N.E.R.D.
Fly or Die
[Virgin; 2004]
Rating: 3.1



www.pitchforkmedia.com

True thirty year-old nerds:

Justin Morgalis.

After I flicked the back of his ear repeatedly in seventh grade Geography class, Justin grew a beer gut and became a computer systems integration analyst for CSC, who forced him to take an etiquette course to better hand clients. He wears discount golfing attire from strip-mall department stores and a Motorola clipped to his belt. When not resorting his online fantasy football roster from his suburban Atlanta home, he drives a Korean car.

Rick Ricardi.

Rick Ricardi's hairline receded in the ninth grade. His hirsute body, however, led him to Senior year back waxings. That same year an assistant basketball coach accidentally ran over Rick with a golf cart in P.E. class.

Forgotten Unknown Crazy Kid, 1986.

The Forgotten Crazy Kid carried a large briefcase to every class and never talked. The case was never opened and never left the FUCK's side. A bully confronted the FUCK in the hallway outside Pod A (Georgia was experimenting with unconventional class sub-structuring concepts in the 1980s) and demanded that the briefcase be opened. The FUCK mumbled no. The bully grabbed the briefcase's handle and fierce tugging ensued. Everyone gathered around like it was a cockfight. We all wanted to know what was in the case, pity for FUCK or lust for the cool bully aside. The case burst open. Hundreds and hundreds of unsharpened pencils spilled onto the synthetic floor.

Brent DiCrescenzo.

Brent writes meta record reviews for an online magazine.

Pharrell Williams.

Pharrell Williams wears a diamond and gold skateboard around his neck. Ingrid Sisley kisses him on the cheek. Supermodels get his voice mail. In his spare time between writing worldwide pop hits as part of the Neptunes production duo, Pharrell records funk-rock with falsetto lyrics like, "Unzip your skirt, take off your blouse," and, "I fucked you from behind," with his band, N.E.R.D. Really, Pharrell Williams is no way a nerd. Not in the Eddie Deezen mold or the Harry Knowles mold or the Ramones mold.

Debating the validity of Pharrell Williams' bandname seems like a contentious trifle, but the dude continuously positions himself as a wide-reaching musicologist. In the press, he seems convinced that merely mentioning the fact his record collection contains Steely Dan, Chick Corea, Stereolab, and EPMD coupled to his role as producer of tracks for the likes of Britney Spears and Philly's Most Wanted makes him a pop prodigy crossover messiah. The name "N.E.R.D." arrogantly admits to a higher IQ, while excusing Williams' potentially embarrassing prog-R&B hybrid as a goofy cult experiment. Sadly, like a tackle-shocked J.O.C.K., Fly or Die is stupid and boring.

Publicists limit their vocabulary to the Hall of Fame when thinking up superlative comparisons for their acts. One article alone already compared Fly or Die to Sly Stone, Frank Zappa, Queens of the Stone Age, Curtis Mayfield, The Beatles' Rubber Soul, and De La Soul's Three Feet High and Rising. No shit. Actually, it's not like two of the best albums ever made and three of the most brilliant people to ever record music. (Sorry, Josh Homme. Your band's mention is the 2004 way of saying "it has loud guitars.") Oddly, Fly or Die finds the safe middle ground between Adam Ant's rumbling Burundi-drummed new-wave pop, Earth, Wind & Fire's digital elevator nightmare Raise!, and Lenny Kravitz's Folgers granule guitars.

Pharrell croons, "Her ass is a spaceship I want to ride," in the somehow standout track, "She Wants to Move". Let's assume N.E.R.D. are travelling around the Earth in this ass-ship at 299,985 kilometers per second. Inside, Pharrell, Chad Hugo, and the useless guy wear their "astronaut suits from the BBC" ["Jump"] and ramble through the entire album in its 44 minute runtime. Back on earth, we observe the ass-ship moving at 99.995% the speed of light broadcasting Fly or Die from speakers fixed into the "exhaust port" of the anatomically detailed craft. To the asstronauts inside, the album last 2640 seconds, but to the listeners on earth, that same album seems 3.05 days. And that's just relativity. Einstein never factored in two consecutive tracks on a record featuring whistling or two consecutive tracks growing so bored with themselves that they slip from their own unmelodic pop into introverted moebius jams concerned with fishing stories and sounding like Nile Rogers producing Gentle Giant. For a production team renowned for their bleating, percussive keyboards, the synthesizers here sound milkier than Vangelis.

