Neptunes, N.E.R.Ds,
Snoop, 'n Droops
I think I'm starting to obsess about the Neptunes/N.E.R.D./Pharrell Williams milieu. And no, not because Pharrel Williams is dreamy. Well, not just that.
The Neptunes is a production team made up of Pharell Williams and Chad Hugo:
I've known of these guys for a few years now as they've marched like Sherman from Virginia Beach to Los Angeles, producing or remixing cuts for just about everyone except, oh, Will Farrell, and I'm sure that's only because of scheduling conflicts. They've produced so many #1 hits, their sound blankets pop radio the way Phil Spector once did. They make good artists sound the best they've ever been, and they make the most mediocre rapper sound groundbreaking. If these guys had been around to produce Richard Harris' cover of "Macarthur Park," it would have hit #1 and would've had a permenant spot in rotation at VH-1.
The 2-CD compilation "The Best of the Neptunes" compiles many of the hits and other standouts, and while it's missing some essentials, it's essentially a roadmap of the best, chart-topping hip-hop and R&B of the late 90's and this decade. Or at least the ones that didn't involve Timbaland and Missy Elliott.
The tracks I'm really obsessing over are recent: "Drop It Like It's Hot" and "She Wants To Move."
"Drop It Like It's Hot" is the new single from Snoop Dogg's new cd R&G, and while it's not in the pantheon of arm waving crowd pleasers like "Gin and Juice" or "Signs" (the latter also, is also from R&G produced by the Neptunes), it's a great track for yer car and the little room where ya sit naked with yer computer. It's polarizing though: people seem to either love it or hate it. I'm squarely in the former camp.
The very aspects that I think give the song its greatness also incites detractors: it's a stripped down deconstruction of hip-hop's basic elements. There's a bass, a beat, a fill, a bit of a keyboard hook, maybe a sound effect here and there. Percussion is down to a hissing sound and toungue clicks - you know, the kind you do when you're trying to make horse clopping sounds. All are recorded and mixed dry - with no reverb or much tweaking. And that 's it.
Minimal hip-hop has been done for years, but rarely by a major artist. Producers that keep beats minimal tend to fill the sonic space by overcompensating with vocals (Wyclef, I'm talking to you). "Drop It Like It's Hot" feels like something born of late-night underground shows, where amazing young talents show off their style over a simple beat with little or no effects. Vocals here are kept to a minimum, and even doubletracking is kept to a miniumum. There's no wide-stereo yeahs, whats, uh-huhs.
With the song elements laid this bare, the vocals rsie right to the top, and you *hear* them, every word. It's a showcase for skill, and Snoop's e's the real deal - any study of vocal phrasing should include him with Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday (I can already hear the condescending scoffs of "how dare you" traditionalists). His sing-songy flow on this track is like a glass tabletop on very light, thin, elegant legs. You get a sense of how his flow plays with the beat, how he drags out some syllables 'til they nearly break. The final product is a showcase for its design and its form.
I'd love to hear an EP of tracks like this, or even an album featuring other talented vocalists - Eminem, Jurassic 5.
The other track, "She Wants To Move" is from N.E.R.D., the name of a band that consists of both the Neptunes and their friend Shaye. I'm glad N.E.R.D. exists, if only so that a precendent for releasing the unorthodox. If you bought N.E.R.D.'s "Fly or Die" to a major label in a white label, they'd turn it away for being too all-out weird, and not to mention diverse in a time of ever narrowing stylistic specialization.
"She Wants To Move" is a jagged, left-field barnburner that bares no resemblance to any song on the radio now or at any time. And yet it rocks. I first heard it when I was browsing videos in the Winamp Media Library and I played it three times in a row (if you have the Winamp Media Library, hit Alt-L and click Winamp Videos). Then I got "Fly or Die", and found it so much fun, so pleasantly out there that it immediately endeared me to its creators. I no longer felt so self-concious about some of my more esoteric bedroom experiments.
My music tastes and Tony's mesh beautifully and overlap in more area than just about any other. Both of these tracks have become unofficial anthems for this episode of our lives. He was so excited when he heard I liked "She Wants To Move" he had me play it so that he could dance for me. And by "dance," I'm talking about the hottest, jaw-dropping, four-alarm, sweat-inducing, white-knuckled, no-bullshit, top-down, across-the-board, all-systems-go, sexy motherfucker shaking that bootylicious, bodacious, in-my-face, ga-dung-ga-dunk-dunk I have ever seen.
Pharrell, Chad, Shaye - thanks guys for the soundtrack to the moment I'd been waiting for my entire life. His name? Tony....He's sexy!
In other news, Droops from Infonomicon emailed me some time back to say he saw my entry, thanked me for the compliment (though it sounds like he thought it might've been backhanded - it's not). He's gonna mention it on the next episode of Infonomicon Radio at www.infonomicon.org.
