Once again, I was asked to contribute to Metal Lungies “beatdrop” series and this one’s even better than the last, with tons of great bloggers contributing and Mad Skillz, whose ‘From Where???’ Monique and I have been listening to a lot recently. It was also fun because I like the Neptunes but I’m not this super-fan, so I felt no need to span their career; I just went with gut-reactions beat I like from their later career when all their beats are either like minimalist noise or these like Vangelis-beautiful warm synth workouts. Anyways, my beats were: ‘Locked Away’ by NERD, ‘Frontin’, ‘Allure’ by Jay Z, ‘Lavish’ by Twista, and ‘Wamp Wamp’ from Clipse:
“It’s no surprise that The Neptunes dudes are basically these band nerds, especially on “Locked Away”, which starts off with what sounds like the cool kids in your high school jazz band goofily jamming before the winter concert, but eventually turns into a real song and a melody stumbles out. The entire thing feels almost tossed-off, which is sort of The Neptunes’ appeal. It’s hard to explain why or how the minimalist clap of a track by Chad and Pharrell gets in your head but it does and slowly, all of its complexities and weirdnesses pop up but never become clear. There’s not the club-ready resound of Timbaland in The Neptunes and from the outside, they’ve got none of Kanye West’s pop appeal, but they have it too — it’s weird. N*E*R*D’s a great example of how out-there The Neptunes are without even knowing it. It could’ve been a rock concession but instead it’s this weird funk-rock vanity project. The songs still have those Neptunes signifiers like heavy drums, lots of bass — it’s still totally rhythm-based — and best of all, this Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” on-speed synth-line.”
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