It’s easy to forget just how ubiquitous the sound of The Neptunes has actually been for over 30 years in music. Not just hip hop, but numerous genres for pop to EDM to even rock hybrids have been touched by the marching band drumbeats of Pharrell Williams and futuristic synth sounds of Chad Hugo. I would stop short of saying they’re the most influential producer duo of our generation, but an argument can be made for greatness when you consider the vastness of their catalog. In Williams’ case, his sounds and influence go beyond just a producer and into the spotlight of performance, fashion, and general frontman feature across the board. “Piece by Piece” centers the part of the duo that craves the attention, and for such a soft spoken, largely quiet and out of the controversy limelight, Williams was certainly born to be in front of the camera.
For such a unique sound and frankly, unique visionary of music, “Piece by Piece” being animated with LEGOs makes more sense than it should. It actually matches the energy of sound perfectly, and visually expresses the building blocks of musical composition and bursts of colorful vibrancy that comes when the beat hits your ear drums. It’s not uncommon for famed producers to talk about how the see what they hear, how they literally visualize the melodies in shapes and visions and colors. “Piece by Piece” translates the abstract relationship Pharrell has with music in stunning, gorgeous LEGO animation to great effect, taking us on a visualized journey of some of our favorite club and anthem bops. I’m 40 years old, so the sounds of The Neptunes comprise a large part of myseminal hip hop years. A journey through the greatest hits with LEGOs is tailor made for an elder millennials like myself, and “Piece by Piece” had me nodding my head and whispering “ooooo this my SHIT!” on numerous occasions. I mean c’mon, he taught an entire generation how to properly spell bananas.
It is gorgeous to look at, but “Piece by Piece” isn’t as sturdy underneath the visuals to be as long lasting as its unique presentation. Once the layer of animation wears off or thin depending on your milage, what you’re left with is a standard, run of the mill bio-doc that plays all the familiar notes and hits like a Behind the Music episode. And while the animation should allow the subject an opportunity to be more vulnerable, everything in “Piece by Piece” feels incredibly safe. It doesn’t help either that WIlliams’ entire career has largely been controversy free, with no real rock bottom to crawl back from or major career woes that would otherwise give you a rise and fall and rise again story. Williams’ has essentially operated with little to no adversity, and whether or not he did have any doesn’t seem to matter too much for director Morgan Neville or WIlliams himself. His biggest struggle in the entirety of “Piece by Piece” is that he didn’t have a hit for 3 years.
Existential and creative crises are no stranger in musical bio-docs, but Pharrell rose to the top and stayed there for over 20 years, so not banging out a bop for 3 years to focus on himself and regain some creative juices feels more like a sabbatical than a documentary climax. And while “Piece is Piece” is primarily about WIlliams (as he is the prime subject), his career is intrinsically tied to his long time partner and collaborator Chad Hugo. The film only kind of touches on this vital relationship, framing most of the success as a sort of Williams first, everyone else second. Which, if you know anything about the Neptunes, is just simply not the case. And if we’re rewriting history, Virginia Beach was a hotbed of hip hop before and during Pharrell’s rise, something again Neville doesn’t seem all that concerned with examining even through the lens of his subject. The fact that Timbaland is relegated to a footnote mention and Missy Elliot is practically mentioned in passing just seems irresponsible and not a genuine whollistic approach to how Pharrell fit into the larger scene popping off at the time.
And there’s more missing from “Piece by Piece” that I would argue is far more interesting than a juke box bangers montage. Things like their early collaborations with Kelis, who doesn’t appear in the film at all and WIlliams’ produced 3 full albums of hers before “Milkshake” ever hit the charts. “Grindin” is featured briefly, but as a savior of Pusha T’s career, out of order in the timeline of Pharells’ own success, and never mentioned as the actual Clipse hit and their new label that the Neptunes were launching before they were put on and brought up. I get that you can’t include everything, but again, without its unique animation style, “Piece by Piece” doesn’t really tell us anything we don’t already know. This is an opportunity for both Neville and WIlliams to really dig deep into his life and career, all parts of it good and bad and young and old and paint of picture of his longevity and the relationships that quite literally got him to where he is. But “Piece by Piece” is more focused on its style and including every single head mover it can in its runtime.
It’s a shame too, because this had the opportunity to be something truly special and unique. A tale of someone always on the fringes, a band geek who became one of the most successful producers in hip hop and expanded out to become a performer and is STILL making hits to this day. There’s a much richer text than how long it took him to write “Happy.” “Piece by Piece” just looks too good to be this bland. It is truly some of the best LEGO animation I’ve seen so far. I just wish the subject was as compelling as the visuals.
Still, even for all its familiarity and lack boundary pushing story to match its boundary pushing visuals, “Piece by Piece” will have you humming your favorite Neptunes track on your way back to your car when you leave the theater. It is almost impossible not to enjoy the trip down memory lane of banger after banger and after banger, and I can’t pretend like I wasn’t nodding my head and getting into the groove with every new needle drop. I guess you could say I was just Frontin’. I’m gonna stop myself from writing a paragraph of William’s song puns. Just know I could do it if I wanted to.
It might seem crazy what I’m about to say, but I wish “Piece by Piece” was more than just a beautifully animated Spotify playlist.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
“Piece by Piece” is in theaters Oct 11th. You can watch the trailer below.
