Album review: Black Eyed Peas, 'The Beginning'
1.5 stars (out of 4)
No contemporary pop group understands the power of cross-promotion, branding and product placement quite like the Black Eyed Peas, so it should come as no surprise that their latest single plays like a free ad for a 23-year-old song that most everyone already knows.
Audacity more than inventiveness drives “The Time (Dirty Bit),” the song that introduces the Peas’ sixth album, “The Beginning” (Interscope).
The single lifts its chorus from “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” the theme from the 1987 movie “Dirty Dancing.” It’s not the finest moment in the history of sampling. Rather, it’s reminiscent of the way MC Hammer copped Rick James’ “Super Freak” for the rapper’s 1990 hit “U Can’t Touch This” or Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs appropriated the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” for the 1997 smash “I’ll Be Missing You”: clumsy, obvious, crass.
“The Time” credits the original songwriters and well it should, because without them the song isn’t a song anymore, just a jumpy electro beat with a few rap verses. That’s one way to guarantee a hit: hijack the theme from a movie that has earned more than $214 million in revenue and slap it over a generic rhythm track.
Shamelessly or not, Peas mastermind will.i.am has delivered more ready-made best-sellers than just about any pop artist in the last decade. The Peas were a cool but commercially underperforming West Coast hip-hop crew in the ‘90s, then were remade in 2003. Fergie (singer Stacy Ann Ferguson) joined the group and will.i.am focused on club-banging anthems, big radio hooks, and giggly celebrations of sex, partying and the boom, boom, pow: “My Humps,” “Let’s Get it Started,” “I Gotta Feeling” and, yes, “Boom Boom Pow.” These songs were everywhere, barging into any event involving large numbers of people getting down in front of over-sized speakers: weddings, basketball games, wet T-shirt contests, and, coming in February, halftime of Super Bowl XLV.
Yes, the Peas throw a great check-your-brain-at-the-door party, as Oprah Winfrey and arenas full of madly dancing fans will attest. But those let’s-get-crazy moments are largely lacking on “The Beginning,” the quartet’s tamest, most hook-deprived album in the Fergie era.
Without huge sing-along moments clobbering listeners between the ears, the Peas’ limitations become more apparent. The vocals are slathered in Auto-Tune (didn’t Jay Z proclaim Auto Tune dead once already?). The rhymes are simplistic (“You’re the gas in my car, you’re my petrol/You and I go way back, retro”) or silly (“This is the original, this has no identical” –- really?). And the music’s reliance on rhythmic and lyrical repetition (as opposed to progression and surprise) becomes wearying.
At his best, will.i.am brings a knack for stretching hip-hop’s boundaries. There’s more than a little U2-like guitar and atmospheric drama in “Someday” (check out the midsong invocation to “Breathe … just breathe” as the music drops down). And “Fashion Beats” sounds like a mash-up of Blondie’s new-wave rap “Rapture,” Madonna’s house anthem “Vogue” and Chic’s disco classic “My Forbidden Lover.” But the latter half of the album is pretty pedestrian even by Peas’ standards: a bunch of not-quite-jumping dance tracks, flavored with Jamaican accents and Auto-Tune, Auto-Tune and more Auto-Tune.
Though there are four Peas, two of them pretty much drive the music: will.i.am and Fergie. The singer gets some room to stretch on “Whenever,” only to be shoved aside by yet another dull rap monologue (did I mention it was Auto-Tuned?). She’s the group’s most versatile asset, capable of playing sensitive, goofy, sexy or brassy with the chameleon-like poise of a Hollywood actress. On an album in which the group’s hook maestro doesn’t hold up his end, she should’ve played a bigger role.
greg@gregkot.com
www.google.co.uk hehehehehe
Posted by: georgia | November 29, 2010 at 06:52 AM
BEP is crap rock. What is wrong with people!?!
Posted by: SteveGR | November 29, 2010 at 12:35 PM
The Black Eyed Peas are the perfect example of what is, and what always has been, wrong with polished, ultra-mega-hyper-produced "genre-bending" pop music.
Plus, Fergie needs to wash her face more often.
Posted by: KJAnsia | November 29, 2010 at 01:52 PM
This band is so worthless it's not even funny. I'm not one to bash bands, as I believe all music taste is subjective, but the canned, radio-ready beats, constant auto-tune, every-song-crafted-to-be-a-single style is blatantly pandering. Plus, I'm old enough to remember "Joints and Jams."
I wonder if the money makes up for the obvious sacrifice of artistic credibility for the members other than Fergie (who, I'll admit, writes some hilarious lyrics ... assuming she writes her own lyrics).
The best thing about this band is that they provided one of the funniest moments in SNL recent history a few years ago. SNL did a sketch about how big of sell outs the BEPs have become, and as if to prove it's validity, immediately following the sketch, the first commercial break was the BEPs shilling Best Buy.
Posted by: Jim | November 30, 2010 at 11:26 AM
No time for criticizing, music's hypnotizing, everybody's temperatures rising so get down.
If you can't your too old. Music always comes full circle, if you are waiting for something new you will be waiting forever. If it makes u feel good dance! If not go home and listen to those things that make u dance.
Posted by: MEGA NEEGA | December 02, 2010 at 12:42 PM
Black Eyed Pees (purposely misspelled) are just awful. I don't get how you could give this a 1.5. Do you give credit just for them going into a studio?
COME ON Greg!
...
Posted by: The Welshman | December 06, 2010 at 06:45 PM
I started with the same attitude that this was a very different pod the peas are in.
After my second and third listen, it started growing on me and I now understand what they are doing.
A group, regardless of genre, is doomed if they stay on the same course.
When they dabble and play with timing and beats they are opening a new chapter of a book we call Black Eyed Peas.
Very simply they are on a tangent that Will be (without ANY doubt) sampled and re-sampled for the next few years. Looking back we will realize they knew exactly what they were doing, crankin out more hits that thump & bump all of Fergie’s Humps!
Watch and you’ll see, Verizon, Apple and all the others are lining up in dinner line to get a double or triple serving of Peas.
Rock On.
Posted by: Warlok | December 07, 2010 at 12:52 PM
I have been listening to BEP for over 10 years. Their music has changed - just like we all have. They are still fun, inventive, and innovative. I love them and just got the new cd YAY!
And btw - I am a 38 y/o white graduate degree holding BEP fan. No some recent fan who heard Boom Boom Pow and started listening.
Posted by: Karen | December 23, 2010 at 08:48 AM
You know what! for all you haters out there slamming on the black-eyed-peas, you just need to calm down ok??? yeah, just take a breath and stop thinking that you are so big a mighty cause you got a computer that you can type anything on and say anything, they are talented, so what if they have a lot of effects?! when i listen to music, i listen to the sound of the music, i dont sit there, and pick out every "wrong thing" about it, gosh some people are just so immature and need to just cool off and back off and stop hating.
Posted by: Tiana | March 05, 2011 at 02:14 AM
I am surprised at this and other reviews. This is by far my favorite BEP album. It's just progressive and funky. I just can't get enough.
Posted by: Tiff | March 24, 2011 at 11:37 AM