Album: Timbaland

Shock Value, BLACKGROUND/INTERSCOPE

There are reasons why great producers like Joe Meek, Phil Spector, Paul Rothchild and Norman Whitfield rarely made albums of their own, reasons illustrated perfectly by this latest offering from Tim "Timbaland" Mosley, which is almost as lacklustre as last year's album from Pharrell Williams, another studio hand. Fine when employed sparely in the service of a strong character, Timbaland's skittish bounce grooves grow wearisome en masse, while his characterless rap style necessitates the involvement of an array of guest stars whose A-list status (Missy, Fiddy, Nelly F, Justin, Dre and, in an absurd mismatch, an ivory-tinkling Elton) is no guarantee of quality or effort. Worst of all is a sequence of tracks featuring alliances with rock acts such as The Hives and Fallout Boy, which merely demonstrate Mosley's lack of rock'n'roll instinct. And in having to use the perfunctory services of stars more concerned with credit than craft, Timbaland condemns his album to a string of half-hearted inanities that show how completely mainstream black American pop has been emptied of significant content since the days of Power to the Motown People.