Pitchfork just released their ‘Top 200 Tracks Of The 1990’s’ and ocourse some of neptunes tracks haven been listed on it such as Noreaga’s Superthug, check it out.
170 – Noreaga – Superthug (What What) feat. Pharrell & Tammy Lucas
Penalty (1998) (#36 US/#15 US Hip-Hop) (September 21)
Both before and after ‘Superthug (What What)’, Noreaga was a man without a country. Before its release he was creatively stranded when Capone, his partner in core-throttling New York rap, was sentenced to a prison term. After the release of the song– which sported a startling militarized futurism and an indelible “What what what!” hook– N.O.R.E. found himself in a genre wasteland, somewhere between Queens and Mars. Chalk it up to an emerging Virginia production team, The Neptunes, arriving at their signature sound. Noreaga, a lightning bolt of energy and absurdism, was the perfect foil, and he was never more at home than over their soon to be signature stop-start percussion and earworm Casio presets.
Ironically, despite its enduring legacy as The Neptunes‘ breakthrough, ‘Superthug (What What)’ wasn’t Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo’s first chart hit. That belonged to Ma$e, whose “Lookin’ At Me” bore The Neptunes‘ imprimatur and reached no. 8 on Billboard’s Hot 100. No one remembers “Lookin’ At Me“, but ‘Superthug (What What)’, released the same year, is unforgettable.
161 – Kelis – Caught Out There
Virgin (1999) (#54 US/#9 US R&B /#4 UK) (October 19)
“Caught Out There” is a song about being angry– Kelis does after all shout “I hate you so much right now!” to her betraying lover– but it’s more complicated than that. The song’s other emotions include loneliness (“When you don’t come home to me/ Can’t deal/ Can’t bear”), pride (“Maybe you didn’t break how you should’ve broke, yo/ But I break”), and disbelief (“Damn”). Soundtracking this post-breakup mania is a top-rate, ahead-of-its-time Neptunes production, with snapping keyboards accompanied by high-pitched tones that sound like dynamite exploding in space. In a word: Damn.
90 – Ol’ Dirty Bastard – Got Your Money feat. Kelis
Elektra (1999) (#26 US/#19 US R&B) (August 28)
It somehow makes sense that the Wu-Tang Clan’s resident madman would find his most timeless expression constrained within a party tune, but when the party is as unhinged and filthy as “Got Your Money“, constraint has nothing to do with it. Here it serves to hint at its opposite, at the tightness of The Neptunes‘ peerless bass-driven groove underscoring the looseness of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s now-barking, now-hollering performance. He comes on crazed, lewd, menacing, and seductive all at once. Or as he puts it more succinctly: “Recognize I’m a fool and you love me.” Sadly close to the end for ODB, it was only the beginning for The Neptunes.