Best of the Decade: Songs

10. Annie – Heartbeat - A perfect example of the way that pop music crossed over to the indie crowd, this song has the impeccable production of the best 80s synth pop, and a great vocal performance cooed by Annie. The song’s hook is infectious, but its greatest coup is using the ever more intense drum line to mimic the heartbeat of the title. An 00s pop classic!

9. Phoenix – Too Young - Another blog classic, Phoenix has still yet to top the pure pop joy of their first big hit. It instantly evokes the joy and tinge of melancholy of a great night out coming to an end. It’s powerfully emotional, and wrapped in a beautiful 70s style soft dance rock production.

8. The New Pornographers – The Bleeding Heart Show - As with many New Pornos song, this one is like three songs in one. It opens melancholy than crescendos to a slightly Spanish flavored swing, all the while building and building going through an unspoken bridge section, and another killer breakdown before finally exploding into the chorus: “Hey La Hey La Hey La Hey La Ooooohh!” harmonized before Neko Case cuts in over it all. A cathedral of sound, and a perfect power pop song with more hooks than a coat room!

7. Justin Timberlake – My Love - I love songs that are simultaneously danceable and emotional, and this is a perfect example of that. It blends a nearly avant garde Timbaland beat with a great vocal to create an enveloping sonic world. It also features one of the best guest verses of all time when T.I. comes in to tear up the mechanical precision of the rest of the song. Perfect for the club or for sitting alone in your room!

6. Arcade Fire – No Cars Go - The song begins in a swirl of horns and strings, as voices chant and instruments swell and drive us forward to a kind of utopia. It’s an anthem of defiance, that reaches an almost religious level of transcendence in the instrumental breakdowns, before swelling back for one more call to action. The song is a battle, and by its end, you come away exhausted and exhilarated.

5. Cut Copy – Hearts on Fire - Like a lot of the songs on here, “Hearts on Fire” is a micro-symphony, to the point that you could ask someone what’s your favorite part? Is it the bubbling synth line that underlies the first occurrence of the repeated chorus, or the Moroder like bass that follows it. Perhaps it’s the NES sounding synths in the instrumental section? For me, it’s the absolutely killer sax solo that starts as a ghostly background presence and builds to a growling climax, capping off a flawless pop song.

4. Justice – D.A.N.C.E - The greatest Michael Jackson song of the last twenty years? The anthem of Williamsburg for the past three years? One of the greatest pop songs of all time? “D.A.N.C.E” is all of these songs, an impossibly infectious song that goes from strength, a killer bass line, a great falsetto lead vocal, that weird cutting string line. The call and response finale. It’s all great! I loved this song the first time I heard it and I still love it, many listens later.

3. Arcade Fire – Wake Up - Perhaps the best film of 2009 was the two minute trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, which only reinforced the near religious power of “Wake Up.” A churning emotional buildup, “Wake Up” is a musical catharsis, that explodes in beauty and power. When the entire band comes in for the chorus, it’s chilling. And, the song even caps it all off with an exciting dance-y outro. A beautiful cathedral of music.

2. Daft Punk – Harder Faster Better Stronger - It started as a humble song, then grew to be sampled by Kanye West for the massive hit “Stronger,” and was mixed with “Around the World” in Daft Punk’s live set producing spontaneous ecstasy wherever it was played. But, the original is still the best. Masterfully using vocoder to warp the vocals into a bass line, a guitar solo and more. It features one of the most perfect bass lines of all time, and a constant sense of technological ecstasy. It’s arguably the greatest dance song of all time, and contains the raw material for many future hits.

1. Daft Punk – Digital Love - A strange, joyous expression of love filtered through 80s videogame guitar sounds and vocoder vocals, “Digital Love” is sonic ecstasy through and through. The opening guitar riff draws you into the song, before it segues into a catchy dance groove. But, things start to get crazy when everything cuts out and we hop to the b section for the “Why don’t you play the game” breakdown. Here, they juxtapose the vocal and a fantastic guitar riff, before merging the two for an incredibly joyous 80s sounding guitar solo, then cutting it all off for another breakdown backed by the most over the top guitar solo of all time, then finally bringing it all together for a smooth conclusion. It’s the happiest song I can think of, just pure joy in sounds, it’s the song every synth pop band has been trying to make for the past four years, but Daft Punk did it first and best. An undisputed masterpiece to cap off a decade of fantastic music!

