Timbaland: Shock Value II

Few albums have been less felicitously titled than Timbaland's third solo effort, a defiantly unshocking, star-saturated drag that confirms the creative decline of the once groundbreaking super-producer. Even the best tracks, like Justin Timberlake duet "Carry Out", are merely passable, weighed down by his own leaden rapping and with nothing new to add to the familiar, futurist R&B formula. Elsewhere, hook-ups with MOR merchants The Fray and One Republic prove as cynically saccharine as you'd expect, and the tawdry dance-pop of Katy Perry collaboration "If We Ever Meet Again" suggests he may yet become the new Pete Waterman.