Pitchfork

"Drop It Like It's Hot" was Pitchfork's #39 single of 2004. A lot of people liked it. I didn't. The beat was irritatingly trebly and non-propulsive, Snoop sounded bored and creaky, and for whatever reason Pharrell thought he could rap. Pharrell still seems to think he can rap, but otherwise the remix is a whole new thing. The Neptunes have replaced the track's water-torture mouth-clicks with some of their circa-2000 clanking, buzzing, wobbling whizjet mojo, underwater quasi-Eastern synths, and cowbell strut. It's a full-bodied, unforced glide where the original track was an emaciated limp.

There's something almost endearingly goofy about Pharrell's insistence on his own rapping ability. He exudes zero presence or flow, and he weighs maybe 80 pounds on a good day, but still he sees fit to drop inane one-liners like "P stands for polish" and to compare himself to Ron Artest. Snoop comes with a new confidence, finally bothering to rap on beat and proudly claiming, "We go all the way, we do it life-size/ Now my life right cuz my wife on my right side." Best of all, rap's Bill Clinton leaves the corner office long enough to effortlessly saunter into the middle of the track and walk away with the song in his pocket, somehow making the played-out izzle-izzle talk sound cool: "Too much pizzazz for these piss-ass niggas to get past/ Too cool for cizzops to cuff his wrizzists." Retirement has been good to him.