Nothing

There are many lessons that come from age and experience, and when one discovers such a thing, one is compelled to broadcast it to the world. This is that. Sometimes those declarations sound like the cantankerous frustrations of cranky old men. But while this piece of writing you find in your hands does indeed center on one very important lesson, it will come with none of that "back in my day!" nostalgia to scare you away. Because this is a story about right here and right now. Yes, there are hints of the future and just a bit of the past, but it's certainly about today. Which is to say: it's about NOTHING. Nothing is the title of the fourth studio album from Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and Shae Haley - collectively, the three musicians-slash-producers-slash-singers-slash-songwriters known as N*E*R*D (No-one Ever Really Dies). Formed as a concept band in their hometown of Virginia Beach in 2000, N*E*R*D stands - defiantly - ten years later as a group of musicians who have worked tirelessly to carve out and conquer a new space in an otherwise nebulous musical world. N*E*R*D was never meant to be a one-off side-project. The trio formed the band out of a genuine thirst for creative exploration - a hybrid of rock 'n' roll, hip-hop, R&B, country, blues, sci-fi. It was intended to be a manifestation of "folk" music, whoever and wherever those folk might be. It culminated in the 2001 release of In Search Of, a thoroughly un-self-conscious exploration of the human condition that, nearly a decade later, remains a standard-bearing, risk-taking template for any other artist searching beyond themselves. Nothing is a return to that form. "It's so 1970s, multi-flavored denim, when there weren't so many rules." Pharrell describes. Shae adds that if In Search Of drew inspiration from the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire and Steely Dan, then Nothing "is more like The Doors or the band America." The sound of Nothing, through its fourteen tracks, is decidedly stripped down - like their debut - but no less powerful. Whereas the albums Fly or Die and Seeing Sounds pumped the volume up with big band rock songs, Nothing is a rock 'n' roll soul album. The first single, "Hot N' Fun," features the Neptunes' collaborator and friend, Nelly Furtado. It is a bounce-filled, sweaty summer club track that has echoes of old-school roller-skating jams. Astute music heads may hear a trace of De La Soul influences in the song's bravado, which Pharrell admits could be the case. Other songs like "Party People" and "In the Air" cultivate the youthful idealism of hearing a favorite song for the first time, while Pharrell spins slick-tongued poetry about the appeal of women. Back when N*E*R*D first started, Pharrell and Chad described the group, saying, "N*E*R*D is a basic belief. People's energies are made of their souls. When you die, that energy may disperse but it isn't destroyed." And that is the lesson in all of this. This group of talented and successful artists shunned a dependence on their past and concentrated on their present, knowing that whatever they put out into the world would always be out in the world. They created Nothing. And Nothing Ever Really Dies.