The Neptunes & Timbaland in 2004

there is surely lots more.

i'm glad someone else loves "hollaback girl", i've been waiting all week for hivemind confirmation.

(btw, i hear there's a missy elliot DUBBLE ALBUM coming out...)

I rrrrrreally liked Snoop Dogg's track as well as Gwen's Hollaback Girl.

I have less hope for Timbaland, who seems to be in as much of a rut this year as The Neptunes were in mid to late '03; he did some competent stuff (the LL Cool J album was cool, if a bit boringly "professional" - I like "Hush"), but "Get On Dis Motorcycle" is the only track this year that really blew me away in the way that he used to do on a regular basis.

that would never happen.

Neptunes - Sleepy Brown "Life of a Hustler" (nothing spectacular, but still nice'n'all)

Timbaland - Utada "Let Me Give You My Love" (has Tim been listening to some Kylie of late? this one's gorgeous, and coupled with Kiley Dean's '03 "Stay Away From My Boyfriend" shows that he can come up with spellbinding WTF moments even at this late stage, though sadly all too rarely... i guess he needs to completely get away from hip hop and indulge his melodic side)

and "Hollaback Girl" is brilliant!!!

I think this song may blow up in '05.

I don't think it makes sense to draw dramatic conclusions. There were 'traditional' r'n'b hits happening alongside the more innovative sounding hits of Timbaland and the Neptunes the last few years. I don't think it makes sense to argue that suddenly all hiphop or rnb producers are going to suddenly adopt or abandon soul samples and live instruments, or adopt or abandon creative drum programming and synth effects.

It will be interesting to see if the Neptunes and Timbaland can come back stronger, or if others will replace them as the cutting edge producers worth watching for.

I would tell them to go back and listen to real music, 70's and 80's music, something that ya'll young people don't know nothing about. Notice I said ya'll young people. Ya'll don't know nothing about it. Go back and study the art of where real music comes from. Feel me?

Timbaland in being rockist non-shockah

I thought it was weird how jess was all "i told you so" about the neptunes falling off, frankly I don't think they fell off (and drop it like it's hot is one of their best tracks um ever) as much as barely produced a damn thing.

The Neptunes redeemed a pretty light year (the Slim Thug stuff was underwhelming IMO) with "Hollaback Girl", it's the most earthbound i've ever heard them, i think.

fake edit: you trumped my LL revelation!

for some reason i just feel like my crazy opinion will have many opponents.

Here's some more of what jess said at shutyrgob.blogspot.com

From the opening of his Teedra Moses review:

R&B is at a crossroad right now. The heavily syncopated, often harshly metallic music made by Timbaland and the Neptunes (and then codified into a pop aesthetic by Shek'spere, Darkchild, and everyone else who made a soul beat in the following five or six years) has largely been abandoned post-Kanye in favor of more traditional post-new jack swing boom-bap. (Or, more accurately, the sounds of Timbaland and the Neptunes have been folded back into the trad R&B matrix as just one strand of many.) While urban non-rap radio awaits its next Teddy Riley or Tim Mosley, R&B albums have a muted, classicist feel to them. The Brandy album had a few good songs, but nothing as headwrecking as "What About Us?" or creamily undeniable as "The Boy Is Mine." The Destiny's child record frontloads its two best songs (the monochrome-unto-torpor "Soldier" might be even more radical than "Lose My Breath" for the way it somehow makes one of those shockingly empty New South beats pop, if only by dint of over-exposure) and spends the rest of the album making time with reheated American Idol reject ballads. Teen-pop has basically abandoned R&B tropes entirely in favor of grunge-lite, and, conversely, "real" R&B has swung back to a more churchy, soulful, solid foundation. It's hard to think of anything from 2004 with the Technicolor dimensions of the first two Kelis albums or the Wildstyle involutions of the first three Missy albums or the cyberteen sheen of the first Destiny's Child or the range of the self-titled Aaliyah."

And I don't think anyone has reprimanded The Neptunes in this thread for "Flap Your Wings". Nothing short of "Drop It Like It's Hot" could've redeemed their year after that one.

Timbaland by comparison has been on and off the boil for so long that it's easier to accept the odd drought with equanimity.

excellent track.

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*