N*E*R*D - Seeing Sounds [2008]

[dj_marik]

Tracklist
1. Intro/Time For Some Action
2. Everyone Nose (All the Girls Standing in the Line for the Bathroom)
3. Windows
4. Anti Matter
5. Spaz
6. Yeah You
7. Sooner or Later
8. Happy
9. Kill Joy
10. Love Bomb
11. You Know What

Info: While writing their third album, N.E.R.D. watched a Discovery Channel show about synesthesia, a neurological disorder that causes people to experience sounds as colors or as objects in their minds. Superproducers the Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo) and their rapping buddy Shay Haley were inspired to create music you could envision as a live show. Does that creative concept work? Hard to say, but the results are experimental and expansive: Specked with ostentatiously weird grooves, "Spaz" and the speedy, jazzy single "Everyone Nose" are destined to go down as some of 2008's most interesting hip-hop cuts. The album also dips into Sixties soul (the sweet "Sooner or Later") and chugging, riff-driven rock ("Kill Joy"), and tosses in big New Wave choruses. But some melodies feel tossed-off (is Pharrell spending too much time writing for other artists?), and you don't learn much from Pharrell's lyrics except that he's horny. The Neptunes don't necessarily need guest MCs to make a great album of their own, but if they want their rhymes to keep up with the strength of their tunes, they need to dig a little deeper than this.

You already know the story of the Neptunes, Grammy Award winning producers and songwriters Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, but the N.E.R.D. trio consists of Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, and longtime friend and creative wunderkind, Shae Haley. The album is a blistering mash-up of booming hip-hop beats and rollercoastering rock riffs, rumbling crunk rhythms and scintillating soul music. Whereas their first album, "In Search Of...," was an imaginative, exploration of identities, and their second album, "Fly or Die," sought out the range of genres and sounds that have influenced the group, "Seeing Sounds" grinds everything together, evoking a sound that is un-tethered by preconceptions and convention. It is also an album that amplifies the style and attitudes that have made Pharrell, Chad and Shae transcendent cultural icons.

"The Neptunes is what we do, but N.E.R.D. is who we are. It's our life" says Pharrell. The three of them together combine for uninhibited explorations of sounds, emotions and truth, adhering to no agenda, subscribing to no rules. N.E.R.D. is the way they live their life, they way they see the world.

N.E.R.D - Everyone Nose

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+ Bonus: n.e.r.d. ft. kanye west lupe fiasco & pusha t - everyone nose (official remix)