Michael Jackson and Musical Convergence

Obviously, the death of Michael Jackson has been a huge deal culturally speaking, with much of the focus on the idea that we’ll never all be united in adoration of a performer in the way that people unanimously loved him back in the 80s. I was born after the release of Thriller, so I missed Michael’s biggest years, catching him in some early 90s performances, like his Super Bowl performance and I do vaguely remember watching the debut of the “Black or White” video when I was younger. So, I’m probably not the best authority to say whether someone could reach the heights that he had.

But, I do think that the notion of a unified, racially transcendent pop superstar doesn’t necessarily die with Michael. People point to Nirvana’s “Nevermind” replacing Jackson’s “Dangerous” as a sign that the times had left him behind, an era of “authentic” artists replacing the pop spectacle that Jackson represented. But, nearly twenty years later, who has the more enduring artistic legacy, whose sound has been more influential? Sure, there were a legion of Nirvana knockoffs in the 90s, but listen to the music that’s out there today, both mainstream radio popular stuff and the hottest indie bands and you’ll hear a lot more Jackson than Nirvana.

In a lot of ways, I think we’re in a post authenticity age. While I have a lot of issues with hipster culture and values, I think one of the good things it did was pave the way for a broadening of taste, by making it acceptable to like popular songs, at first through the pretense of irony, then through straight up embrace. Songs like Britney Spears’ “Toxic” and Justin Timberlake’s “Rock My Body” were just flat out great pop songs, so good that they forced people to embrace them.

Timberlake is frequently cited as one of the heirs to Jackson’s title as King of Pop, and his career followed a similar trajectory. Starting out in a heavily packaged pop band, he branched out into solo work and took artistic control of his music, creating dance floor hits so solid they basically forced people to enjoy them. Pitchfork, the arbiter of hipster taste, ranked his “My Love” as the number one song of 2006, a choice with no irony behind it.

Artists like Timberlake and Kanye West draw on Jackson’s legacy of music that’s simultaneously personal and danceable, rewriting the notion that only in an acoustic or rock setting can real feeling be expressed. And, I think their songs are so transcendent and popular, they fill that cultural need for music to unite us. I enjoy loving a band no one else knows as much as anyone, but there’s a certain joy in connecting with people over a popular song that everyone knows, and I think that’s why even in a fractured audience MP3 world, we’re still going to have blockbuster songs that everyone knows and loves. You need those songs that a DJ play and everyone will know, and even as radio loses its influence, those songs will still find a way to become known to people.

Over on the rock side of things, the major thing that’s changed in 00s popular “alternative” or indie music is the infusion of dance rhythms and instrumentation into rock music. Sure, there’s still non-dance bands, but the sound of the 00s is definitely the 80s style, synth driven electroclash, like MGMT, Phoenix, etc. That’s a sound draws on the pop aesthetic of Michael Jackson, not the dour heavy atmosphere of bands like Nirvana. To some extent, I think there’s been a re-embrace of fun and style in music. MGMT is a very image driven band, a stark contrast to the “anti-image” approach of 90s bands, like Nirvana or Radiohead. And, songs like MGMT’s “Kids” are breaking out in a huge way, uniting people across genre lines in a way that Jackson’s stuff did in the day.

Personally, I love the embrace of fun and pop structures in contemporary music. I think the 90s was a nadir for music, as pop and rock radically diverted, leading to lame work on both sides. Now, we’ve got pop stars like Kanye West creating really ambitious, challenging albums, and rockers making danceable fun stuff.

Sure, Jackson lost his own footing in mainstream culture, but I think he was one Timbaland or Neptunes produced album away from a return to mainstream prominence. I’d have loved to see him do something along the lines of Jay-Z’s Black Album and bring in a host of huge producers, all with the goal of doing the best possible Michael Jackson song. But, I guess we’ll never get that.

I also think much of the furor surrounding Jackson’s death is due to the totally bizarre life he led. I saw him called the first post-human celebrity, and if you see video of the guy, it’s hard to believe he is of the same species as us. He seems more like an alien playing a person. I don’t think we’ll ever see a celebrity as bizarre as Michael Jackson again, but I do think the potential is out there for someone to drop another Thriller, and the time is more conducive for it now than it’s been since the 80s. Barriers between music are breaking down, in an MP3 age, there’s not that strict allegiance to one subculture or genre. Songs can break out and becomes sensations on their own terms, and the distinctions between what’s popular in the rock world and the rap world are lessening everyday.

