At some point in the spring of 1997, Puff called Jay-Z and asked him to ghostwrite a couple of verses for a Police-sampling track in remembrance of The Notorious B.I.G., who had been murdered that March in Los Angeles. Jay, wisely, declined (the gig went to Sauce Money). Instead, he went down to Virginia and cooked up his own tribute, this one produced by Teddy Riley and slicker than anything that had been on his debut album from the year prior. “The City Is Mine” would not end up an encapsulation of the next phase in Jay’s career, nor would it suggest an extended stranglehold over hip-hop for Riley or new jack swing generally. Narrative dominance in New York aside, this is more relic than manifesto. But there’s still a hint of the future. You hear that saxophone snaking through the hook? That’s played by a young Chad Hugo, who in short order would become one-half of the most accomplished production team of the 21st century.
Now, of course, there’s a federal lawsuit, ugly barbs in the press, enough bad blood to swallow all the plaques. But for a little over a decade starting shortly after “The City Is Mine,” the Virginia natives would imagine a future—usually pastel but occasionally very, oppressively grey—built from synthesizers and swagger and several tackle shops’ worth of hooks. Their apprenticeship under Riley (and competition with fellow Virginian Timbaland) made them nearly as prolific as they were influential, to the point where even their lesser work and most indulgent side projects would spawn generations of imitators.
The Neptunes would go on to work with many of the 2000s’ biggest stars, helping to transform the careers of Justin Timberlakes and Gwen Stefanis, extend and augment the pop runs of Madonnas and Britneys, give Snoop Dogg a second wind, and even flex some belated auteur sway over Jay’s singles. But no one held their attention like Pusha T and Malice, the brothers from nearby whose career, hampered as it was by label bureaucracy in two different decades, became a vehicle for the Neptunes’ most daring beats. The second Clipse album, 2006’s Hell Hath No Fury, sees eight of its 12 songs included here; all told, the duo appears in some form on more than a quarter of this list.
Unlikely as it is that we’ll ever hear a new Neptunes beat, the ones that do exist are sure to echo out of car and club speakers into eternity, the vibrations blurring the line between composition and inevitable effect on the material world. What follows are the 50 best Neptunes tracks, ranked by how hard the malnourished robots in the “Universal Mind Control” video bobbed their heads to them.
50. Clipse, “The Funeral”
The trend of Clipse picking the Neptunes’ weirdest, most challenging beats goes all the way back to their genesis on Exclusive Audio Footage, the debut before the debut. This beat sounds like a Saturday morning western; in anyone else's hands it would probably be corny, but Push and Malice don't just dance on it—they take ten paces and spin. —FRAZIER THARPE
49. Nelly, “Hot In Herre”
It’s possible to be up- and downstream at the same time. While Nellyville’s fifth single presaged the entirety of Anderson .Paak’s career, its first takes Mystikal and formats him for the little TVs in the back of airline seats. And still, the Chuck Brown flip shimmers enough to keep you in a Cancun of the mind forever. —PAUL THOMPSON
48. Slim Thug, “Click Clack” f/ Pusha T
The best Slim Thug-Neptunes collabs are the ones where Pharrell gets out of the way. Already Platinum is a great album, but P makes his presence known in a way that’s an odd fit with a larger-than-life dude like Thug. When it works, you get something like “Click Clack,” a good old-fashioned, onomonopoaetic rap song about how you can get shot. —ANDREW FRIEDMAN
47. Earl Sweatshirt, “Burgundy” f/ Vince Staples
“Not stable, abrasive as fuck” may be how Earl refers to himself in “Burgundy,” but they’re also fitting words for the joint’s Pharrell-helmed beat, a gradually layering orchestra of forceful pianos, horns, and sampled screams that give shape to the young Sweatshirt’s anger and angst. Just after Thebe finishes his affirmative, “start-shit” second verse—closing out his rants with a vision of moving forward—the beat ends suddenly devolving into a cosmic spiral of synth notes that fades out as if dispatching a taunting kiss goodbye. —NITISH PAHWA
46. Gwen Stefani, “Hollaback Girl”
Undeniable even if Gwen is acting as if Mickey from “Hey Mickey!” was into four-dimensional raceplay. —PAUL THOMPSON
