Remix: Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Timbaland Remix)

Those who follow Timbaland on Twitter will know that he shares a fair bit on what he's up to and lets his followers hear stuff he's tinkering away on for shits and giggles. It's truly a treat to have a producer give us peaks into their work environment and just share stuff for the sake of sharing stuff.

One thing he shared was a remix he was working on of Whitney Houston's 1987 smash hit "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)". Of course the fans went bananas and demanded the full thing, and he was kind enough to share it. No word on if Clive Davis gave him the okay or what-not. But there's a SoundCloud link of it. For now.

This remix is...not good.

The vibe feels wrong for the song and the whole thing just sounds so damn flat for a Timbo production. Many have commented that the vocals are too low and I agree. But I'm going to assume that it's because the acapella isn't a studio one and that Timbaland had legitimate reasons for keeping the volume of the vocals so low.

I'm a big fan of Timbo's earlier material. His work with Aaliyah, Missy, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Nelly Furtado - it's incredible and still sounds fresh to this day. Timbaland's sound was once truly incomparable. But after Nelly Furtado's Loose and Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds, his sound fell off quite a bit. That distinctness his productions had just weren't there or they were muted. Largely because so many people started to copy his sound. But also because it felt like Timbaland was in turn being influenced by sounds on chart radio, which was never a factor of his work prior and part of why it was so amazing. He just didn't care about trying to make a hit. He just wanted to make something that sounded good. But I don't know what his angle is now.

This remix is a shame, because I feel that the Timbaland who gave us the fire that was the "Say My Name" remix would've killed this. But I still hope he continues to share what he's working on and do more of these remixes.