Best of 2007: Top 15 Albums

A bit late on this, but I’ve been busy. Anyway, here’s the top 15 albums for 2007.

15. Kanye West – Graduation
People talk a lot about the sophomore slump, but I think it’s the third album that’s really problematic. Most artists do the same, but more for the second album, but then were do you go for the third? This album has some of Kanye’s best tracks, but also a couple of duds, most notably “Barry Bonds” and “Drunken Hot Girls,” which just don’t work. Still, the good stuff far outweighs the bad. While “Stronger” got a lot of attention, and is a great track, it’s “Flashing Lights” that stands out as his best dance track. “Homecoming” is also fantastic, with a killer piano line.

14. Jay-Z – American Gangster
The master beat the apprentice with a really great album that presents a time spanning journey between Jay’s past, present and imagined life as Frank Lucas. The lyrics tell a really interesting story, and the beats match it with a great 70s soul aesthetic. The opening, with voiceover courtesy of Idris “Stringer” Elba is wonderfully over the top, but it’s the back half of the album that really shines. “Ignorant Shit” and “Party Life” are the highlights.

13. Tori Amos – American Doll Posse
This album was frequently criticized for being too long. At 80 minutes, it is a bit daunting, and cut down to 45 or 50 minutes, it would be a lot easier to endorse. But, there’s no real bad tracks here, and a lot of great ones. I love the ethereal pop of “Bouncing Off Clouds” as well as the haunting closer “Dragon.” And, she thankfully ditches the adult contempo aesthetic of her past couple albums with the rocking “Big Wheel” and “Teenage Hustling.”

12. Bruce Springsteen – Magic
Springsteen’s popularity peaked during the arena rock Born in the USA era, but unlike a lot of other ultra-popular artists, he’s managed to remain artistically vital for over thirty years. This album has a lot to say about the world we live in today, and manages to sound contemporary without reaching for techno beats or something like that. Born to Run feels like it could have come out this year, so keeping that aesthetic works. The standout here is “Girls in their Summer Clothes,” but the record goes deep. Every track has something to say, and does so in an interesting way.

11. The Colour – Between Earth and Sky
They’ve broken up after only one album, which is a shame because The Colour did a great job of reviving 60s style blues rock for today. Recalling Zeppelin and The Doors, this album rocks pretty hard throughout. The songs can bleed together a bit, but “Silver Meadows” and “Save Yourself” are as good any rock songs out this year.

10. Rilo Kiley – Under the Blacklight
A hugely controversial album, I really liked the new direction. It’s 70s soft rock, crossed with dance beats and the occasional hint of Fleetwood Mac. I like bands that change their aesthetic and explore different sounds and styles. “Moneymaker” is a killer single, and even though I like what’s come before, I’m glad that they’re branching out. My guess is this album is the equivalent of Belle and Sebastian’s “Dear Catastrophe Waitress,” a total departure in style that will eventually be integrated into what the band was doing before on their next album. But, this album really stands up, and just because it’s easy to listen to, doesn’t mean it’s not great.

9. Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
I’m glad I saw Amy play back in March because it seems like she’s gone completely off the deep end, into tabloid land and away from the musician who put out this album. She manages to use retro style without sounding like pastiche, this is a really emotional album. While the two big singles are great, the highlight for me is the pop epic “Back to Black,” a flawless piece of work.

8. The National – Boxer
A fixture on best of ’07 lists for a reason, this album creates a world, drawing you in with the great opener “Fake Empires,” then lingering for mini suites of songs that make up the album. They have a very specific sound, the piano and strings bulking up the sound and making for some really unique songs. These are fantastic songs, and the album has a tangibility that few others do.

7. The Polyphonic Spree – The Fragile Army
As with Kanye, the third album presents something of a problem. I loved the massive epics on Together We’re Heavy, but this album scales things back a bit. The songs are still great, and few bands can match the scope of what they can do when all their instruments are in the mix. But, these songs are generally more closed in, avoiding the epic sweep of Heavy, and focusing on more concise arrangement. It’s still a great album, that sounds like nothing else out there, but it didn’t hook me like their previous albums did. But, considering how much I loved those albums, not quite matching up isn’t a huge problem.

