Williams and Hugo are also known as the Grammy-winning production duo The Neptunes.
N*E*R*D's sound is a blend of rock, hip-hop, and R&B. N*E*R*D stands for "No-one Ever Really Dies".
Williams and Hugo originally recorded the band's debut album, In Search Of..., for European release in 2001 using similar digital production techniques used on Neptunes-produced records. However, they decided that if N*E*R*D was to be different from The Neptunes, it should sound different. This led to them re-recording the album (still titled In Search Of...) with the power pop band Spymob for worldwide release in 2002.
In Search Of... achieved moderate success in the United States.: the album reached number 59 on the Billboard 200; its first single, Lapdance, reached the top 40 on the rap charts; and its second single, Rock Star, reached the top 40 of the modern rock charts in the US and is still incredibly popular today. "Lapdance" also went top 40 in the Netherlands and its music video received heavy airplay on American MTV2. The album was well-received by critics even though it was not as successful as many of the Neptunes' productions for other artists.
The album won the second annual Shortlist Music Prize, awarded (by a group of musicians, journalists, and other music professionals) for Best Album that had sold less than 500,000 copies at the time of nomination. The band performed at the show, bragging that the week prior to the ceremony, the album had, in fact, achieved gold status by selling over 500,000 units.
Fly or Die
The band recorded their second album Fly or Die during 2003. The band actually learned to play the tunes live, as Chad Hugo told MTV News on December 9, 2003: "We're the ones playing the instruments live this time. "I just started playing guitar last year so I'm learning as we go. Pharrell's playing drums. [Last time] we didn't have time to learn certain instruments so we got Spymob to help us out."
The band also recruited some assistance to record the album with Lenny Kravitz playing on the track Maybe (which has been featured in ads for XM Satellite Radio) and Joel Madden and Benji Madden of Good Charlotte playing on the track Jump. Several of the tracks discuss issues of particular concern to adolescents, for example Thrasher, which is about bullies; Drill Sergeant, about rebellion; and Backseat Love, which talks about first love.
Fly or Die went on sale on March 22, 2004. The album went top 10 in the USA, while the lead-off single, She Wants to Move, went top 5 in the UK, top 20 in Norway, Ireland, and Denmark, and top 30 in Australia and top 40 in the USA and the Netherlands. The music videos for "She Wants To Move" and its followup single, "Maybe", received strong support from music video stations globally.
In 2005, N.E.R.D ended their contract with Virgin Records. After becoming "hooked" on the energy from their fans, the band began recording their third studio album, spending their own money. Williams and Hugo later established Star Trak Entertainment, a subsidiary of Interscope Records.
Seeing Sounds
The third album from N*E*R*D is called Seeing Sounds. The album's title, as well as its content, revolves around the neurological phenomenon of synesthesia, the mixing of sensory modalities. After touring in promotion of their previous album, Fly or Die, N.E.R.D felt that album was too consistent. For their following album, they wanted to create the atmosphere of hyperactivity they knew their fans wanted.
The album debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200, selling 80,000 in its first week. It received mixed reviews, with critics lauding the production of the album. Some writers called the record N.E.R.D's best album to date, while others criticized Williams' singing and the album's content.
The album was released on June 10, 2008. The first single off the album, titled "Everyone Nose (All the Girls Standing in the Line for the Bathroom)" featured a video with fans as well as stars like Lindsay Lohan and Kanye West. In June 2008, the second single off the album, titled "Spaz", was used in a TV commercial for the Microsoft Zune. The third single "Sooner or Later" featured a video dedicated to America's economic crisis.
