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.
Soldier
N*E*R*D Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You motherfuckers!
Keith Murray flips the undergroup cut dope funk flow chromotose
So listen close
I'm like the undertaker turning rappers into ghosts
Host and roast MC's like I'm suppose
I can send L.O.D. to bust caps perhaps
This track is so sickenin' and bouncin'
Make you nod your head so much you need counciling
I flow to a rough kind of mode
Competition run for cover cause I'm droppin' loads
No brainer crossing over in the Range Rover
Insainer pack heat like a super nova
Keith Murray gets it on and poppin'
Shut it down like administrative lockin'
Marble face poetry poverty hard
Perform like the ?
We went from allies to enemies
Stingin' like centipedes
Sit around and watch death come in threes
I burn like lye
Gruesome like Faces Of Death parts 1,2,3,4 and 5
Everyday I got a new style hatchin'
This is more than rappin' this is media hyjackin'
"As long as I'm alive I'm a keep the vibe
24-7 365"
I'm a leader without affair
Soldier without a past
Come around here frontin' and we gonna splash your ass
And you feelin' me you drillin' me with maximum intensity
Intentionally that's how it's suppose to be
Spectacular monster rap or slasher
At the nightfall I'm after ya like Blackula
I rap with a Blackenstein frame of mind
Aircraft fly when I use to push my braids to the side
Slide from Keith Jekyle to Murray Hyde
My battle cry make niggas wanna just lay down and die
It's imparitive that you feel the heritage I provide
Comin' courtesy but with no Jive
? freaka, conversatin' through frequent modulations out digital speakers
I make you give it all you got don't stop for a breather
Turn a rap aethesist into a Def Squad believer
Yo Keith Murray can't be touched
http://www.elyricsworld.com/soldier_lyrics_n.e.r.d..html
Plus girls jump in my flow like double dutch
What
Everyday I got a new style hatchin'
This is more than rappin' this is media hyjackin'
"As long as I'm alive I'm a keep the vibe
24-7 365"
You went from a full course meal to a half chicken wing
Girl you gotta grow up if you wanna do your thing
You can't make me or break me but hate me greatly
Call me on my birthday to try to aggrivate me
Cause when I rock I got all the girls with me
Got niggas bouncin' off the wall like spider monkey
Bury the hatchet in the back of anybody tryin' to match it
It's the vulture new fulture gonna scratch it while you catch it
There's a hole in the bucket there lies a
Nigga dead and stinkin'
For sittin' around with his ass stinkin'
Flamboyant undunted most wanted
Those that don't understand it better get up on it God damn it
The life of the party order hits like John Gotti
But shhh that's on the low don't tell nobody
The scientist of the George ave do work in the lab
Test my experiments out on the ave
They got you thinkin' but they lyin' anyways
So when they gossipin' about us they got nothin' to say
Don't play
Everyday I got a new style hatchin'
This is more than rappin' this is media hyjackin'
"As long as I'm alive I'm a keep the vibe
24-7 365"
Yeah yeah yeah once agian the incredible
Mr. Murray comin' at you incredible Def Squad unforgeytable.
Flippin' the script and all that other good shit
We gonna let y'all niggas know to your face what's up
The N*E*R*D song "Soldier" is a collaborative effort featuring Keith Murray. The song's lyrics revolve around themes of loyalty, strength, and leadership within the rap game. Keith Murray begins the song by boasting about his lyrical prowess, comparing himself to the Undertaker from WWE and claiming his ability to roast MCs is unmatched. Later, the song shifts to addressing the haters and the obstacles one must overcome to succeed in the rap industry. The chorus serves as an anthem of sorts for Murray and N*E*R*D, committing to maintaining their creative and competitive edge in the rap game.
One of the unique elements of "Soldier" is the combination of rock and funk elements within the instrumentation. The driving guitar and bassline, along with the prominent drum beat, give the song a hard-hitting edge that's rare for N*E*R*D. Additionally, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo's production features an unusual vocal sample that sounds like a pitched-up choir, giving the chorus a slightly robotic feel.
The lyrics to "Soldier" are largely focused on the world of rap and the artists' place within it, but they also deal with broader themes of perseverance and defiance. The overcoming of adversity and the refusal to back down in the face of obstacles are central themes throughout the song. By aligning themselves with the concept of being "Soldiers" in the rap game, Murray and N*E*R*D position themselves as leaders who are constantly pushing themselves to be better and outshine their competition.
Line by Line Meaning
Motherfucker
The song begins with an exclamation aimed at the audience.
You motherfuckers!
The second line builds on the first, addressing the audience again with disdain.