6. Timbaland – Shock Value
An album that the critical establishment knocked even as it continues to produce a litany of top singles. People criticized the album for skipping from genre to genre without any sort of clear aesthetic. I don’t think that’s a criticism, I love that an artist can make an album that takes us from 50 Cent to Elton John. The songs are arranged in sections that flow together well, listened to on random, it would be disorienting. But, the sequencing takes us seamlessly from rap to pop to rock, with great songs all along the way. “Way I R” is a distillation of everything Tim can do well in the rap field, and probably the best track, but really, there’s a lot of highlights on here. “Scream” is fantastic, as is “Time.” Like Handsome Boy Modeling School’s White People, it’s a deliriously kaleidoscopic album, but you’d think skipping between genres and styles wouldn’t be a problem for the IPod generation. Listen to this album and you don’t need to shuffle anything, Tim does it for you.

5. The New Pornographers – Challengers
Even as their weakest album to date, this is still an amazing piece. Like the Spree, they tone down the over the top pop and joy of their previous work, going a bit more melancholy. That gives Neko Case some of her finest showcases, particularly “Go Places.” The epic “Unguided” is one of the most emotional songs they’ve ever done, and “Spirit of Giving” is a perfect distillation of the unique, poppy aesthetic of the band. It sounds like nothing else out there, but I wish that everything sounded like this.

4. Justice – Cross
The big dance hit of the year, Justice produced the album a lot of people wanted Daft Punk to make with Human After All, a fusion of hard rock riffs and poppy synths. “DANCE” stole the show, justly, but it’s a top notch album throughout. The beats are heavy, the hooks colossal, it’s a joy to dance to. “Stress” and “Phantom, pt. 2” are two of the album’s best.

3. Daft Punk – Alive 2007
This was a tough one to rank. My memories of the amazing live show are wrapped up in the disc, so I can’t judge it objectively. However, it’s pretty undeniably a fantastic mix. This should have been their greatest hits album, cobbling together pieces of nearly every song in their catalogue into a monster mix. There’s so many classic moments here, the fusion of “Harder Better” and “Around the World,” the mix of “Da Funk” and “Steam Machine,” and the crawling vocal from “Harder” over the base line from “Face to Face.” Throw this on as high volume as possible and just get lost in it.

2. !!! – Myth Takes - Another fantastic dance album, this album represents a huge jump for the band. “Heart of Hearts” and “Must be the Moon” were killer singles, perfect fusions of rock and dance, but the album didn’t stop there. I love “Break in Case of Anything” and the epic “Bend Over Beethoven” really tears things down. The dance rhythms give the music an energy and vibrancy must rock is lacking, their live show at Studio B in May was one of craziest I’ve ever been to, a mess of jumping and dancing. I’d love to see them live again.

1. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
Funeral was already a great album, but this is a quantum leap from that. The scope of their orchestration is amazing, you hear things on this album you won’t hear from any other band. Think of the huge pipe organ intro on “Intervention,” or the wordless vocal breakdown on “Anti-Christ Superstar.” The album just makes me so happy, so charged. There’s a sense of deep emotion here, some regret and sadness all overwhelmed by the sheer power of the music. “No Cars Go” is the band’s opus, a climax for everything that’s come before, and “My Body is a Cage” is a haunting closer, building from nothing to an epic organ line that puts a perfect cap on the album. This isn’t just the best album of the year, it’s an all time classic. People will be listening and talking about this album thirty years from now.

Best of 2007: Top 10 Songs

10. The National – “Fake Empire”
The song opens with a rolling piano line that is just mesmerizing and that tentative march forward underlies everything that comes after. Boxer has been rightly hailed as one of the best albums of the year, and for me, all the tracks kind of blend into each other. But, this one stands out, the overture to the entire piece and a wonderful song on its own, particularly during the majestic interplay of trumpet and guitar at the song’s conclusion.



9. The New Pornographers – “Unguided”
A departure from their usual modus operandi, this song stretches over six minutes and has more of a build than their usual concise power pop songs. However, the song is just as emotional as anything they’ve done. Backed by a beautiful tinkling percussion line, the interplay of male and female vocals all builds into the ecstatic, driving chorus. Some songs just beg to be used in a movie, and listening to this one, I can see the scene in my head. It’s the ecstatic reunion of our heroes, hard fought and well earned, a happy ending after all kinds of trouble.



