Perhaps it's fitting that the N*E*R*D-ey types have recruited one Leonard Kravitz on this cut from their Fly Or Die album. Poor Leonard has been recently carping about how urban radio won't play his records, though many others have found equal discontent that radio plays his records at all. No doubt he's currently finding solace in the slender arms of his latest supermodel girlfriend (what do they see in the famous millionaire?), but has luckily found time to strum a few retro-chords in the service of those Neptunes boys.
Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams' pet project N*E*R*D has proved that there's a thinner line than we all thought between R'n'B and AOR. So who better to pitch up than Leonard himself, who's been proving for many years that there's an even thinner line between homage and not being very inspired.
Actually, aside from the particularly Kravitzian chorus, Maybe is a pretty enjoyable piece of Neptuneism. Poor old Pharrell is left distraught by the disappearance of his latest flame, and curiously, we all feel his pain. Simultaneously a little bit Commodores and a little bit Phoenix, Maybe is bit too much of an album vignette to do much chart damage, but yet another indication that Hugo and Williams can knock out a superior pop product with the ease that others can only dream about.
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