Forgetting the musical shortcomings for a moment, let's shift focus to Pharrell Williams' abysmal lyrics. "Chariot of Fire" begins, "I wrote this song when I was drunk." True or not, this is a no-win situation, lyrically speaking. Strike "she," "bad," "ass," and George Carlin's 7 words from Pharrell's vocabulary and he's got nothing. There goes the entirety of "Don't Worry About It". Other lyrics rarely surpass the expletives of a dad stuck in traffic: "Shit happens/ just blow it off." "Gonna make you feel rage." "Fuck 'em up." "Breakout/ Push people." These are entire choruses and hardly fit the writing style of a supposed nerd. To further the point, Pharrell invites Hot Topic cosmetic counter explosion casualties Benji and Joel from Good Charlotte to "spit" on "Jump". The one that looks like your gay aunt's mascara brush whines, "Hey, Dad/ Okay, Dad/ That's what you say, Da/ I never could obey Dad/ Punk rock tattoos/ Leather jacket/ Good grades don't come with that package." Actually, this is the most academic the album gets. Who is that kid fooling? He's more B's and C's than CBGB's.

In trying to expand their sound beyond commercial hip-hop, N.E.R.D. has exposed both the shortcomings and silver linings of the genre. Taking the simple chest-beating, booty-humping themes of club hits into overproduced Phish-rock territory merely exposes their offensive banality. Expanding the minimal, percussive rhythms of turntables to florid, multi-layered studio fusion rock only underscores the power of economy. And that's in the "spartan production" sense, not the "Pharrell Williams' presents The Billionaire Boys Club Clothing Line" sense. Each track is bloated and soft like Morgalis' middle, and waxed clean of texture like Ricardi's back. Though Pharrell Williams poised himself at the center of millions of people's attention, he's spilled his head to show nothing but unsharpened pencils.

The last year has seen The Neptunes beat themselves into tired ubiquity. For every "Milkshake" or "Bubble", there are ten "Change Clothes" or "Frontin'". Fly or Die was their appropriately titled chance to evolve beyond staccato acoustic guitars, bongos, and robot synths and stake their claim as true personalities in music. Sadly, when left to their own devices they seem more fascinated by the opening clang of "Purple Haze", yet technically unable to reproduce any other element of Hendrix's playing, style or impact. They need the pop tarts dropped into their toaster. On their own, N.E.R.D. are the hip-hop Toto. And the nerdiest thing about Pharrell Williams is that he probably takes that as a compliment.

-Brent DiCrescenzo, March 26th, 2004


Come on now it's not that bad!






Props edit
[This message was edited Tue Apr 27 0:49:22 2004 by sinisterpentatonic]

...i kinda like this album...

Anxiety said:

nice that the article barely mentions chad and is contribution. when n.e.r.d. is good, everybody seems to talk about how pharrell and chad are so great but when n.e.r.d. is bad, it's all pharrell's fault somehow.

the author obviously got personal issues with Pharell only. But I (and my brother and couple of my friends) do agree that the lyrics are sometimes lame (on both albums) but at least they are real musicians, something missin these days.

This is not their best album 2 me. It lacks something catchy, it doesnt make me think....sometimes it is a little over produced and at parts sounds unfinished...doesnt flow 2gether right either...

In Search Of (live version) was a very very good album. I give Fly Or Die a 7.

I was SEVERELY disappointed with this album
"She Wants 2 Move" is probably the best track on there. it sounds either overproduced or with a demo-like quality - either way - it's lacking essence.

ah well, I guess every talented artist has to have a dud, this won't phase Pharreal tho'!

'dre

DreZone said:

same here.

oh and..im gettin dat album! May 29th u say?

[b]This is my 1st post here on "the org" and I strongly disagree with the review posted above. I have been an N.E.R.D. fan since day 1 and although their lyrics are not drenched in elite metaphor, they offer a youthful and refreshing take on songwriting. Their lyrics and production on FLY OR DIE, unlike IN SEARCH OF... is muddled, sexually frustrated and sometimes downright confusing but it works becuase they are painting a portrait of what adolescent diaspora is like and all that goes along with it. The cd will be a struggle for cerebral nitwits but for those who have an open mind and a free spirit, it will be well recieved in my opinion. It seems to me that the critic has a personal vendetta against Pharrell and the band. Everything is a severe crtique with no mentions of anything positive about an album that many journalists have given a perfect 4 stars.

