A third of the way through Timbaland's new solo record Tim's Bio, something so amazingly cryptic, symbolic and downright dizzying happens: our hero, the producer, samples a man of unknown origin mimicking the sound of a record scratch with his voice.
Stop for a minute and think about that, okay?
I've been thinking about it all week. Every time the concept enters my mind I get a little fluttery, like I just opened some box that peers into an alternate universe and I saw myself walking down the aisle with that girl from Warrant's "Cherry Pie" video, an icky half-seasick feeling. DJ Grandmaster Flash, for all intents and purposes (you hip-hop historians can lay off on me this time, I gleefully admit very little knowledge of this style of music, which I hope works in my favour during this review) was the progenitor of the art of manipulating Technics turntables to keep a beat and maintain the rhythm for whatever vocal toasts were done by the rappers. In some respects, one can argue that this 'vinyl culture' paved the way for the rise of music sampling (meaning direct pieces of recorded music used as a collage bit), which then transmogrified from Laswell & co.'s electro phase ("Electric Avenue," "Rockit") into... Prodigy? Aphex Twin? Neneh Cherry? And then here comes uber-producer Timbaland, who uses samplers like I use scissors, sampling someone sampling someone sampling something. Cripes.
Besides this postmodern stroke of genius, what's Timbaland good for? Anyone who listens to hip-hop radio (it's all I can listen to anymore around here) can get the message. Timbaland is responsible for the hugest track of the year, by far: Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?" You know the one: total quantized drum hits with that baby-rattle noise and the kid crying noise. We've never heard anything like it, it's like the jungle music the raver kids are dancing around to slowed down by half and then fed through some fractal gaussian thing. I wouldn't put it past him. And it works. Fans of this column (heh) know that I haven't reviewed anything ever that would even touch the top 40, let alone FM radio. But Timbaland's the exception: I'm sure if you turned on 94.5 right now, you'd either hear a Timbaland-produced joint or that "Annie" song. Either way, you're in for a treat. That's why he works: the wonderfully unexpected mixed in with the acceptably standard. He gets radio play and a "Wire" interview.
Tim's Bio is the quintessential 'producer's album:' a bunch of tracks with real slick beats behind them. We get slices of "Spiderman" and "I Dream of Jeanie" (although DJ Jazzy Jeff already nicked that one, Tim) and guest appearances by the whole family (Puff excepted; he's most definitely woodshedding with his MPCs after hearing this disc): Aaliyah, Nas, Jay-Z, Ginuwine, and my favorite, Magoo. The words are funny at best, embarrassing at worst (but I'll claim cultural ignorance here, your mileage will definitely vary), but that's not what we're here for. The beats, the sounds, the hooks: everything musically is top notch. Really, my only complaint with this record is that Timbaland unfortunately uses the helium voice effect too much, which saddles me back to that nauseating day when my father brought the Chipmunks box set down from the attic... but I digress.
I'll leave you with words of Tim's wisdom, which sums up my feelings about his production. Halfway through Tim's Bio, Tim laments his detractors: "He said this / and she said that / and he said that / Timbaland can't rap / But I don't care / cause I make those tracks / that make you bounce and wiggle / and do this and that." So go. Do this. And then do that.