45. 702, “I Still Love You”
Whenever I listen to this beat, I get stuck on the fact that the drums sound like a heartbeat. Not just any kind of heartbeat—it’s the heartbeat that appears when the person you love is within earshot and eyesight, pounding and infrequent, re-emerging with so much force to remind you that yes, you’re alive. Everything else orbits that heartbeat: the symphony of synths, the intruding mandolin on the hook, the claps that feel delightfully human, mirroring the perfect universal order that exists when you realize that you’re in love. —MATTHEW RITCHIE
44. Clipse, “Keys Open Doors”
You’d think the highest praise would be for a beat to elicit gasps. But what about it when it sounds like a string of them? Hell Hath No Fury begs overstatement, yet how else could you explain this one except to say you could imagine it spilling out of a pharaoh’s tomb? —PAUL THOMPSON
43. Scarface, “Someday” f/ Faith Evans
The best Neptunes beats are replete with small sonic pearls, the kinds of thing you might not hear at first yet remain essential to the song’s integrity. On “Someday,” subtle MIDI horns double each repetition of the title phrase amidst a field of jittery acoustic guitars and bass drum pumps, woven together over exactly six minutes. Even their work on mid-tier Scarface singles shows the duo’s range. —ALY ELEANOR
42. N.E.R.D., “Lapdance” f/ Lee Harvey & Vita
The repetitive guitar riff in “Lapdance” creates a certain bounce that’s never quite escaped my brain since first hearing the track on Dave Mirra’s BMX XXX, which I played religiously on my PS2 in the early aughts. And in that same vein, “Lapdance” sounds like it was made for the skatepark: able to satiate every flavor of ramp tramp in existence with its fusion of industrial rock and hip-hop. Every instrument ultimately works towards making something that transcends mere rock and roll. The clipped guitar is looped to create a beat that only two music nerds could have made during a long night of experimentation. —DONALD MORRISON
41. Ray J, “Wait a Minute” f/ Lil Kim & Pharrell
I don’t spend much time on farms, but when I do—field trips, transmission problems outside Bakersfield—I always croon to myself that The chickens is watching. This beat sounds like something lewd being tapped out on a two-way. —PAUL THOMPSON
40. Sade, “By Your Side (Neptunes Remix)”
The Neptunes took Sade’s sensitive, acoustic single “By Your Side” and twisted it into something spicy and hypnotic. Elevated by the added guitar riff, trademark Neptunes kick-snare, and rhythmic displacement of Adu’s vocals, there’s a distinct tonal flip from emotional ballad to a sexy, percussive groove. —EFUA OSEI
39. Mystikal, “Danger (Been So Long)” f/ Nivea
The Neptunes spent most of their peak period packing beats with intricate little percussion flourishes that cut against the other, invariably more punishing sonic elements. Mystikal—a truly singular vocalist, here flexing his full James Brown-at-the-end-of-history thing—is at once their most forceful collaborator and their nimblest, skittering along until there’s a line he needs you to really understand. —PAUL THOMPSON
38. N.E.R.D., “Am I High” f/ Malice
The trilling electronic notes before any voice is heard is like an entryway into a spirited discussion between Pharrell, Malice, and the beat, where the production is trying to soothe them during their panic high. Subdued synths and guitar chords fuse to be the voice of reason to Pharrell’s anxieties, giving way to an angelic piano progression, one made to match Malice’s soulful sensibilities. A fitting soundtrack to fighting off one’s drug-induced foolishness. —MATTHEW RITCHIE
37. Britney Spears, “Why Should I Be Sad”
What if I told you that the skeleton key to unlocking Tyler, the Creator’s seafoam funk synthesis of the Neptunes sound is the closing song from Britney Spears’s autoerotic lost-weekend masterpiece Blackout? The sweat equity that later paid off in a quarter-million dollars of sock money started with a study of In My Mind, but arguably nothing sounds more like Wolf Haley than one of the last classic beats from Chad and Pharrell. The chords sway like palm trees in a subtropical wind, the Triton stabs exude a barrier-reef fluorescence, and the triplet staccato drums sound like they’re beating inside a shattered chest cavity. Nothing says “I fucking hate you, but I love you” more than a song about the manifestation of the American Dream finding temporary redemption after having her heart crushed and her illusions Federlined. —JEFF WEISS
