Timbaland's "Shock Value II"

Timbaland – Shock Value II

Let’s go right ahead and skip to track 11, a song called Ease Off The Liquor, and admit that it should never have happened. Never ever. Even though the production is nice and all, the song works as an interlude on an album that lasts almost 75 minutes all up and the world just could’ve done without it. Plus, that’s not even touching on the lyrics (“can you hold your liquor cause I can hold mine/and if I get pulled over I can walk a straight line”) or the mexican rhythm guitar which pushes the song out for about six minutes. It’s all a little OTT.

But that’s where we’re at with Timbaland right now. He’s at the point in his career where he feels that he can get anyone on his record so he seems to just pick anyone. Instead of being wise and scrutinising his choices to what might fit Shock Value II, we get an album that is a messy mix of someone trying to tackle everything at once. Just check the credits – we’ve got Chad Kroeger (of Nickelback ‘fame’), Miley Cyrus, The Fray and Daughtry. While Kanye is sampling Can, Timbaland is sampling Jet, and you can guess how that one goes.

But it’s not all bad – Shock Value II is littered with great songs and a couple that have the potential to be just as big. The first single from the album, Morning After Dark, introduces singer SoShy (who co-wrote the song Lost Cause on Chris Cornell’s Timbaland produced album, Scream) and the effect is much like how we all felt when Give It To Me dropped last time around. Even better is Meet In The Tha Middle, which should probably be a single at some stage, and features a surprisingly nice verse from Bran’Nu, Brandy’s new rap alter-ego.

Apart from the food metaphors, which plague the subject matter, Carry Out featuring Justin Timberlake is still pretty great. I dunno, maybe I’m just being biased because it’s Timberlake but the song works as a minimalist number instead of coming off bloated like  many of the other songs on the album and there’s this little part right at the end of the verse which totally rips off No Diggity. It’s great.

Of course, the real highlight here is Say Something which features Drake, an artist that will probably own 2010 by the time he gets around to releasing his album. The song is effortless and has Drake switching between his R&B croon (“it’s funny how someone else’s success brings pain”) and his bragging raps (“killing shit, the ever so talented Mr. Ripley”).

But if Timbaland cut off the fat, the album could’ve had potential as a nice follow-up to Shock Value. Instead it’s overloaded with unnecessary additions (such as We Belong To The Music and If We Ever Meet Again) that only feel like they’ve been crammed into an already full album. He still has the talent to produce some of the most interesting tracks that we’re ever going to hear from an artist like this but there are still some things that are better left unexplored.