Review Summary: Apparently, The Beginning was worse than the E.N.D.
Who hasn't heard of the Black Eyed Peas these days? After releasing clever mainstream RnB tunes like
Where is the love? and
Don't Lie in the past they have become one of the biggest pop formations of the century. However, they felt like their style became old so they decided to change the direction their music was going in 2009 with
The E.N.D.(The Energy Never Dies). Bringing dance music to America was their intention, and that pretty much succeeded, although the album itself was pretty much a failure, it sold well(over 7 million albums sold to date) and it's singles were to be heard all over the world. And now, the peas are back with the follow-up to that album, The Beginning.
Black Eyed Peas are...
Will.i.am
Fergie
Taboo
Apl.de.ap
The album opens up with the lead single
The Time (Dirty Bit). The chorus is a rehash of
(I've had) the time of my life from the movie dirty dancing. Normally, using samples sounds a bit lazy, but in this context it works, because of the nice clean vocals from Fergie. Unfortunately the good news ends here, because chorus of
The Time (Dirty Bit) is the only moment the album will not make you cringe. The generic beat that follows up the chorus is fine, but the lyrics that Apl.de.ap brings sound so childish and stupid that they ruin the whole song. It is also apparant that the production wasn't really thought through.
After
The Time (Dirty Bit), the fun is over, because the trend of generic beats paired with dumb lyrics is happily continued throughout the whole album. Where the use of auto-tune was paired with some clean singing on their previous effort, it is everywhere on this album, and boy does it sound awful. While most of the beats are enjoyable, the singing, or what passes by as singing, ruins the whole song. We all know Fergie and Will.i.am have decent vocal skills, but they don't show that on this album.
But what is the point in having great vocals if you don't have the lyrics to back them up?There isn't a single song on this album that offers somewhat decent lyrics. Both childish and nonsensical, the lyrics might just be the worst thing about the whole album. Every single line on this album sounds of of place, and combined with the terrible auto-tuning, will make you skip song after song.
When taking a closer look at the songs, the lowest point on this album is probably
Do It Like This, a song which has one of the worst beats I have ever heard in my life, and is topped with simply afwully auto-tuned singing. When I say the worst song, it really doesn't say much because apparantly the Peas didn't really set a high standard for themselves when they made this 'album'. All the songs seem sub-par in every way.
As I mentioned earlier, another issue with this album is the production. The album as a whole seems underproduced, with the beats cleary being more important than the singing, or the lyrics for that matter. In the spirit of their previous release, the Peas apparantly tried to make an album filled with tracks meant for the dancefloor, just like they did on
The E.N.D. However, that album at least had a few catchy hooks, and carried the dance anthem of the year 2009,
I Gotta Feeling. This album has, exept for the lead single, nothing to offer for anyone, not even for fans of dance music. The beats aren't bad, but they are simple and they make it seem like no effort was put in this album at all.
With The Beginning, combining bad lyrics, terrible use of auto-tune and little effort put into the album overall, the Peas have hit a new low for pop music. Nothing about this album is remotely interesting or even listenable for that matter. Stay away from this at all cost.