Nothing
In 2010, N.E.R.D announced the release of their fourth studio album entitled Nothing, which had a scheduled release date for September 7, 2010, but was pushed back to November 2, 2010. The first single from the album, "Hot-n-Fun" featuring Canadian recording artist Nelly Furtado, was released on May 18, 2010, on iTunes. It was released in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2010. On August 20, 2010, a track titled "Party People" leaked onto the internet. It was rumored to be the second single from the album. On September 28, 2010, they premiered another track from the album titled "Hypnotize U" on Late Show with David Letterman, produced by electronic music duo Daft Punk. On September 30, 2010, in an interview with Mark Hoppus on A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus, Pharrell explained the album cover as "a mix of so many things. The feathers represent the peace, and the helmet represents the war. It's like where we are right now. There's a lot of war, that people can't necessarily explain. The economy sucks, girls are still beautiful. We wanted to make music that reflected that. So people can look back twenty years from now, and say 'this is what was going on'". They then announced in the interview that the next two singles would be "I've Seen the Light" and "Hypnotize U". Pharrell described "Hypnotize U" as being "so different from the rest of the album", stating he was "very pleased because it serves a different purpose" in the album. On October 17, 2010, the standard edition and the deluxe edition of the album became available for pre-order on iTunes. Nothing debuted at number twenty one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 20,000 copies.
The albums concept was to create a time capsule about America's divisions, "so that ten years from now people remember that era." Sonically the album was inspired by the late 60's and early 70's psychedelic pop.
Pharrell explained: "I just wanted to make some good music that would affect people in a good way." Williams says it wasn't easy. N*E*R*D worked on "a previous body of work which was really good, but it wasn't timeless to me. I didn't feel like we were pushing ourselves as much as we could. We needed to perfect the sound, so we kept pushing the date back until it was right." The result includes "a lot of vintage sounds...The album is very '68-'72, '73, America meets Crosby, Stills & Nash meets Moody Blues."
Nothing received mixed to positive reviews from most music critics.
NO_ONE EVER REALLY DIES
In 2013, Pharrell confirmed a N.E.R.D album was in progress, but also mentioned that the album would not be released that year due to the projects he was working on with other artists. He has also said the album will be "nature-based". The group reunited on December 26, 2014, to release the songs "Squeeze Me," "Patrick Star," and "Sandy Squirrel" for the film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.
On February 6, 2017, during an interview with BBC Radio 1, Pharrell stated that "it's feeling really good, really special" about the group's return.
In October 2017, the album was teased after posters were popping up on the side of streets, and by concertgoers at the 2017 Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival.
It was preceded by three singles; "Lemon" with Rihanna, "1000" with Future, and "Don't Don't Do It!" with Kendrick Lamar.
The album was debuted with a live listening party during the first day at ComplexCon, thus revealing the tracklist. Pharrell revealed the album's cover art and release date via Instagram and Twitter on November 22, 2017.
NO_ONE EVER REALLY DIES was released on December 15, 2017 through I Am Other and Columbia Records. It features guest appearances from Rihanna, André 3000, Kendrick Lamar, M.I.A., Gucci Mane, Wale, Future and Ed Sheeran among others. The album presented a radical change in sound compared to Nothing, heavily influenced by 80's New Wave and Post-Punk.
“Mr. Williams had been listening to the nervy jangle of post-punk and avant-punk: Gang of Four, Suicide, Devo, Talking Heads,” the Times reported in a December profile. “Once I identified all my pieces,” Williams said, “I was like, ‘Yo, I don’t want to make any more linear songs.’ ” N.E.R.D’s fifth album, “NO ONE EVER REALLY DIES,” released in December, delights in the aimless, anything-plays spirit of post-punk and New Wave—an era that Pharrell, Chad Hugo, and Shay Haley watched firsthand as students of nineteen-eighties MTV."
To make sense of “NO ONE EVER REALLY DIES,” it helps to spend time with the cartoonish yelps of Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh on “Uncontrollable Urge” or David Byrne on “Life During Wartime.” Those front men both shout-sing somewhere higher than mid-range; Byrne has mentioned that, on “Once in a Lifetime,” he evoked the quivering timbre of a southern evangelical preacher whom he’d taped off of local radio. Fans are used to Pharrell’s many voices: the falsetto made famous on “Frontin’,” the breezy and conversational way that he rapped on “Mr. Me Too,” even the showman croon on “Happy.” But this latest voice, on such tracks as “Rollinem 7’s” and “ESP,” searches for a slightly goofball tone that offsets stone-serious messages, like “What possessed the slave to look in the river / Then he saw his true master, fuck is a ‘mister’?” and “Detach yourself, repack yourself / Be back yourself, and dream as yourself.” Many music fans winced at the sight of the new album’s credits, worried that its several guest slots meant a muddy, scattered N.E.R.D. project, but the most unexpected voice on it belongs to Pharrell, who finds new angles for his instrument almost fifteen years in.