8. Kanye West – “Flashing Lights”
“Stronger” got all the attention as Kanye’s move toward techno and dance, but it’s this track that impressed me the most. The keyboard line is incredible, both danceable and emotional. The strings are haunting, and Kanye’s delivery is strong as well. Much like “My Love” last year, the song would work just as well in a club as it would in a silent, introspective moment. I first heard the song on the radio and was instantly impressed, I didn’t even realize it was Kanye at first, I just knew it was great. This song should have been a massive hit, I’d still like to see it get a big single push.



7. Rilo Kiley – “The Moneymaker”
Huge controversial upon its release, I loved this thing from the first listen. The video perfectly captures the sleazy funk vibe of the song. I could image the band playing this song in the Canadian club from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, accompanying the decadent drinking and drugging of a bunch of dirty people. The riff underlying this song is fantastic, and Lewis’s vocals are among her best. The whole album was great, but it’s this opening salvo that really sticks with me.



6. Timbaland – “Way I Are”
I know a lot of people have gotten a bit tired of Timbaland, but I thought Shock Value stands up well with his two fantastic albums from last year. This song is probably the most typical Timbaland song on the album, but it’s also a flawless pop song. Fusing elements of “My Love,” “Sexy Back” and “Promiscuous,” he creates a kind of uber-Timbaland song. This is the equivalent of David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr., it might not innovate as much as his other work, but it fuses much of his previous work into a singularly successful work.



5. Amy Winehouse – “Back to Black”
The greatness of this album has been largely overshadowed by her tabloid antics, and that’s unfortunate. The whole album is great, but this is the high point, a perfect example of the way she makes 60s sounds relevant for today. The song builds on the percussion line before taking off into the swirling surf guitar backed chorus. I love those tambourines in the background, and this is her most emotional vocal on the album.



4. !!! – “Must Be the Moon”
One of the greatest dancerock songs of all time, this track does not stop bringing it. The bassline is relentless and I love the robotically heavy drumming. I love the rap-style vocal on the chorus, the stripped down nature of that makes the return of the entire band even more powerful. Back at college, when I was responsible for dropping music for our pre-parties, this track was a fixture. It’s one of those tracks you just can’t not like.



3. Daft Punk “Around the World/Harder Better Faster Stronger”
The best moment I’ve ever experienced at any concert is commemorated at 2:48 in the live recording of this song. Both these songs are already colossal hook machines that would have killed live, combined, they become a mutant pop song that just destroys everything in its path. Listening to the track, I’ll sometimes latch onto the “Around the World” bassline and ride that, sometimes hook onto the “Harder Better” vocal, and other times just stick to that crazy synth line. The song just keeps building as it goes on, even during the b-section, which drops some of the heaviest bass I’ve ever heard. This is a track that’s exponentially better the louder it is, only the live experience can do it justice, but put that record up high and you’ll get close. If this wasn’t based off two existing songs, it would easily rank number one on this list, and be a strong contender for the greatest song all time.



2. Justice – “D.A.N.C.E”
While Daft Punk made a resurgence, their protégées at Justice dropped a track that rivals their best. “D.A.N.C.E” is an insane fusion of Jackson 5 and house music, one of the most exuberant pop songs I’ve ever heard. Odds are strong that this track was played at every single party in Williamsburg, Brooklyn this year, and it just never gets old. This was another one that was omnipresent on my college DJ mix, and it never failed to go over. I love the disco style bassline and Goblins sounding synths. It’s a flawless pop song, and should survive on dance floors for a long time.



1. Arcade Fire – “No Cars Go”
This song is extremely special for me, an absolutely exuberant rallying cry, it’s just bursting with energy and dreams, a desire to break free and become something else. The Arcade Fire have a lot of might behind their sound, and no song showcases it better than this. It sounds like there’s a hundred trilling instruments underlying the chorus, and it only builds as it goes into the crazy breakdown in the middle of the song. Win’s shout fo “No Go!” is amazing, but the real highlight of the song for me is the segue between “Well we know!” and the instrumental solo that follows. The song is all about those transitions, taking things down to nothing, then building again to an ecstatic pace. The song’s majesterial finale is like very few things I’ve heard in music. I think the people who lived with me last year hate this song. There were a bunch of nights when I was like “I need to hear ‘No Cars Go’,” and at 2 AM, I’d play this thing real loud, and just get lost in it. It might have woken them up, and I’m sorry about that, but the final minute of this song just left me feeling cleansed and renewed, and maybe that’s worth a wake up.

