Hey, music snobs (you know who you are): Time to pay attention to the Top 40. The songs may not be much, but the production behind the songs is often something else. That’s where the innovation lies, a boundary-busting collage of hip-hop’s grit, rock’s muscle, pop’s pizzazz and the avant-garde’s audacity.
Among the most adventurous producers of the last few years have been the Neptunes, the Virginia-based duo of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, who have concocted hits for Britney Spears, Mystikal, No Doubt, Jay-Z and Nelly, among others. Now the Neptunes have morphed into N.E.R.D., the band, with high school friend Shay (Sheldon Haley). A tour arrives Friday at Metro to showcase one of the year’s smartest-sounding debuts, “In Search Of . . . ” (Virgin).
From their band’s self-deprecating name to the way they’ve bum-rushed the charts with innovation rather than imitation, Williams and Hugo pride themselves in being outsiders who have managed to subvert the system and bend the rules in their favor. And they have the baubles to prove it: Williams has seven karats worth of diamonds gleaming from his earlobes.
“I feel there is a lot of mismanagement in money and stocks with rappers and boxers for some reason,” says Williams, 29, speaking like a financial whiz who isn’t planning on making the same mistakes. “Property and diamonds are always good investments.” And, perhaps, record companies. The duo recently struck a deal with Arista Records for their own label. Not bad for a couple of “nerds.”
“We weren’t jocks, we weren’t the guys throwing keg parties, we weren’t the introspective artist types listening to Suicidal Tendencies. We were in the high school band–which isn’t supposed to be cool,” Williams says of the duo’s formative years in Virginia Beach. “But we dressed different, acted different, we somehow were cool. Now we glorify that term `nerd,’ because to us it means quirky people who have gone through a few things emotionally.”
That’s obvious from listening to “In Search Of . . . ,” a parody of hip-hop’s glorification of guns, gangsters, pimps and partying. “Politicians, they soundin’ like strippers to me,” Williams sings on the opening track, “Lapdance,” amid come-ons from a heavy-breathing female chorus. “People don’t always get what we’re saying the first time through, nor are they meant to,” Williams says. “We love to play with people’s heads.”
The music shifts from metal grind to countryish twang, undergirded by the duo’s staccato sandpaper beats and flavored with psychedelic ornamentation: woozy vocals layered to sound like an interior conversation, surf guitars, sci-fi synthesizers, wheezing keyboards.
“It must have something to do with growing up in Virginia,” says Hugo, 28. “It’s not always sunny, the seasons change. Every day is a new mood. What worked yesterday doesn’t interest us today.”
That could explain why “In Search Of . . . ” has actually been released twice in different forms; last year the album came out in Europe with a more synthetic, electronic mix. Hugo and Williams then returned to the studio and re-recorded most of the tracks with rock instrumentation, delaying the album’s eventual release in North America by nearly a year.
“The record company people lost their minds,” Hugo says. “The first album was a bit restricted. It was like the remix album came out first, then the original album followed. It worked backwards, but that’s how we live our lives. We were supposed to be a band first, then producers. But we became popular as producers first, then a band.”
Hugo and Williams juggled rock and rap influences in a high school band, were signed by R&B legend Teddy Riley to a deal that went nowhere, reinvented themselves as producers, then scored a hit in 1998 with Noreaga’s “Super Thug.”
Ever since, their phone has been ringing. “People always want what we did last time: Give us that `hot’ sound,” Hugo says. “But we try to bring something different out each time. With Britney [on the hit `I’m a Slave for You’], she was open to something a little more risque. We got her some chains and leather outfits, and got her into character.”
Hugo’s deadpan expression belies the humor that underlies the Neptunes’ productions, which tickle the pop senses even as they steer artists into the unknown. They’ve recently worked with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and they hope to collaborate with Bonnie Raitt and Faith Hill.
Not that they’re abandoning their love of rap. Hip-hop remains the core of what they do, but as more of an open-ended attitude.
“Hip-hop was amazing in 1988, and it’s back to Ground Zero right now and open to whatever,” Williams says. “For us it’s more a mentality that says the old, conservative, traditional ways don’t work anymore. Hip-hop is the living, breathing spirit of youth, which is race-less, gender-less. That’s why our music is all over the place, because we don’t recognize the old boundaries.”
N.E.R.D.
When: 9 p.m. Friday
Where: Metro, 3730 N. Clark St.
Price: $15; 773-549-4140
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Hear Greg Kot on “Sound Opinions” at 10 p.m. every Tuesday on WXRT (93.1) FM.
