Shock Value as an album hits both the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Some songs on the album are great and some are poor; It’s a mix. It starts off with some good cuts. Songs like Oh Timbaland, while not lyrically great, have very lush instrumentals. One of Timbaland’s defining qualities is the ability to make a unique sound for each song while still sounding consistent. When this album is good, it does just that. Some of the best beats on this album, like Give It To Me, Kill Yourself, and Time all sound very clean and often are earworms of mine. Often these tracks are good enough to listen to without the vocals, especially Kill Yourself. On the other hand, there are some songs that just sound bad with no excuses. Bounce is the worst song on the album with a poor dirty instrumental and laughable lyrics. Some songs have a mix of good and bad. Songs like Release and One And Only start off with a promising opening, but then they go sour in one way or another. With the case of Release, it’s the repetitiveness, and with One And Only, it’s Fall Out Boy’s hook. The instrumental for Miscommunication sounds good for maybe 2 seconds, and Scream just sounds like a weaker version of what Fire by Kids See Ghosts was trying to do. But I can’t help but praise the effort put into many of these beats. There is a good amount of material on here that I would consider good. It’s just a shame the quality is so inconsistent.
