Robot Krunk
April 2nd, 2005
Tonight is the second meeting of the Brighton Music Club. This month my compilation is titled Robot krunk. Because I love their style, I’ve gone for tracks produced by Timbaland and The Neptunes as my theme.
Rationale
I nearly titled this disc Super Producers after a Wired magazine feature of the same name. And it would have made more sense than my eventual self-indulgent choice because in this compilation the focus is on the producers behind the tracks.
Following the advent of cable in our house we found by Darwinian selection that the music channel of choice was MTV base. The reason was simply that US hip-hop is the freshest, most stimulating and entertaining mainstream music around right now (emphasis "mainstream"). And when the same faces kept appearing in the background of the videos to my favourite tracks I started to think who are these people?
The Wired feature filled in the gaps: It seemed that a very small number of names were behind the tunes that were making my jaw drop.
Timbaland
This compilation represents these people – the Super Producers. Primarily Timbaland and The Neptunes (a.k.a Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo) are represented, and there’s a single excellent track by upstart Scott Storch. The number of tunes per producer roughly approximate my relative liking for these geniuses.
The Neptunes
The beauty is in the detail with these tracks. Listen for the layered mouth pops and sshhh noises in the percussion to Cry me a river, a track I could listen to all day. Try and imagine a track more pared down and crisp than Drop it like it’s hot while still sounding complete. To me the fat synths, strings and inventive beats don’t seem so far from my electronica compilation last month.
Track listing:
Track – Artist (production credit)
- So addictive – Missy Elliot (Timbaland)
- Drop – Timbaland & Magoo (Timbaland)
- More than a woman – Aaliyah (Timbaland)
- One minute man – Missy Elliot (Timbaland)
- Drop it like it’s hot – Snoop Dogg (Neptunes)
- Cop that shit – Timbaland & Magoo (Timbaland)
- Light that ass on fire – Busta Rhymes (Neptunes)
- Whatcha gon’ do – Missy Elliot (Timbaland)
- Who I am – Timbaland & Magoo (Timbaland)
- Let’s get blown – Snoop Dogg (Neptunes)
- Senorita – Justin Timberlake (Neptunes)
- Get yr’ freak on – Missy Elliot (Timbaland)
- Baby boy – Beyonce (Scott Storch)
- Indian flute – Timbaland & Magoo (Timbaland)
- Try again – Aaliyah (Timbaland)
- Cry me a river – Justin Timberlake (Timbaland)
- Frontin’ – Pharrell (Neptunes)
As per last month, the tunes have been ripped to WAV for maximum quality. Apologies for any volume tweaking you may need to do – next time I’ll normalise!
Links
- Timbaland and Magoo. Warning! this is one of the most unpleasant sites I have come across recently
- Scott Storch feature
- Star Trak entertainment – home of the Neptunes. Another awful site.
- Wired Magazine’s Super Producers feature
- N.E.R.D site – more Pharrell and Chad.