Everyone go and listen to IN SEARCH OF... & FLY OR DIE and you be the judge.
-----
http://www.n-e-r-d.com

Cool post, DreamFactory - this might go down as their "sophomore slump" album, but at worst, I think it'll be a minor underrated victory for them in the long run.

Well no one said that N.E.R.D. were the best musicians. I think that kind of judgement is relatve anyway. However,I dont think that you will encounter many who say that they dont have skills as innovators if nothing else.I would agree that they have a long way to go as N.E.R.D. (this is only their 2nd record) and we must distinguish the difference between the Neptunes and the N.E.R.D. project. They have 2 totally different purposes. Lets not forget that one is exponentially more commercially succesful than the other. The NEPTUNES PRESENT CLONES debuted at #1 last summer and is now platinum + and the N.E.R.D. debuted at #6 and is now stumbling about somewhere around the top 40 after a month of it's release. N.E.R.D. is still wet behind the ears but you cant blame them for trying to get out there and contributing to the game.After all, they are better than most of whats on the radio right now. Its way to early to tell what history will write of them. This is only their 2nd release for heavens sake. Lets give them a chance. Would we have writtien off Prince after PRINCE? No, I dont think so.Lets stop being so overtly critical and let the boys play, shall we?

dreamfactory313 said:

I'll simply IGNORE their output until i hear something GOOD. The N.E.R.D. projects SUCKS as far as bands go. Maybe not to Junior High school band students, but to anyone over 25 with a decent ear, I can't see how they could pass for an even decent band. Prince came out SLAMMING. He wasn't the BEST, but he proved that his bamd was worth listening to. I listened to the N.E.R.D.'s first CD and I've heard two songs from the current release. Both suck to me. I'm not being "overly critical". I respect the work they put into their project. I know how much effort releasing a CD can be. I'm not knocking their effort - just the results of it. I'm not on some William Hung sh*t like the rest of the country. Will H. sucks; N.E.R.D. sucks too as a band. I don't agree that they are better than most of what's on the radio. I think that depends on what you listen to. I don't believe in giving an "A" for effort. Why even work hard and strive for excellence if you get an A for effort? you listen to. The musical arrangements are juvenille, as are the lyrics. If you're going to drop a CD, BE PROFESSIONAL. If they weren't "The Neptunes", N.E.R.D. probably wouldn't have a deal. They don't sound pro at all. Sorry. Just being real.

I happen to disagree with you and we obviously have different ears when it comes to music and I respect that. Maybe you just cant relate to what they are trying to do. Dont worry, it happens to people all the time.

NERD aren't geniuses.They just make mindless anf fun music.It's not that serious.Yes,there are many weakness ,but I like the rawness and the arrogance. Sometimes,I get tired of over-produced "perfect" records.This is just fun stuff.

dreamfactory313 said:

Aint no reason 4 that. Look, In Search Of was way better than Fly Or Die. There. I mean..ok come on. At least i can remember what all the soungs sounded like. Chariot Of Fire..is like.....damn Backseat Love is dumb...its missing alot. Tracks 2 3 are kinda like...what does this have 2 do with anything?

rockwilder said:


Well Dirty Mind was as if it had sounded very demoish and raw...and arrogant..but it still sounded new and thoughtful. NERD Tried 2 do the same thing...but it still dont sound together. I mean..."Push people!" and "Backseat Love!" and "dad ...DAD ... DAD ...MOM..." ugh! If i go 2 the concert i dont wanna be surrounded by no grundge people...shit i'll fuck some1 up pushing me...

I agree. I personally liked IN SEARCH OF... more than FLY OR DIE. I think I alluded to that sentiment in an earlier post. Im just saying that they are out there doing music that not many other bands are doing, talking about things that appeal to a certain demographic and being that this is only their 2nd album, they should be given the chance to explore what they want to do without being lambasted by elitist critics with a personal axe to grind.
[This message was edited Sun May 2 7:36:13 2004 by dreamfactory313]
[This message was edited Sun May 2 7:37:00 2004 by dreamfactory313]