This shape-shifting extends to the album’s production, an unrelenting tangle of stuttering rhythms, tempo changes, bridges, and every other misdirection the band can jam in. “Lemon,” the opening track, is the most generous to pop form, and “Deep Down Body Thurst” takes traditional N.E.R.D. piano chords and lays them under new, challenging shapes. You can hear shades of the song’s stomping guitar in the English Beat’s “Mirror in the Bathroom,” itself a mutation of the ska sound that took hold in the U.K. “Don’t Don’t Do It!” pushes through its hook in the same fashion: while the verses are smooth and bluesy, the chorus bursts open in three steamy riffs. (“Don’t, don’t do it!” “They’re gonna do it anyway!” “They. Are. Go-nna. Do. It anyway!”) “Kites” is just as sprawling, bobbing between a double-time punk stomp and trunk-melting trap as Kendrick Lamar and M.I.A. vent about flying over borders and walls on both ends of the beat.
NO_ONE EVER REALLY DIES received positive reviews from music critics.
Maybe
N*E*R*D Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And it was born in a cloud with silver lining
Uh-huh
But it broke I mean it hatched on the ground so time flew right by me
And voila
I know you thought that life was gon' be easy when you didn't call
You found out you were wrong
You thought you had it all
But you found out you were wrong
See, maybe, there was something wrong, and you were telling me no (no)
See, maybe, the laugh's on me (jokes on me), and life was telling me a joke (joke
Something's yours
And you let it go
If it comes back to you
It was yours all along
Well, I let you go, along with those lies from you
I wonder what else lies in you
Did the lies just get gone
I know you thought that life was gonna be easy when you didn't call
You found out you were wrong
See, I know you thought your life was gonna be easy
You thought you had it all
But you found out you were wrong
See, maybe, there was something wrong, and you were telling me, no wrong
See, maybe, the laugh's on me, and life was telling me a joke
Hold it now
Is y'all there? Haha
How do you feel right now?
Yeah me too
Hey, yeah
Hold it now
Y'all alright?
See, do you remember what it's like to wake up in her love nest (get it, love nest)
And now she's gone, gone, gone, gone
At which point you realize life is but a joke, and the laugh's on me
That's funny, right?
Babe
The lyrics to N*E*R*D's song Maybe are a contemplative and introspective meditation on the complexities of love and life. The song begins with the idea that love is fragile and vulnerable, like an egg, and has a delicate beginning before it hatches and takes on a life of its own. The poetic language of the song captures the way that love can be both beautiful and doomed, like a cloud with a silver lining that breaks or hatches on the ground. From this starting point, the lyrics delve into the idea that life is not easy, that we often have unrealistic expectations, and that we can be blind to our own shortcomings and mistakes. The chorus repeats the idea that maybe something was wrong, that something we thought we had was lost, and that life can sometimes feel like a cruel joke at our expense.
The second verse brings a more personal and accusatory tone, with the singer calling out someone who has lied to them in the past. The lyrics imply that the lies may have been about the nature of their relationship or the singer's expectations of their future together. The idea of letting something go, only to have it return to you later, is also introduced, suggesting that sometimes our actions have unexpected consequences. The chorus repeats the same themes as before, but with added emphasis on the idea that we often believe our own lies and can be blind to the truth of our situations.
The song ends with a spoken word section that asks the listener how they feel right now and evokes the pain of losing someone you love. The final lines suggest that life can be a joke, with the singer admitting that they are the butt of that joke. Overall, Maybe is a poignant and powerful meditation on the fragility of love, the complexity of relationships, and the harsh realities of life.
Line by Line Meaning
Love is the egg, see
Love is something that starts off as fragile and protected, like an egg.
And it was born in a cloud with silver lining
Love can start in a place of optimism and hope, in a happy and bright environment.
But it broke I mean it hatched on the ground so time flew right by me
But love can take a turn for the worse and leave you feeling like it was wasted time.
And voila
And just like that, things change.
I know you thought that life was gon' be easy when you didn't call
Sometimes we think life will be simple and easy when we don't have responsibilities, but that's not always the case.
You found out you were wrong
We eventually find out that we were wrong and life is harder than we expected.
