On this date in 2008, producer extraordinaire Pharrell Williams and crew dropped N.E.R.D’s third full length studio effort Seeing Sounds on Williams’ Star Trak label under the Interscope imprint. The album’s concept as well as its content revolves around the neurological phenomenon of synesthesia, as the album’s title suggests, the mixing of sensory modalities.
In an interview with MTV’s Shaheem Reid, Pharrell described synesthesia synesthesia, saying, “If you really analyze that, the most inspiration is probably deep inside a synesthesiac. So for us, ‘seeing sounds’ is what we relate to the most. We figured we’d make an album out of it. Energy and emotion was the criteria [while recording], but we made the music anticipating the [live] show. That was the most important thing…[The song] ‘Spaz’ is [an] old school, hip hop feeling with some drum and bass. It becomes a big, tall monster. It’s almost like this big gorilla looking down at you. If he smacks you, he kills you. His fingers are the size of your body. That’s kinda what we’re doing. We’re facing this big monster of, of what we know is out there, of what we see, that big monster of energy.”
Produced exclusively by The Neptunes, consisting of Williams and Chad Hugo, the duo went to Miami and L.A. respectively and consecutively recorded fourteen tracks(two bonus tracks) that aptly fit the LP’s concept title, which was originally named after the group.
A large part of the album’s promotion came from performing on Kanye West’s 2008 Glow In The Dark Tour, where the crew performed the top singles from the album, “Everyone Nose” and “Spaz”. The latter single was aso used in a Zune Music Pass commercial the same year.
Commercially, the album debuted at number seven on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling 80,000 copies in its first week.[Sales in the United States have exceeded 250,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.[It peaked in the top 20 in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, while also charting in the several other regions, including Austria, Belgium, France and Italy.
Peace to Pharrell, Chad Hugo ,Spymob and everyone else involved and making this a part of Hip Hop history!
