Mark Ronson Is Still in Awe of Ginuwine’s ‘Pony’

Save this article to read it later.

Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.

Recently, Ronsons dance card also included appearing onSwitched on Popfor another one of ourModern Classicsdiscussions.

Nate Sloan:What do you think makes Pony endure?

After 30 years, it still slaps.

There was old-school hip-hop that tended to be faster, likeBig Daddy KaneandRakimand fun things from the 80s.

Hip-hop in the 90s got kind of slower and moody.

And then Pony came in.

It was 60 beats per minute.

It was like nothing else.

But at that initial moment, it was just an island.

You couldnt mix it with anything, and it sounded like it came from outer space.

What else in the songs sonics make it a modern classic?It just sounds incredible.

Theres a lot of mythology around how Timbaland came up with that sound.

Its actually funny listening to it now.

I only ever listened to it at like 200 decibels in a nightclub.

To hear it quietly in headphones, theres a lot of weird shit going on in the background.

you could hear his breath.

We forget, because he had so many hits, just how eccentric Timbalands brain actually is.

Hes a weirdo disguised as this handsome, built dude like a lot of great producers.

Chads [Hugo, Pharrells partner in the Neptunes] a weirdo.

You dont make music like that without being odd.

And because Im a beat guy, I havent even spoken about the vocals.

:I found an interview with Timbaland where he describes a certain level of accident with this song.

He was scrolling through a rack mount and then found this particular effect, and it just suddenly clicked.

Thats why his machine was so coveted.

And then you get drummers tuning their drum to sound like a LinnDrum.

That can sometimes just set you off and running.

So much of it are those happy accidents.

One episode ofWatch the Soundis about Auto-Tune and vocal processing.

We were surprised that he uses synthesizers and Auto-Tune and drum programming.

Thats why, at that moment, they were always pushing the engineers in Abbey Road.

Paul was always on the cutting edge of everything.