See, I know you thought your life was gon' be easy
I understand that you believed life would be straightforward and simple.
You thought you had it all
You believed you had everything figured out.
But you found out you were wrong
You realized that your assumptions about life were incorrect.
See, maybe, there was something wrong, and you were telling me no (no)
Maybe there was an issue that you weren't admitting to or were trying to ignore.
See, maybe, the laugh's on me (jokes on me), and life was telling me a joke (joke
Maybe life was mocking me and playing a joke on me.
Something's yours
Sometimes things belong to you only.
And you let it go
But sometimes you relinquish those things.
If it comes back to you
If it's meant to be, it will come back to you.
It was yours all along
If it returns, it was meant to be all along.
Well, I let you go, along with those lies from you
I let you go along with the falsehoods you told me.
I wonder what else lies in you
Now I am curious about what other lies you have been telling.
Did the lies just get gone
Did the lies just disappear?
Hold it now
Wait a minute.
Is y'all there? Haha
Hello, are you all still there? (laughing)
How do you feel right now?
What are you feeling at the moment?
Yeah me too
I feel the same way.
Hey, yeah
Just acknowledging something with a casual phrase.
Hold it now
Wait a minute.
Y'all alright?
Are you all okay?
See, do you remember what it's like to wake up in her love nest (get it, love nest)
Do you remember the feeling of waking up next to someone you love?
And now she's gone, gone, gone, gone
And now that person is gone and you remember the feeling of waking up alone.
At which point you realize life is but a joke, and the laugh's on me
At this point, you realize that life is unpredictable and full of surprises, and you're the one who is being made fun of.
That's funny, right?
Ironically, it's humorous despite being a difficult realization.
Babe
A casual term of endearment to end the song.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Prasi
Love is the egg, see
Lid was born in a cloud with silver lining
Uh-huh
But it broke I mean it hatched on the ground so time flew right by me
And wa-la
I know you thought that life was gonna be easy when you didn't call
You found out you were wrong
See, I know you thought your life was gonna be easy
You thought you had it all
But you found out you were wrong
See, maybe, there was something wrong, and you were telling me no wrong
See, maybe, the laugh's on me, and life was telling me a joke
Something's yours
And you let it go
If it comes back to you
It was yours all along
Well, I let you go, along with those lies from you
I wouldn't want those lies anew
Did the lies just get gone
I know you thought that life was gonna be easy when you didn't call
You found out you were wrong
See, I know you thought your life was gonna be easy
You thought you had it all
But you found out you were wrong
See, maybe, there was something wrong, and you werent telling me no
See, maybe, the laugh's on me, and life was telling me a joke
Hold it now
How do you feel right now
Yeah me too
Hey yeah
Hold it now
You all right
See, do you remember what it's like to wake up in her love nest (get it, love nest)
And now she's gone - gone, gone, gone
At which point you realize life is but a joke, and the laugh's on me
That's funny, right?
Ein
Can't believe this song is almost 20 yrs old.. feel so nostalgic. I use to listen to N.E.R.D especially this song and the album. Bring me back a lot of memories.
god563616
im literally in tears lol and got chills. i listened to this whole
album for a whole year when it came out. Now im so emotional listening to it older.
H. Donnell Gray III
The break down at the bridge of this ballad is absolutely beautiful. Why I love them the most - they make music that is memorable for the times of life you are playing thier song
H. Donnell Gray III
Polyrecycle but he and his crew understand why melody is so important to creating a successful record the people will remember and hum to themselves a chord from the Neptunes have an almost unending repertoire of that's a party anthem or commercially became a classic in some way to promote a movie or show tune we know by heart. Not a whole lot of others can do what these boys do and have done 20 yrs if you can believe being that they were so young when they struck deals producing major artists fresh after graduation from high school. Icons to say the least, aesthetics notwithstanding
Dxrk Muffin
Gets me everytime
El Egziabher bin JoAnn
Questlove
H. Donnell Gray III
@El Egziabher bin JoAnn Amir Thompson is the best drummer of our generation regardless of his genre of music. Even the biggest rock music lovin people say so
Sara Montes
10 years later and still in love with this song
B Kaws
15 years
Hablando_del_a.m.o.r
This song makes me feel old lol but I love it