The latest single to emerge from Timbaland’s Shock Value is “Scream,” a Nicole Scherzinger/Keri Hilson track filled with bad sex metaphors (cake! pie! designated driving!) that Interscope, no doubt, has released in large part because the label’s suits still holding on to hope that someone will eventually give a damn about the lead Pussycat Doll’s singing/orgasmic moaning abilities.

What they sort of forgot in their rush to save Nicole from her own personality void is that the song isn’t very good at all; the titular screaming, which is supposedly happening at the top of someone’s sexually excited lungs, actually sounds as if it’s being bleated out underwater, an aesthetic choice that makes absolutely no sense to me. It sounds even worse in the two places where I’ve heard it the most (the radio and YouTube, both low-fidelity venues that make the song’s muddiness even more noticeable), causing me, every time I stumble across it, to wonder if this was really the version that was meant to be released. Although now that I think about it “Baby Love” had a similar problem, so maybe Nicole was the “creative mind” behind the way this track turned out. Which says a lot, really.

Timbaland – Scream (feat. Nicole & Keri Hilson) HQ VIDEO [YouTube]

^* And speaking of: Her orgasming abilities are definitely > her singing abilities, but you probably figured that anyway.