18. "The Whole World" - Outkast
17. "Underneath It All" - No Doubt
16. "Dilemma" - Nelly
15. "Oh Boy" - Cam'ron
14. "No One Knows" - Queens of the Stone Age
13. "When the Last Time" - Clipse
12. "Girlfriend" - *NSYNC
11. "Hella Good" - No Doubt
10. "Nothin'" - Noreaga
9. "Provider" - N.E.R.D.
8. "Like I Love You" - Justin Timberlake
7. "Hate To Say I Told You So" - The Hives
6. "8 Mile" - Eminem
5. "Oops (Oh My)" - Tweet
4. "More Than A Woman" - Aaliyah
3. "Grindin'" - Clipse
2. "Work It" - Missy Elliott
1. "Lose Yourself" - Eminem
Artist of the Year: Eminem
Producer of the Year: The Neptunes
Two other things Eminem did right in 2002 - very right, almost to the point of making them his own art form - were the use of unique meters in his rhymes, often syncopated with the beat; and in "Lose Yourself" what was perhaps the apex of "bending" the phonetic pronunciation of words in order to match many syllables in a rhyme scheme. It starts out: "His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy / There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti / He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready" and never lets up.
Rakim and Big Daddy Kane started it all with polysyllabic rhymes on tracks like "Follow the Leader" and "Ain't No Half Steppin", and Nas and AZ took it to the next level on "Life's A Bitch", but here, Em takes those influences and carries rhyming not only to its next logical step but almost to the breaking point of what hip hop and language are capable of.
Guess #1 and win the mix disc. If you were paying attention, you will win (we literally gave it away).
18. "The Whole World" - Outkast
17. "Underneath It All" - No Doubt
16. "Dilemma" - Nelly
15. "Oh Boy" - Cam'ron
14. "No One Knows" - Queens of the Stone Age
13. "When the Last Time" - Clipse
12. "Girlfriend" - *NSYNC
11. "Hella Good" - No Doubt
10. "Nothin'" - Noreaga
9. "Provider" - N.E.R.D.
8. "Like I Love You" - Justin Timberlake
7. "Hate To Say I Told You So" - The Hives
6. "8 Mile" - Eminem
5. "Oops (Oh My)" - Tweet
4. "More Than A Woman" - Aaliyah
3. "Grindin'" - Clipse
2. "Work It" - Missy Elliott
While we're on the subject of songs that heavily borrow from classic hip hop without being a tired retread... "Work It" was the song that prompted many (well, three or four) people to ask me, "Hey, what's that sample?" Usually they were referring to the "Peter Piper" loop (itself a sample of "Take Me To the Mardi Gras" by semi-obscure jazz-fusion artist Bob James), but there's also a nearly unrecognizable Blondie hook in there, too.
"Work It" also has the official distinction of being Billboard's longest running #2 song that never reached #1. Oddly, it's kept out of the DOTY top slot by the same song that stifled it on the charts. Unofficially, it's one of the top five oddest sounding #2 song in chart history, and the strangest of all Missy's hits, which is certainly saying something. It's basically a bunch of very subtle percussion elements, siren wails, deep keyboard rumbles, onomatopeia, lyrical non sequiturs - the most noteworthy of which often punctuated by stops and starts in the rhythm track - and backwards vocal hooks, all thrown together, and then wrapped up in the end by the aforementioned Run D.M.C. sample, but, thanks to Timbaland and Missy, it works.
It's fitting that the highest ranking Neptunes song on DOTY thus far is a track that sounds the least like typical Neptunes. There are no funk guitars, the drum sound is more robotic than live, and the synths are minimal - they still represent the biggest musical hook, but they're strangely percussive and faded way in the mix. If you weren't aware of the lyrical trends in hip hop (or Clipse's cocaine metaphors), you might think this had come out in 1988 or so. All that's missing is some scratching. Even Pharrell's falsetto is limited to a moment that is far more Kool Keith or Biz Markie than his usual Curtis Mayfield via boy band.
What makes it more than another retro rehash is the super punchy and oddly brutal drum sound that comes in on the offbeat late in each measure - amidst the typical crisp snares and handclaps you have this triple gunshot blast that comes out of nowhere. Put that in the mix with the cold, spaced-out synth hook and an eerily whispered refrain and you have a minimalist song that makes you feel like you're right there with the Clipse crew, without really glorifying their supposed profession with too much flash and bling.
Aaliyah, with the help of Timbaland, has been lauded in the pop music community and beyond for her willingness to experiment. Never gimmicky or fussy, sometimes, if you blink, you'll miss what all the fuss is about, like on the ultra-smooth soul throwback "More Than A Woman". The beat stops and starts, building to climaxes and comedowns every measure. The musical hook is an appropriated melody straight out of India, but it doesn't feel intrusive like a lot of more recent Bhangra-influenced songs are. There are layers and layers of different synths, from heavy, "dark" sounds to electro-funk bells and blurts - they almost bury the vocal non-hook, which is an afterthought sung by a chorus of backup Aaliyahs, as if it goes without saying that Aaliyah is what she says she is.
Why Timbaland decided to use one of his All-Time Top Five Beats on someone who calls herself Tweet we'll never know, but frankly, Tiny Tim could have sung this song and it would have been a huge hit. For the record, Tweet gets the job done here for the most part - her voice is just not as sexy Aaliyah's, or even as confident as Missy Elliott's (who co-wrote). Over acid-trip pitch-shifted vocal synths, a very subtle yet very effective rhythm section, keyboard blips, and slithery post-punk funk guitar riffery - all of which are perfectly panned in the mix, and brought in and out at well-timed moments, creating tension as the jittery beats and bleeps continue until the fade out - she's singing something about taking off her clothes and it kind of makes us want to do the same, but not because of anything she's saying. It's the beat that does us in.