Keith Murray flips the undergroup cut dope funk flow chromotose
Keith Murray performs expert, rhythmic music with skilled techniques.
So listen close
The audience should pay attention to the music and lyrics.
I'm like the undertaker turning rappers into ghosts
Murray compares his skill in delivering rhymes to the act of burying the competition.
Host and roast MC's like I'm suppose
Murray puns about being an MC and the nature of cooking.
I can send L.O.D. to bust caps perhaps
Murray has allies who can help him take care of enemies.
Bring E and Red and we can kick some raps
Murray has more friends to collaborate with musically for even comical effect.
This track is so sickenin' and bouncin'
The beat is so infectious and head-bobbing.
Make you nod your head so much you need counciling
The beat is so good that the audience can't help but nod along.
I flow to a rough kind of mode
Murray's style is raw and harsh.
Competition run for cover cause I'm droppin' loads
Other rappers try to avoid Murray because he's on a hot streak and they know it.
No brainer crossing over in the Range Rover
Murray has made lots of money and can afford to drive a luxury car.
Insainer pack heat like a super nova
Murray carries weapons like a supernova with its powerful, explosive energy.
Keith Murray gets it on and poppin'
Murray is confident in his abilities and ready for action.
Shut it down like administrative lockin'
Murray knows how to stop others in their tracks.
Marble face poetry poverty hard
Murray's lyrics are cruel and unforgiving towards the less fortunate.
Perform like the ?
This line is unclear.
We went from allies to enemies
Murray and someone he used to be friends with have turned into enemies.
Stingin' like centipedes
Murray's criticism hurts like a centipede's venomous sting.
Sit around and watch death come in threes
Murray knows that bad things happen in threes.
I burn like lye
Murray's rhymes are cutting and destructive like lye.
Gruesome like Faces Of Death parts 1,2,3,4 and 5
Murray's rhymes are terrifying like a gruesome film series involving death.
Everyday I got a new style hatchin'
Murray constantly creates inventive, fresh styles of music.
This is more than rappin' this is media hyjackin'
Murray sees his music as taking over the media.
"As long as I'm alive I'm a keep the vibe
Murray will continue creating great music as long as he's alive.
24-7 365"
Murray is consistently writing and performing music.
I'm a leader without affair
Murray doesn't have to cheat to be successful.
Soldier without a past
Murray has a clean record and is determined like a soldier.
Come around here frontin' and we gonna splash your ass
Murray and his friends will take care of anyone who threatens them.
And you feelin' me you drillin' me with maximum intensity
Murray's audience is passionate about his music.
Intentionally that's how it's suppose to be
Murray deliberately creates intense music.
Spectacular monster rap or slasher
Murray's style is fantastic and aggressive.
At the nightfall I'm after ya like Blackula
Murray will pursue others with determination, like Blackula the vampire.
I rap with a Blackenstein frame of mind
Murray's performance is an intense like the movie character Blackenstein.
Aircraft fly when I use to push my braids to the side
Murray has become famous and successful since he was younger.
Slide from Keith Jekyle to Murray Hyde
Murray has a split personality of sorts, with different aspects to his music.
My battle cry make niggas wanna just lay down and die
Murray's rhymes are so frightening they can make others want to give up.
It's imparitive that you feel the heritage I provide
Murray believes his music is important for the audience to experience.
Comin' courtesy but with no Jive
Murray's friendly disposition is authentic and without deception.
? freaka, conversatin' through frequent modulations out digital speakers
This line is unclear.
I make you give it all you got don't stop for a breather
Murray demands that his audience give him all of their energy, without stopping for a break.
Turn a rap aethesist into a Def Squad believer
Murray can convert people who aren't fans of rap music into appreciating his music.
Yo Keith Murray can't be touched
Murray is too skilled for others to compete with.
Plus girls jump in my flow like double dutch
Murray is popular and attractive to women.
What
A concluding reaction to a powerful performance.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: PHARRELL WILLIAMS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
mzhotniz86
i liked it better when they performed it live for mtv spring break
Fade2BlackSS
THIS IS DOPE!!
Jessica Singleton
l love this song
xcrunner000
anybody got a link for an instrumental?
yourhamptonspouse
anyone know any songs like this? i'm hella getting into the beat pharrell's on.
crazyxr6t
cool song, would have been great with a horn section.
bazzsofly
dope...so dope
Jeremy Mclean
rhea dropped from nerd still signed to the label
Roshunda Walker
finally...
Jim Green
I thought I read somewhere saying that Rhea was kicked out of the band already? I could be wrong.. but I wouldn't mind. I like Santigold way more. :)