Timbaland: Today's Beatles

I'm listening to Timbaland's Shock Value for the second time right now. It's a strong album, not quite as effective as his work with Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado last year, but it's seventeen weird, but catchy songs like only he can make. At this point, Timbaland is so ubiquitous, and just so fucking good, he's creating songs that are critically respected and beloved by club kids, hip hoppers and elitist indie hipsters. His work transcends boundaries in a way that reminds me of very few artists before, one of the most notable being The Beatles.

The Beatles have become something of an institution, they're so good, it's barely worth talking about them. What can we really say that will add to what's come before? Perhaps a little something. I think of the most notable things about The Beatles is the fact that they were simultaneously the most groundbreaking band in the history of recorded music and the most popular. That happens so rarely, in film and literature, it always seems to take a few years for people to catch up to the really good art. Spielberg is probably the closest thing film has to a Beatles, but he's much more mainstream and traditional than The Beatles were.

The genius of The Beatles was their ability to experiment so much within an accessible form, the three minute pop song. Part of the reason they've been so analyzed is the layers within the songs, the many instrumental tracks and subtle details. Like a lot of great artists, they seemed to be positively running over with ideas, leading to songs like "A Day in the Life," which fuse together two potentially good songs into one great one. Listening to Rubber Soul or Revolver is intimidating, to hear just how many now classic songs they stacked, one after the other. Virtually all their songs have become part of our collective culture, everyone just seems to know every Beatles song, you can't say that for other very respected bands from their era, even massively popular ones like Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin.

While there certainly isn't a direct correlation between popularity and artistic credibility, I think it's important to look at music's place in our collective consciousness. While I may love some Daft Punk songs more than ""One More Time," if I was in a club, I'd rather hear "OMT" than " Face to Face" just because it's what people know. There's nothing like hearing people cheer when a song is dropped, and a song has to have a certain level of popularity to reach that point. That's why it's important that we still have mainstream radio, or some kind of media through which songs can become widely popular. Without that, we lose our shared culture. Part of the reason that 80s songs are so ubiquitous today is because everyone knows them, and you can't say that about most bloghouse tracks. I'd imagine a large part of why people go to concerts is just to be with a bunch of people who know the same songs and love the same band, it's the collective experience as much as the performance.

The 90s was a downtime for pop music, a lot of bad songs were wildly popular. Now, there's always going to be bad songs that go over, but there's very few popular 90s songs that were actually good. So, I've been really happy to see pop music resurge in the 00s, thanks primarily to two producer teams, The Neptunes and Timbaland. These two put together a list of incredible songs that were both great songs and incredibly popular. The Neptunes have slipped off the radar a bit, but looking at the songs they were involved in earlier this decade is astonishing.

But, this past year, Timbaland has surged ahead, with an unprecedented dominance of radio and the pop culture music space. Most of this is his work with Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake. It's been amazing to watch Justin go from middle school girl icon to one of the most respected men in music, largely because his work with Timbaland is just amazing. The album has spawned five singles, and there's still a bunch of strong tracks in the wings. It's so rare that a song become both incredibly popular and get such strong critical response, but "My Love" did just that, getting love from everyone.

What does it all mean? Basically, I think it's important that we have a collective musical experience to draw on as a culture, and I'm glad that Timbaland is making it such a good one. He's making the best and most popular songs, and dominating things in a way that The Beatles did before him. Artists may say they don't want to be popular, or it doesn't matter to them, but I think ultimately all of us want people to love our art, only some artists are most willing to make compromises to do that than others. I pride myself on making the movies I want, but it's tough to watch people respond to a mainstream comedy more than my stuff. What I want is for people to love the movie I want to make. I'm not quite able to do that yet, but with music, Timbaland is. It takes a little bit, but already, his solo album is spawning a bunch of hits. "The Way I R" hooked me, and it's getting better with very listen. I'm really glad to be part of a time when an artist like Justin Timberlake can get the respect of everyone, that we've moved past the idea that being popular, or being pop, is equal to selling out.