while (feel free to disagree).

andrew my timbaland shopping list would probably run:

- the first four missy albums (but esp. supa dupa fly and miss e)
- jay-z - volume 3: the life and times of s. carter
- aaliyah - one in a million and the s/t
- bubba - dark days, bright nights and deliverance
- timbaland and magoo - tim's bio: life from the bassment

these are (as far as i can remember, first thing in the morning) the only albums he's produced 1/4 or more of.

for the neps:

- kelis - kaelidoscope (!!!!) and wanderland
- clipse - lord willin
- nerd - in search of

(if you can slsk, there's also a two disc "best of the neptunes" bootleg floating about that has most of the big singles up until 2001 on it.)