Credible Producers And Teenpop Bands - C/D

yes they are the trevor horn of the noughties. luxuriate in them while they're here. see my timberlake review today for yet further confirmation of this.

it's good for my ears

Or "Are the Neptunes the Trevor Horn of the 00s or the Albini of the 00s?"

Blimey fearful stop projecting - I didn't mention rockism or imply anything along those lines.

What I actually think: the Neptunes' productions for Britney and Timberlake don't work as well as their hip-hop stuff, and in Britney's case as well as her pre-Neptunes stuff. I'm trying to work out why I think this and hoped some input here would help.

Or to put it more harshly - the involvement of the Neps et al. in teenpop risks turning it into something close to what its detractors have said about it, i.e. an imitative version of something being done more successfully elsehwere, except in this case 'elsewhere' is the very same place, viz "the Charts".

On the other hand the previous dominant production style of teenpop had pretty much run its course - "The Call" for instance is a baroque curio next to prime Cheiron material. So maybe these acts couldn't have gone anywhere else.

so what do you think of the timberlake album then? or at least the neptunes proportion of it?

See the other thread's mention of Christmas as when I get the records I'm suspicious of. :)

I think the things your review said about the Neptunes are mostly true; I'm more interested in what it means (for them, for pop stars, for pop) that they're doing those things with Justin T.

Also after "Grindin'" which I love-hate like nothing else this year I sort of wish they'd do more really NASTY stuff - I don't think they're going to top the fizzy tingly pop of Kaleidoscope in a hurry, maybe not ever, so I almost want them to move away from that whole field. "Like I Love You" sounds dependable, not inspirational, to me, and "Boys" just sounded stale.

how nasty can the Neptunes get sonically? 'lapdance', 'nothin' and busta rhymes brilliant 'as i come back' seem to be the limit so far

conversely there's something about Britney's 'Boys' i really like and i think its just down to the hooks so there really is no accounting for ranking Neptunes productions

I find "Boys (Co-Ed Remix)" interesting in terms of being a pop song that has no distinguishing features but which I still really enjoy - perhaps it's the way the guitar chords glow and crackle so. I think it works better I think as a Neptunes record on which Britney guests than as a Britney record though, as very little of her core qualities are present.

What is the problem with this stuff then? Maybe not the producers so much as the pop stars themselves wishing to ape "urban" idioms and aproaches - the Neptunes' production might in fact be secondary and consequent to Britney's own performance choices. Britney's a hard one obviously because her vocal sultriness was in some ways so unusual for Cheiron chart-pop. In retrospect her work with the Neptunes sounds more fitting to her, but, also in retrospect and as a result, less distinctive.

A different example: the Backstreet Boys. The Neptunes Remix of the "The Call" sounds great to me because of the tension between the boys' dramatic & pop-centric, if somewhat self-consciously "nasty", performances and the Neptunes unusually (even for them) rough'n'ready dirty-disco groove. It's not as good as, say, "Shape Of My Heart" (although really what is?) but there's a friction there that is not really present in the smoother R&B of N'Sync's "Girlfriend" - the sound of The Neptunes and chartpop meeting on neutral ground and laying down all their weapons. So the question is: would rougher, more credible pop production work better with more obviously pop performances?

Also, where does stuff like "James Dean" or "Down Boy" fit into this? Both strike me as a similar shift away from the straightforward pop approach of Cheiron et. al. but at the same time, the connotations of credibility ain't nearly as strong. Are the Neptunes' distinctive because of their overwhelming presence and cross-appeal? Does their production stamp inevitably erase pop persona?

no, the neptunes are distinctive because of their ABSENCE. their production CAN erase pop persona, but this is not necessarily a negative thing; as i said about justin t, it leaves us a blank space to think whatever we want.

At that rate, all of pop music is just a bunch of signifiers for our own prejudices and conclusions. Which is great for projecting! But why are we bothering to listen to any music at all, then? ;-)

to draw out our OWN imagined signified of course!

Whoohoo! Pass the downloads.