The Neptunes & Timbaland in 2004

Oh, I dunno. The backlash was already begining amongst ILM grand poobahs (or whatever that term is that Christgau uses, sorry, I'm a bit drunk) around the time "Boys" was released, and by early 2004 even I (who am usually very loathe to abandon my fave artists) had recognised that the moment had kinda passed. 2003 was the big backlash year, I think, despite the number of generally well-loved singles that they released during that time - "The Neptunes Presesnts Clones" in particular (an album which I think is pretty damn great, fwiw, but that's neither here nor there.)

cross-posting cuz wtf the other topic's on the ILE board & I got the insight

this is weird to think about now (well not as weird in this topic cuz it doesn't date back as far) 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

Tim had a pretty long run as a genius and imo has been phoning it in and farming out a lot of the heavy lifting to collaborators for even longer. Pharrell's peak was shorter and less consistently amazing, but he's stuck to his guns and kept making an effort for way longer.

I also appreciate that The Neptunes/Pharrell are more melodic than Timbaland, his best stuff makes up for this with how deeply layered it is but I can't listen to Miss E as much these days for this reason

although minimal Hell Hath No Fury I think is great too, but he got worse at those beats afterwards generally speaking

Hell Hath No Fury style*