Neptunes, Outkast, REM among 2020 nominees
NEW YORK — The Neptunes, the innovative production-songwriting duo of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo who shaped pop and urban radio from the ’90s well into the 2000s thanks to crafting hits for Britney Spears, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Usher and Beyoncé, are nominated for the prestigious Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Joining the Neptunes as nominees for the 2020 class are other visionaries who carved out their own spaces in the music universe: the rap icons Outkast and rock pioneers R.E.M., who announced they had called it quits in 2011.
The Songwriters Hall gave The Associated Press the list of nominees Tuesday, a day ahead of its official announcement.
Songwriters are eligible for induction after writing hit songs for at least 20 years.
Six songwriters, or songwriting groups, will be officially inducted at the Hall’s 51st annual Induction & Awards Gala in New York on June 11, 2020.
The Neptunes, based in Virginia, became highly sought producers and songwriters as everyone, from pop to rap to R&B stars, requested their services. Williams and Hugo worked on Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits such as Nelly’s “Hot In Herre,” Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and Ludacris’ “Money Maker.”
Outkast emerged from the Atlanta rap scene in the mid-90s, marking both commercial and critical success with the albums “Southern-playalisticadillacmuzik,” “ATLiens,” “Aquemini” and “Stankonia,” as the Southern hip-hop movement thrived. Andre 3000 and Big Boi’s fifth release, 2003’s double album “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,” propelled them to pop star icon status, thanks to the inescapable hit “Hey Ya!”
R.E.M. shook up the music world with its edgy sound and then earned multiplatinum success and a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The group got its start in Athens, Georgia, and was credited for helping launch college radio with songs such as “Radio Free Europe.” Later the mainstream caught on, and R.E.M. became charttopping rockers with hits like “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” “Losing My Religion” and “Everybody Hurts.”