Best Timbaland track of the year...

[koganbot]

Best Timbaland track of the year isn't by Timbaland. It's LeToya's "All Eyes On Me," produced by Jonathan "J.R." Rotem. What seems Timbo about it is the dark two-note bass blat that just crawls across the beat, much like "Put You On The Game." Equally good is LeToya's "Tear Da Club Up," a similar blat but not as slow or as Timbo (and originally produced by Jazze Pha and reworked for the album by Wine-O; Dre may be the grandpa influence on these).

(Actually wouldn't commit to there being no better Timbo or Timbo-influenced tracks this year, seeing as I've only heard four of the Furtado and three of the Timberlake, etc. etc. But I'm currently in love with these two songs and want to share my enthusiasm. My favorite Timbo track last year also wasn't by Timbo, was Rich Boy's "Get To Poppin'," which has great resonating Timbo-style crud beats and a Mexican vocal sample seemingly from a primordial field chant. Produced by Brian Kidd, w/ frequent Timbo collaborator Jimmy Douglass credited as engineer. Or at least that's what some smart dude on the Internet says.)

EDIT: Turns out that "All Eyes On Me" was first a promo single last year, which undoes the premise of this post, or at least of the subject line, though the album version I've got is somewhat different (the promo version has two rappers - Paul Wall and Slim Thug - while the album version only has Wall); same basic accompaniment, however.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

re 'All Eyes On Me', ahem December 05!

The LeToya album befuddles me. There are loads of great, great songs on it - not just good/adequate, but AMAZING - but I simply can't connect with it as an album, or even LeToya as an artist particularly. 'Torn' as lead single was rather strange too, though it was pretty big in the US wasn't it? My favourites apart from 'All Eyes On Me' are 'Gangsta Grillz' (addicted to that organ riff), 'I'm Good' (emotional frenzy meets Scott Storch generic crunk production) and 'What Love Can Do' (check the classy descending chords).

'All Eyes On Me' never made me think of Timbaland: too big and booming maybe?

[koganbot]

Well, Timbaland often makes his sound more squirrely and eccentric, though not always. "Makes rhythm out of weird sounds" might be what people think of as his signature. But what's grabbing me on "All Eyes" also grabs me on some Timbo tracks, which is that slow crawl across the beat.

As for the LeToya alb, might it be the genre expressing itself through her rather than her expressing herself through the genre? Not that the former can't be just as great as the latter, but it's kinda a matter of chance when the greatness happens, rather than the result of an artistic vision. (Not sure if "genre expressing itself through X" and "X expressing herself though genre" amounts to an actual difference rather than just words that seem good as I type them on the page.)