The Neptunes is a production team made up of Pharell Williams and Chad Hugo:
I've known of these guys for a few years now as they've marched like Sherman from Virginia Beach to Los Angeles, producing or remixing cuts for just about everyone except, oh, Will Farrell, and I'm sure that's only because of scheduling conflicts. They've produced so many #1 hits, their sound blankets pop radio the way Phil Spector once did. They make good artists sound the best they've ever been, and they make the most mediocre rapper sound groundbreaking. If these guys had been around to produce Richard Harris' cover of "Macarthur Park," it would have hit #1 and would've had a permenant spot in rotation at VH-1.
The 2-CD compilation "The Best of the Neptunes" compiles many of the hits and other standouts, and while it's missing some essentials, it's essentially a roadmap of the best, chart-topping hip-hop and R&B of the late 90's and this decade. Or at least the ones that didn't involve Timbaland and Missy Elliott.
The tracks I'm really obsessing over are recent: "Drop It Like It's Hot" and "She Wants To Move."
"Drop It Like It's Hot" is the new single from Snoop Dogg's new cd R&G, and while it's not in the pantheon of arm waving crowd pleasers like "Gin and Juice" or "Signs" (the latter also, is also from R&G produced by the Neptunes), it's a great track for yer car and the little room where ya sit naked with yer computer. It's polarizing though: people seem to either love it or hate it. I'm squarely in the former camp.
The very aspects that I think give the song its greatness also incites detractors: it's a stripped down deconstruction of hip-hop's basic elements. There's a bass, a beat, a fill, a bit of a keyboard hook, maybe a sound effect here and there. Percussion is down to a hissing sound and toungue clicks - you know, the kind you do when you're trying to make horse clopping sounds. All are recorded and mixed dry - with no reverb or much tweaking. And that 's it.
Minimal hip-hop has been done for years, but rarely by a major artist. Producers that keep beats minimal tend to fill the sonic space by overcompensating with vocals (Wyclef, I'm talking to you). "Drop It Like It's Hot" feels like something born of late-night underground shows, where amazing young talents show off their style over a simple beat with little or no effects. Vocals here are kept to a minimum, and even doubletracking is kept to a miniumum. There's no wide-stereo yeahs, whats, uh-huhs.
With the song elements laid this bare, the vocals rsie right to the top, and you *hear* them, every word. It's a showcase for skill, and Snoop's e's the real deal - any study of vocal phrasing should include him with Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday (I can already hear the condescending scoffs of "how dare you" traditionalists). His sing-songy flow on this track is like a glass tabletop on very light, thin, elegant legs. You get a sense of how his flow plays with the beat, how he drags out some syllables 'til they nearly break. The final product is a showcase for its design and its form.
I'd love to hear an EP of tracks like this, or even an album featuring other talented vocalists - Eminem, Jurassic 5.
The other track, "She Wants To Move" is from N.E.R.D., the name of a band that consists of both the Neptunes and their friend Shaye. I'm glad N.E.R.D. exists, if only so that a precendent for releasing the unorthodox. If you bought N.E.R.D.'s "Fly or Die" to a major label in a white label, they'd turn it away for being too all-out weird, and not to mention diverse in a time of ever narrowing stylistic specialization.
"She Wants To Move" is a jagged, left-field barnburner that bares no resemblance to any song on the radio now or at any time. And yet it rocks. I first heard it when I was browsing videos in the Winamp Media Library and I played it three times in a row (if you have the Winamp Media Library, hit Alt-L and click Winamp Videos). Then I got "Fly or Die", and found it so much fun, so pleasantly out there that it immediately endeared me to its creators. I no longer felt so self-concious about some of my more esoteric bedroom experiments.
My music tastes and Tony's mesh beautifully and overlap in more area than just about any other. Both of these tracks have become unofficial anthems for this episode of our lives. He was so excited when he heard I liked "She Wants To Move" he had me play it so that he could dance for me. And by "dance," I'm talking about the hottest, jaw-dropping, four-alarm, sweat-inducing, white-knuckled, no-bullshit, top-down, across-the-board, all-systems-go, sexy motherfucker shaking that bootylicious, bodacious, in-my-face, ga-dung-ga-dunk-dunk I have ever seen.
Pharrell, Chad, Shaye - thanks guys for the soundtrack to the moment I'd been waiting for my entire life. His name? Tony....He's sexy!
In other news, Droops from Infonomicon emailed me some time back to say he saw my entry, thanked me for the compliment (though it sounds like he thought it might've been backhanded - it's not). He's gonna mention it on the next episode of Infonomicon Radio at www.infonomicon.org.
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