
I don’t know if anyone knows this, but I’ve been following Timbaland since way back in the day. Back when the illest crew of 90s Hip-Hop and R&B was him, Missy, Aaliyah, and Ginuwine (Yeah, remember “Pony“?!). I must say he has reinvented himself many times throughout the years and I’ve come to appreciate what he’s come up with. As I sit here studying while listening to a leak of his latest album, Timbaland Presents Shock Value II, I must say that although I still support him and his music, this LP left me slightly disappointed. Not disappointing in terms of whether or not a song was good, but more about the production quality that Tim is usually known for. Before I get into it, let’s back track to how his sound has changed.
Late 90’s: You remember the joints:
“Are You That Somebody” – Aaliyah
“Make It Hot” – Nicole Wray & Missy
“What About Us” – Total & Missy
“What’s So Different” – Ginuwine
I remember listening to some of these songs when I was like, 13 years old and never realizing why they all sounded similar yet original at the same time. They all had this element about them. As I got a bit older I realized it was because Timbaland had produced them all and these artists consistently showed up in each other’s songs (all on Blackground records too, I believe). Anyway, the sound across these tracks was very distinct. They were pretty slow-tempo for the most part, but all had this “bump factor”. They all had a conglomerate of beats coupled with a lot of strange sounds looping in the background such as crying babies, beatboxing/”ficky-ficky”-ing, or hell, a sample of a screaming Godzilla. He definitely distinguished his sound from any other tracks out at the time.
Early 2000’s: During this time, I think Tim starting sampling a lot more and had his tracks include a lot of instruments resembling Southeast Asian/Indian instruments. He also made some crazy weird loops that would sound completely horrendous without the bass beat or the artists rapping and singing over them.
“We Need A Resolution” – Aaliyah
“Ugly” – Bubba Sparxxx
“Ching Ching” – Ms. Jade & Nelly Furtado
“All Y’all” – Featuring Magoo & Tweet
However, he still sounded like Timbaland, keeping his funky beats and looping of spooky voices:
“Dirt Off Your Shoulder” – Jay-Z
“Cry Me A River” – Justin Timberlake
“Gossip Folks” – Missy Elliot
Late 2000’s: Probably between ‘02 and ‘05 you saw Tim still producing for people, but probably on a lower scale. He had his hits here and there, but nothing explosive and no huge changes. That is, until he teamed back up with Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado in ‘06, which seemed to skyrocket all three of their careers. This is where I consider he made the biggest changes in his sound, going from a slow/moderate-paced tempo with foreign-sounding loops and stepping into what I consider almost like a space-sounding, dance-pop rhythm. This could possibly be due to his collaborative work with his protege, Danja, who did a lot of the drum programming that gave the beats this futuristic, yet classic sound. He also started using more synthesizers as well as trance/techno sound effects at faster tempos that helped differentiate him in the Hip-Hop. I like to consider the bridging of these music genres as “Hip-Pop” — they were definitely made for the clubs.
Obvious examples are:
“Promiscuous” – Nelly Furtado
“SexyBack” – Justin Timberlake
“Ice Box” – Omarion
“The Way I Are” – Ft. Keri Hilson & D.O.E.
“AYO Technology” – 50 Cent & Justin Timberlake
From this point on until the present day, he collaborated with a lot of different artists, particularly outside of the Hip-Hop genre such as Madonna, Chris Cornell, Duran Duran, throwing elements of his distinguish sound onto their instrumentation.
And that brings me to this latest album. His first Shock Value album encompassed all of what I just wrote and described, but sadly, part II is sort of the same thing. Now, he’s got some really catchy tunes on here with an A-list group of collaborators ranging from Drake, JT, The Fray, Daughtry, and friggin’ Miley. However, I don’t see any huge changes in his production. His drum programming is still consistent with what he’s been doing, and the use of synthesizers is still there. Perhaps the biggest disappointment was that because he is such a renowned producer who’s seen it all the last 15 years or so, he still managed to rely on the heavily overused Auto-Tune. Don’t get me wrong, Tim’s voice has always been put through a vocoder to sound robotic/futuristic when he ad-libs over songs, so in some ways he contributed to it’s popularity. Nothing terribly wrong with it because a hit is a hit, and he’s definitely got a lot more signature traits to his music to back it up. I guess I just expected more from a producer with such a “track record”, especially after Jay-Z, one of his long-time collaborators and reputable MC himself, called out its overuse.
Oh well, it is what it is. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it, right? It works for him and the songs aren’t terrible. Here are some of my favorites:
“Carry Out” Ft. Justin Timberlake
“Meet In Tha Middle” Ft. Bran’Nu (aka Brandy’s new rap alter-ego)
“Say Something” Ft. Drake
“Tomorrow in a Bottle” Ft. Sebastian and Chad Kroeger of Nickelback (WTF, right?)
“Long Way Down” Ft. Daughtry






















































