Timbaland

When you’re a producer anywhere near Timbaland’s level, you inevitably make a lot of friends. When you’re an incredibly talented producer but a mediocre rapper—well, these friends come in handy. Timbaland’s recent release, “Timbaland Presents Shock Value,” makes the most of those connections and thus features almost as many heavy-hitting collaborations as a Girl Talk album.

Timbaland blew up a decade ago, producing tracks for Aaliyah and Missy Elliot, and has scored recent hits with Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado. “Shock Value” is a rushed attempt to capitalize on that success.

As a rapper, Timbaland has most often recorded as a duo with Magoo, and his last solo album (“Tim’s Bio: Life From Da Bassment”) came out almost a decade ago in 1998. It’s really hard to consider “Shock Value” a solo album, since only one of the 17 songs finds Timbaland alone.

The meat of the album lies in duets, and his friends’ back-up is served family-style.

An enumeration of his collaborators sounds more like a VIP list at the Ivy: Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake, Dr. Dre, Missy Elliot, 50 Cent, The Hives, Fall Out Boy, She Wants Revenge, and even Elton John all pitch in. And that’s just naming a few.

Whereas the supporting cast and his beats are both more than listenable, Timbaland’s rapping is sub-par, to say the least.

While Missy and Tony Yayo take witty stabs at Britney Spears on separate tracks, Timba’s meager offering includes lines like, “Break bread if you wanna get wit’ me / All I wanna do is dig up in them kidneys.”

The less Timbaland exerts his lyrical presence, the more comfortable the listener is.

The album’s first single, “Give It To Me”—which features Timberlake and Furtado, Timbaland’s golden boy and girl—is nothing new, though still a great song. It’s another entry in Timbaland’s project to reconcile pop, hip-hop, and electronica, opening with a solid drum-line beat and taking the listener home with heavy synth lines.

“Bounce” is by far the most intense song on the album. Its continuous synth bassline, combined with the sick flows of Missy and Dre, as well as JT’s conspicuously sexed-up chorus, make for a fairly good time.

The latter half of the album pairs Timbaland with some rock heavyweights. Although it seems like he’s experimenting for pure fun, the results are often novel, and they provide the only venues where his lyrical ability is showcased to positive effect.

“Time,” with She Wants Revenge, is dark and rewarding, like their hit single “Tear You Apart,” but the real treat is “One & Only,” performed with Fall Out Boy.

Possibly the best song on the CD is “Apologize,” which provides a taste of OneRepublic, whose debut album is set to drop in late 2007.

They fall somewhere between The Fray and Coldplay, and, rumor has it, they want Timbaland as their next producer.

Write it down—teamed up with Timbaland’s sound, they promise to be something big in the near future.

“Timbaland Presents” is in the title for a reason. He has essentially provided his musical friends with a stage on which they can simultaneously promote each other.

His rhymes might not be up to his beats, but Timbaland can’t lose. He scratches his collaborators’ backs; they scratch his; and everyone sells CDs.

—Reviewer Andrew F. Nunnelly can be reached at nunnelly@fas.harvard.edu.