Timbaland feat OneRepublic: 'Apologize'

Timbaland is like dog muck these days, he gets absolutely ruddy everywhere. Every Tom, Dick and struggling rap artist going appears to have spent some time chewing the fat and dropping some beats with the hip-hop supremo. The Hives, Nelly Furtado, Eve, Justin Timberlake, The Pussycat Dolls, 50 Cent, Bjork...the list does go on...and on. Colorado pop-rockers OneRepublic are the latest to be given the Timba' treatment, with their bland Maroon 5-esque balladeering getting a desperately required facelift.

Timba' tries his hardest, bless him, to gift the trad-rockers a bit of belly and clout, offering up the mixture of layered production and measured beats that helped turn Nelly Furtado back into the pop-temptress that we all loved back in her flying like a bird days. But it's not enough to save this load of codswallop from the dustbin. It's the sort of music that makes you thankful you don't live in America, where the radio stations lap this lukewarm, sickly nonsense up like cats on the hunt for cream. Even Westlife - the long-standing torchbearers for all things bland and grey - probably think this is a bit dreary.