I like making records with the right energy in the room, the right people.” But that’s why I don’t like making records in a vacuum. Or, as Pharrell notes: “I’m an Aries so I’m very impulsive. As Wood says: “There are very few producers that have that ability to write, to sonically have an imagination so deep and so technical to manifest their vision, to write lyrics, to perform, multi-instrumentalists, have deep focus on mastering, mixing. But also because he’s happy, chatting along as if he feels like a studio without a roof. Why is he doing this today, when he’s deep in (it seems) the recording of some new solo material? Because Pharrell is the latest Artist Partner to collaborate with Beats by Dre on a headphone release – in this case the new on-ear, noise-cancelling Solo Pro. As Pharrell said when he premiered the track in the summer: “He’s the godfather to so many of us – and not just African-Americans, most of the industry.” The latter is the epic, choral, Auto-Tuned-gospel anthem lead track on the soundtrack to this year’s The Black Godfather, a Netflix documentary about revered music industry executive Clarence Avant. album No One Ever Really Dies, and Letter to My Godfather. Alongside that they morphed into artist outfit N.E.R.D., while Pharrell became speed-dial Collaborator No.1 for everyone from Jay‑Z to Gwen Stefani to Madonna to Kanye West to Camila Cabello to Daft Punk to Migos to Cara Delevingne to Robin Thicke.Īnd here is he today, discussing with Wood the recording of two of his most recent tracks: Lemon, made with Rihanna for the 2017 N.E.R.D. The Neptunes went on to provide the songwriting and production backbone of Justin Timberlake’s still-mighty Justified (2002). It was the first whole album to bear the imprimatur of The Neptunes, the production duo Pharrell formed in his native Virginia Beach with Chad Hugo. We’re meeting in the week of the 20 th anniversary of the release of Kaleidoscope by Kelis. In the other comfy swivel chair: Pharrell Williams, singer, songwriter, producer and president of, well, all your favourite sonically adventurous bangers of the last 20 years. In one comfy swivel chair by the mixing desk: Luke Wood, President of headphones giant Beats by Dre, former executive at Interscope Records and onetime guitarist with grunge-era band Sammy. In Studio E this blowy southern Florida afternoon they’re picking apart a couple of more contemporary hits. One million dollars’ worth of the Atlantic Records long-playing album Young, Gifted and Black.” Facing them, bow down for the 1972 Grammy-winning classic from the First Lady Of Soul: “Aretha Franklin. Above the pool table in the lounge, a row of million-sales-big-ups to just some of the BEST SINGLES EVER: The Bee Gees’ Jive Talkin’ and Stayin’ Alive, Frankie Valli’s Grease, Eric Clapton’s I Shot the Sheriff. Then, The Eagles’ Hotel California, nine million copies. Next to it, a gong for 14 million copies of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Here’s a shiny shout-out for the first eight million sales of Britney Spears’ Oops!… I Did It Again. Here’s one to mark half-a-million sales of Bob Marley and The Wailers’ Chant Down Babylon. The walls of this legendary recording complex in otherwise nondescript North Miami – perhaps the least glam and most worky bit of sexy-sunshine-all-the-time Miami – are sagging with silver, gold and platinum sales discs for some of the greatest singles and albums of all time. At Criteria Recording Studios they’ve been bringing the hits since 1958.
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