Tracks 10, 11, and 12 from Seeing Sounds (2008)

Tracks 13 and 14 from Nothing (2010)

Track 15 from Nothing (Deluxe Edition) (2010)

Track 16 from Music From The Spongebob Movie Sponge Out Of Water EP (2015)

Tracks 17, 18, and 19 from No_One Ever Really Dies (2017)

N.E.R.D. hasn't released music since 2017 or played a show since 2019, and Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams reportedly aren't on speaking terms since Chad sued Pharrell over Neptunes-related trademarks in 2024. So sadly, this playlist is probably pretty comprehensive unless there's a reconciliation at some point in the future. But they had a really good, interesting run as a massively successful hip hop production team's weird rock side project, and the band has its own distinct legacy at this point. 

The first N.E.R.D. album In Search Of... was released in its original form in Europe in 2001, with Neptunes-style programmed beats, before they decided to really make it a rock band with the re-recorded version of the album released in America in 2002. I have fond memories of the 2001 mixes, especially of "Run To The Sun," which I downloaded on Napster back in the day and listened to a million times, and I wish that version was commercially available. But I also really like the 2002 mixes, which feature live instrumentation by Spymob, a Minnesota band that was signed to Star Trak. I've said this before, but Spymob's 2004 album Sitting Around Keeping Score is a personal classic to me, and "Am I High" is my favorite N.E.R.D. song partly because of Spymob frontman John Ostby's prominent piano and backing vocals. 

Spymob drummer Eric Fawcett and guitarist Brent Paschke played on Seeing Sounds, but it seems like N.E.R.D. was mostly the product of the original trio, Pharrell and Chad and Shay Haley, for most of the subsequent albums. Nothing is the rare album of its era where I think the deluxe version is essential -- there are 5 good bonus tracks in addition to the original album's 10, including a rare Shay Haley co-writing credit, "I Wanna Jam," and a good song with Fam-Lay. 

"Help Me" has a co-writing credit by Jimmy Iovine, and I'm curious what that's about. Iovine wasn't too involved in songwriting even when he was a producer and engineer, and Nothing is just one of hundreds if not thousands of albums he oversaw as an executive producer and/or label executive. "Help Me" does have kind of a bombastic classic rock anti-war protest song vibe, though, it does seem kind of like what a Jimmy Iovine-assisted N.E.R.D. song would be like. 

N.E.R.D. really had massive hit songs like the Neptunes produced for other artists or like Pharrell had as a solo artist, but that seems somewhat deliberate, like this was how they were choosing to use some of their goodwill and music industry clout, to make something a little riskier. Still, it surprised me to see that N.E.R.D.'s current 3 songs on Spotify are all album cuts -- "Bobby James," "You Know What," and "Run to the Sun." "Brain," the song that Justin Timberlake and Malice referenced on "Like I Love You," is also in their Spotify top 10. And "God Bless Us All" was featured in Pharrell's Lego biopic Piece By Piece. I got to review No_One Ever Really Dies for Fact, and I liked it alright then, but in retrospect I think it's probably their weakest or second weakest album, it makes me miss the more band-oriented sound of the earlier records.