Saturday, January 26, 2008

#9 Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize"



And you say
Sorry like the angel heaven let me think was you

One of the signs of a truly great song? When it's on the radio every fifteen minutes and yet every time you hear it while flipping around between stations, you always--always, always, without fail--stop on it and sing along. It is true that had "Apologize" not been played quite so much in the U.S. it might have achieved a higher ranking on this chart, but still, even after hearing it so many times, I don't think I can fully get across how much I love it. While it definitely should be credited to OneRepublic feat. Timbaland, not vice-versa, Timbaland's much-maligned contribution to this ballad ("all he did was throw in a drum machine beat and say 'eh eh eh' in the background!") is vitally important to my love of this song; the original version of "Apologize" would have been lucky to get played more than a few times by me--there are just so many songs with a similar feel to them, and the original really didn't stand out that much to me. People underrate the importance of a basic handclap/stomp type beat and some heard-from-a-distance "eh eh eh"'s--here, as borrowed from Nelly Furtado's hopefully-a-classic "Say It Right," they add a real poignancy and power to the song, as well as just that little bit of needed dynamism, the feeling that the song--even if not couple in the song--is moving forward.

I don't think I'll ever tire of hearing "Apologize" on the radio. In the end, that's probably the absolute highest praise I can offer for a song.

(Much credit to J'ason D'luv for originally introducing me to the song.)

Find it on: Shock Value

4 comments:

Laura (EuropeCrazy) said...

It's been around for ever, but I'm still not sick of it either. Long may Timbaland sprinkle his magic dust and his eh eh eh's over the world of pop. Sadly I was very disappointed by OneRepublic's album, the only other track I liked (apart from "Apologize") was "Stop and Stare".

Poster Girl said...

Oh really? That's a real shame--though I don't know if I'm too surprised, oddly enough. Good to know, though.

Anonymous said...

Cool! See this... OneRepublic) Timbaland video

Anonymous said...

amazing album. i just prelistened and downloaded it here: http://lavamus.com/Album/2321112/Yael_Naim/Yael_Naim/mp3/