I've Been Killin em with These Beats

In a measure of full discloser I’ve never been a big fan of producer Timbaland. His songs are too erratic. Certainly there are a few tracks that I’ve liked (We Need a Resolution, Big Pimpin’) but, really, if you have heard one Timbaland produced track, you have pretty much heard them all. And to call his most recent work, Timbaland Presents Shock Value, a solo album would be stretching it as only the opener Oh Timbaland is the only track that doesn’t have a featured guest. For those keeping track at home, the seventeen track disk features twenty-one different artists.

The album can be divided into three different sections starting off with the hip-hop section featuring raps from Dr. Dre, Missy Elliot, 50 Cent, Tony Yayo, and Timbaland’s longtime running partner Magoo, who, let’s face it was always the better rapper of the two. Much of the beats from this section sound like leftovers from the production of Justin Timberlake’s album, so much that I’m pretty sure that The Way I Are is straight off the album. Most of the guests are topical too as two of them name drop Britney Spears, one talking about her lack of undergarments the other about her lack of hair.

Timbaland on the other hand likes to spend most of his verses verbally assaulting Scott Storch which may be the softest feud since the Another Bad Creation/Kriss Kross feud of 1992. C’mon, in one corner you have the dude who gave up Paris Hilton and Brooke Hogan and in the other the guy who produces ex-boy banders and Pussycat Dolls. But anyways. Even sillier choice of words goes to Timberlake as he tries to conjure up his inner gangster on the couple of tracks he shows up on. It really can’t be a good sign that Nelly Furtado seemed the most credible one on Give it to Me.

Next is the R&B section where Timbaland for the most part takes a back seat to singers as he is pretty non-existent on these track and doesn’t leave any vocals on Fantasy. He then breaks out of his box with the last section collaborating with rock acts She Wants Revenge, Fall Out Boy and The Hives for Throw it on Me which would have been a great track had Timbaland not started rapping on it. Timbaland saves the oddest partnership for last with 2 Man Show featuring Elton John who just contributes piano as the song only really features a choir singing a chorus while Timbaland just repeats nonsense. I guees in the end this disk is better than Diddy’s most recent star-studded affair in the battle of producers, but that really isn’t saying much. Hopefully Detox is coming out soon to show these two how it is done.

Song to Download - Come and Get Me

Timbaland Presents Shock Value gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.