Is "Boys" essentially the same as "Work It Out"?

Well?

I've been wondering what these titles refer to for some days now, so thank you for identifying their source. :-)

I don't think they're *that* similar comparative to the general similarity of all The Neptunes work (we're talking about the "Co- Ed Remix" of "Boys", right?) - "Boys" reminds me more of "Pass The Courvoisier II", while "Work It Out" = the horns of "Bouncin' Back" + the endearing naffness of "Hot In Herre" (though it's not as good as either of those masterpieces).

I've been thinking about The Neptunes' changing-same production style lately, though I'm not sure what my conclusions are. Suffice it to say that I get *less* annoyed by it everytime I hear a new example, rather than more. I think it's the same thing as happened to me half-way through last year, when I suddenly look around and realise "hey, they've done a *lot* of fantastic pop songs lately!"

Conceptually, though, is there a point at which this becomes...not boring to be sure, but a bit tiring? I mean, if it connects, it connects, and that's what matters, and it is also nice to see how long a particular band/production squad can keep very specifically on the pulse of What's Happening Now. And I think you addressed the question of how one might be annoyed by it or not, but I'm finding that has less to do with them sounding same as actually sounding different -- like I've said, I see those moves as sounding like endless sidesteps, making the fetishization of the cutting edge almost restrictively academic rather than revelatory. It's like by achieving transcendence they've somehow slid into finding a rut...

Liking them becomes sort of a King Midas thing where the pleasure draws upon seeing every object (star, artist) imaginable being rendered under a single golden touch. They become this omnipresent filter making us go "ooh i wonder how a golden Nelly will turn out, ooh i wonder how a golden Britney will turn out" with every shade on the pop palette potentially yielding some exciting result in combination with them. Inevitably their vocabulary, however effective, wears thin, but they'll sometimes sneak things down the pipe ("Bouncin' Back"->golden JB funk, "Nothin'"-> golden bhangra) or develop new cross-sections with artists to re-enter the spotlight.

A striking way of putting it. I can't say I've ever wondered that about said pop personalities, or more to the point any, as being seen through a Neptunes filter or any other kind. It's possibly a matter of perception and reception; maybe I'm of a time and place that didn't see such moves as a natural consequence (and therefore doesn't readily imagine them happening). Mind you, I can never imagine bootlegs either -- whenever a combination is suggested to me, even if it seems like the most natural thing in the world upon hearing it, there's no way I could have imagined the suggestion beforehand.

Honda encapsulated it pretty well. I think looking for futurism in The Neptunes' production is by now a mistaken approach, if only because people who do will be disappointed. Yeah,it's true that nothing recent tends to shock as much as "Caught Out There" or "Superthug" or "Southern Hospitality" did, but I like the way they can apply their sound to all these different areas and come up with interesting twists. The Britney/Pharell interplay on "Boys (Remix)" is delectable and almost shocking in its own way - at least in terms of hearing Britney being articulated as the object of desire by a 3rd party in her own song - as is the shifts between Busta and Pharell on "Pass The Courvoisier II".

Plus it's fun hearing solid musical narratives edge forward slowly (cf. their original tendency to go in a dozen different directions) the way an actual band's might. For example, "Shake Ya Ass", "Stay Together", "Diddy", "Bouncin' Back", "Hot In Herre", "Boys (Remix)", "Pass The Courvoisier II" and "Work It Out" are all different elements of a certain proposition re: modern synthetic funk, and each track expands the template somehow, albeit some more than others. If these songs were all performed by a band (say, The Roots, or James Brown's band) rather than produced by producers, the sense of changing same would make perfect sense and barely be commented on. But because producers are supposed to make the a pre-created sonic signature (the artist's) sound more interesting while preserving its integrity, the way in which The Neptunes have created a cohesive and consistent sound of their own is frequently considered oppressive, limiting and, ultimately, boring. I think this is largely psychological though. What N.E.R.D. got right in their re-working of their album was the fact that conceptually, they *are* a band rather than a collection of knob-twiddlers. What they got wrong was the assumption that this conceptual shift necessitated an abandonment of studio trickery in favour of live musicianship - their studio tracks already sound intensely "live" in the manner that counts.

For the record I love what The Neptunes are doing with funk, the way in which they're divorcing it from dusty old records. I was shocked at how good the Nikka Costa "Like A Feather" funk riff sounded in the context of the 2 Many DJs album, and it's largely because, sans Nikka, it's a funk riff that's just another pop riff, no longer referring to some anachronistic idea of blackness that Nikka grasps after desperately. This is sort of what The Neptunes (and before them Prince) do, but by updating funk as well as merely recontextualising it. And maybe this is why "Bouncin' Back" and "Hot In Herre" work better than "Work It Out" - Beyonce sounds too committed to actually recreating pre- established funk ideals, whereas Nelly and Mystikal's reinvocations of funk are inevitably twisted by their own stylistic approaches.

As always, Tim, you apply much worthy wisdom to the subject. :-) I can't find myself responding cogently this early in the morning, so I'll just quickly note that on the one hand you're arguing against looking at their work in terms of futurism but at the same time celebrating their work as being freed from the shackles of the past, in a way. Which perhaps means they are ultimately to be seen solely as a band of the present, if you like! Not a bad thing to be and think of, of course, yet somehow I still want something more...