Clearly not made complacent by his five Grammy Award nominations, Timbaland will be taking his hitmaking production to a phone near you. The producer announced that he as teamed up with Verizon Wireless to create the first "mobile album."
According to Billboard.com, the album will be made exclusively available to subscribers of V Cast, Verizon's mobile entertainment service.
Timbaland will produce one song a month through 2008, each time working with a different artist. In addition, he will tour the country on the Verizon Mobile Recording Studio Bus. Making-of footage of this process will also be available for V Cast subscribers.
The project, which will be on a dedicated Timbaland channel, was explained by the producer. He reasoned that "every place don't get a CD [but] everybody has a mobile phone. Just producing a mobile album has never been done. I'm the first to ever do it."
Though he is not contractually obligated to Interscope for the mobile album, Timbo will be working with some of the label's artists for the tracks. The tracks will be released days after they are produced in numerous forms: full-length download, ringtone and ringback. Then, at the end of the year a compilation "album" is to be released exclusively through Verizon.
"I'm just going to have fun with it," said Timbaland, pointing out that he would not focus on a particular genre. "I'll just do what comes in mind." Possible artists to be featured on the songs are OneRepublic, Paramore, Flo Rida, Natasha Bedingfield, Taylor Swift and Chris Cornell. Confirmed is Keri Hilson, an artist on Timbaland's Interscope imprint, Mosley Music.
"How I prepare for [the new album] is, I just do it, like any other album," said Timbaland. "The only difference is it's immediate."