P.S. - We thought this would be an appropriate post to start sharing our Twitter feed. Tweet away.
It has nothing to do with his shock-jock antics; we could probably deal with all the homophobia and mysogyny - awful stuff of course, but nothing the world of pop music hadn't accepted before - if the songs had been any good.
Don't get us wrong - his rapping is always technically stellar and when he works with Dr. Dre the beats tend to be above-average, but he's got the vibe all wrong. The cartoon-rap goof stuff is neither fun nor funny, sort of an idiot's version of Weird Al parodying The Geto Boys, and the serious stuff just sucks. Seriously, the funniest Eminem song to date is "Stan", only because it's laughably bad.
Anyway, to make a long story short, he kind of got it all together on this 8 Mile soundtrack, where he blunted most of the dumb violent stuff, but still left enough grit to keep things slightly dangerous, and most of all, kept the beats crisp and the hooks catchy. What good are serious rap songs if no one wants to listen to them?
On "Hate To Say I Told You So", The Hives were unwittingly compared to The Who and The Kinks by out of touch rock journalists, desperate to fling some organic-sounding, familiar comparisons around (and attach some critical importance to a modern band not named Radiohead).
To us, however, the riff in "Hate To Say I Told You So" sounded more like a semi-calculated, stripped-down faux-garage reboot of Nirvana's "Stay Away", and being compared to a canonical 90's alternative band is no better or worse than being compared to a canonical 60's hippie bands, it's just the truth.
On their records at the time, The Hives seemed more like a glossy, Swede version of midwestern 90's punk-revival band - New Bomb Turks, Gaunt, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments. They later adapted some more new-wavey and pop-punk elements, quite welcome to our ears, but disliked intensely by fair-weather fans and critics alike.
We don't know which comparisons the faux-punk Hives would dig less - they seem to fashion themselves as kind of a mod-influenced Stooges, though the only similarities there are that the frontman screams a bit and wears a suit - but we think they'd agree with us that the tune rocks pretty hard despite all its glossy baggage and the critical handwringing that that leads to.
The Neptunes signature sound became as recognizable in the early 2000's as Jam & Lewis's new jack swing did in the late 80's, and at times, like another predecessor (and influence-turned-contemporary) Timbaland, they even managed to branch out and deviate from their fundamental core with fun retro-flavored updates of sonic innovations from earlier eras. Their retro revisionism gave way to some of their own innovations with percussion sounds and Middle Eastern-influenced melody, all of which not only helped carve out a permanent place for them on the Top 40, but also in the hearts and minds of post-hipster fanboys (ahem).
Their sound incorporated various new jack elements - punchy drums, soul piano - and early on was closer to the more organic sound of Teddy Riley (whom Pharrell once worked with) than to the aforementioned Jam/Lewis. They also appeared to be influenced the atmospheric keyboard and oddball percussion techniques used by Timbaland and other modern hip hop producers, as well as the hard, minimalist sci-fi gangsta funk of Dr. Dre, resulting a crisp, danceable hip-pop sound that retained a legit rap edge.
The Neptunes also threw in their own touches like acoustic guitars, live drums, distorted vocals, and of course Pharrell's ubiquitous falsetto. Ultimately - sadly - it was that ubiquity that did them in. Need a slightly harder edged sound for a huge mega-artist looking to expand its fanbase? A crossover pop hit for a hip hop star eager to maintain some artistic and/or street cred? Want some underground eccentricity added to your standard issue rap sound? Neptunes, Neptunes, Neptunes, ad nauseum.
Timbaland has always been able to take a step back, reorganize, and successfully shapeshift into delivering a new trend, all the while laughing at imitators who were embarrassing themselves with old hat techniques that had been perfected years ago, and then discarded. The Neptunes, like other R&B pioneers Jam/Lewis, Riley and Babyface, despite their innovations, were not able to do so, eventually becoming their own parody and soon disappearing from public consciousness. As such, they've barely sniffed the charts since the mid-00's.
Riding a wave of eye-opening successes for artists as diverse on the musical spectrum (and popularity scale) as Mystikal and Britney Spears, 2002 marked the peak of the production duo's powers, culminating in over a dozen charting songs and most importantly seven appearances on the DOTY list. The fact that they literally own all slots from #13 through 8 is a testament to their dominance in the early part of the decade.
For the curious/uninitiated/nostalgic, a look back...
18. "The Whole World" - Outkast
17. "Underneath It All" - No Doubt
16. "Dilemma" - Nelly
15. "Oh Boy" - Cam'ron
14. "No One Knows" - Queens of the Stone Age
We wish more happened in Cam'ron's "Oh Boy", and while it does feature some early examples of that post-modern Kanye-style sampling - basically single-handedly catapulting it to #15 - not much does happen besides that. Cam'ron and Juelz Santana have some okay moments (last verse is tight), and the song's pretty cool overall, but we couldn't help but feel that it might have been cooler had it been slightly less monotonous and cloying.
1. This is the first of many lists that are less than 20 songs - not because there weren't 20 or more noteworthy songs to talk about, but because, thanks to some rather lengthy "epics" toward the front end of the list, only 18 songs would fit on one mix CD! (Bonus points for people who can name the long songs.)
2. We're breaking it up into three sections this time: Numbers 18 through 14, a very special commemorative 13 through 8, and then numbers 7 through 1.
