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This was the worst possible time for Timbaland to step into the spotlight with a solo album. Having ruled the hip-hop and R&B airwaves for a decade, he’s coming off his biggest pop success to date, with the one-two punch of last year’s Nelly Furtado/Justin Timberlake releases. No way was he not going to raise expectations to an absurd degree. Anything less than a mind-altering reinvention of modern music wasn’t going to cut it.
Shock Value fails to scale such heights, of course, but even making some allowances for unreasonable expectations, it’s a dispiriting release. A star-studded project (with a lineup that includes 50 Cent, Fall Out Boy and Elton John), the album fails to cohere, and too many of the songs feel like ideas tacked on to beats, while some of the beats themselves are rehashes of earlier glories (there are two “SexyBack” rips here, for instance).
The first single, “Give it to Me,” featuring Furtado and Timberlake, is fine, but the funnest things here are the opening and closing tracks, and they’re both throwaways. “Oh Timbaland,” an ode to Timbaland, by Timbaland, is stutter-beat horror-movie genius with a slice of Nina Simone in the chorus. “2 Man Show” has the producer talking nonsense over grandiose orchestration and loopy piano runs by Elton John (“C’mon, Elton, break it down!”). Everything in between these tracks tries just a bit too hard to light a spark.