Check your iPod. If you don’t have any N.E.R.D. tracks (and if that’s true, then you need to get on it, so read on to avoid further pitying), then dollars to donuts, you’ve got something they’ve applied their Midas touch to as the Neptunes — their production operation. Madonna and Britney, Ludacris, Snoop, and Kanye — they’re currently backing him on his much-lauded Glow In the Dark tour. Hell, they’ve even remixed Sade. Or, put another way: open up the Billboard charts, close your eyes and randomly point to an artist. Now open them. There’s an excellent chance the brain trust behind N.E.R.D. produced, remixed or will remix and/or produce that artist, taking already solid material to a new dimension you didn’t know existed but suddenly need a whole lot more of — the flavor of dream you’re not sure is the good or bad type, but you know it tastes better than being awake.
N.E.R.D. is Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and Shae Haley. Like a giant squid fused with a set of conjoined octopus twins, the end result of N.E.R.D.’s time spent behind the controls sounds like they’ve got a lot more than just six hands and 30 fingers on deck. And the tracks snap, crackle and pop with the hyperstimulated sizzle of sticking all 30 into 30 different electrical sockets.
“With the Neptunes,” N.E.R.D.’s Chad Hugo told Hamptonroads.com, “we have that ability to collaborate with artists, and they have their vision and we’re there to paint different scenarios. As N.E.R.D., what we put out is directly from our brains to the stage. We’re in our own shoes. We have the ability to be ourselves.” Right. Which is why they’re about to drop their third N.E.R.D. album, Seeing Sounds, (out tomorrow), named for the neurological phenomenon synesthesia, where your senses basically swap shoes for the day. The album’s a celebration of their genre-resistant, chopped-and-screwed, tilted-and-twisted sound, complete with that hypnotic sawtooth bass swagger, dirty-ass drumming, superfunked, sexed-up, spaced-out blips, beeps and bumps.
We always suspected these guys saw things we don’t. Turns out they see everything we don’t. And with N.E.R.D. — forever the sickest and coolest kids you know — piloting their musical spacecraft into complete sensory overload, we get to explore a whole new galaxy of songs, sounds and sights we’d never otherwise hear… or taste.
“With the Neptunes,” N.E.R.D.’s Chad Hugo told Hamptonroads.com, “we have that ability to collaborate with artists, and they have their vision and we’re there to paint different scenarios. As N.E.R.D., what we put out is directly from our brains to the stage. We’re in our own shoes. We have the ability to be ourselves.” Right. Which is why they’re about to drop their third N.E.R.D. album, Seeing Sounds, (out tomorrow), named for the neurological phenomenon synesthesia, where your senses basically swap shoes for the day. The album’s a celebration of their genre-resistant, chopped-and-screwed, tilted-and-twisted sound, complete with that hypnotic sawtooth bass swagger, dirty-ass drumming, superfunked, sexed-up, spaced-out blips, beeps and bumps.
We always suspected these guys saw things we don’t. Turns out they see everything we don’t. And with N.E.R.D. — forever the sickest and coolest kids you know — piloting their musical spacecraft into complete sensory overload, we get to explore a whole new galaxy of songs, sounds and sights we’d never otherwise hear… or taste.
Watch N.E.R.D.’s new video, “Everyone Nose (All the Girls Standing In Line for the Bathroom),” plus a few all-time N.E.R.D. classics, check out their MTV.com live peformances, watch an exclusive Buzzworthy interview with the Va Bee three, watch their exclusive Artist of the Week videos — including performance clips shot at Special Sauce in Bayshore, New York — and road trip clips, featuring Donnell Rawlings (Ashy Larry of Chappelle’s Show.)
After Pharrell Williams's pedestrian solo debut and some lacklustre production work (Gwen Stefani's The Sweet Escape), it seemed as though Williams and his Neptunes/N.E.R.D partner Chad Hugo had lost their vice-like grip on inventive pop. Happily, their new album suggests a thrilling second act. Flanked by fellow bandmember Shay Haley, they are again pushing the boundaries of the popular song. From Everybody Nose, a horn-looped look at Hollywood's re-infatuation with cocaine, to the drum'n'bass-meets-baile-funk of Spaz, this album is a superb reminder of why we fell in love with them in the first place.
NERD - Everybody Nose
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