Timbaland: Schlock Value?

Three more tracks just leaked off the Timbaland album, and maybe it's time to ask: what's the story with this off-brand nonsense?

And before you go awww some more, let's say up front: nobody in this office is gonna deny dude a well-earned victory lap. That's why we're carping on the blog
instead of in the paper of record. (And, agreed, better that dude work out his midlife crisis behind the mixing board than by getting all up in everybody's videos
the way he's been doing.) Against our better judgement we had kinda high hopes for this thing. Enough with this for-the-streets shit. We wanted one for the fat genius dudes in the studios. The streets get plenty! It's like Charlie Weiss getting a Super Bowl ring. We wanted one for our gastric-bypass peoples! Is that so wrong?

To be fair, producers' legit albums are notoriously nowhere near as good as their singles, for obvious reasons. (Speaking of, what you heard about that Matrix album lately?) No way does it make economic sense to put A-list Timberlake or Furtado material anyplace but on the artist album. And there's no way you can convince us that there ain't a waiting list for new Timbo material. How could the solo jawn be anything else but what ended up on the cutting room floor, or experiments gone wrong?

Sure, "Give It To Me" made it as a commercial-hit-radio track based on the personnel alone (how you can you not play Timberlake and Furtado on the same song?), but a coordinated marketing shout-out to everyone's previous hits isn't really gonna make 13 year olds buy the record. Plus, are we the only ones who find that beat kinda tacky and awkward -- as if someone was trying to connect the dots between verses recorded in two different time signatures? Technically impressive? Yessir. Single of the year? Nyet.

As previously parsed, the Hives are an afterthought in the track they're billed on, which probably would've had a more constructive life as a Pussycat Dolls b-side. "Kill Yourself"? Does the world really need more Timbo/Scott Storch drama? Are we the only ones who think two engineers hiring rappers to insult each other scans like a sissyfight?

And "Miscommunication" commits the faux-pas of imitating the "Drop It Like Its Hot" tongue-clicks, only here they don't sound dope and rhythmic, they just sound. . .
kinda gross. As much as we're digging the whole trance-rap phenomenon, which Timbo invented and thus gets to milk endlessly, not even the phase-y keyboards can make up for how uncomfortable we feel with some dude making weird noises in our ears.

The best stuff to leak from Shock Value are capital-S SONGS: verse-chorus-verse shit. You'd think that kinda material would be more in demand, now that "What Goes Around" is all over the radio. But maybe Top 40 pop kahunas still ain't ready to admit there's a black man who writes rock songs as well as he writes rap hits. Their loss. Tim's Fall Out Boy song is pretty good if you're into that sort of thing. (Sidebar: why not more excitment about the Kanye remix of "Arms Race," which is real good even if you're deducting points for 'Ye's self-evident ambivalence, his white-people-be-funny-in-tight-pants verse. Let's assume it took Mr. West no more than 2 minuntes 30 to remix that tune: then can we talk generally about how goddamn EASY it would be to make most Fall Out Boy songs better? Just shitcan the guitars!) Back on topic: Tim's production brings out a hint of Faith No More in Fall Out Boy -- hold the hatemail, we promise we'll never sully Mike Patton's good name
with that comparison ever again. At least until/unless that bitch Scott Storch bites back on the next Panic at the Disco! jawn.

PREVIOUSLY: Timbaland Leaks Fall Out Boy, M.I.A., Timberlake Snippets
PREVIOUSLY: Timbaland vs. the Hives