Review Summary: Fascinatingly awful
Since I’m reviewing pop albums, let’s look back at one that was also really important to the development of my musical taste. Two of its singles were some of the first songs I knew I hated, and yet I felt oddly drawn to them, because even then I knew you don’t hear something so awful every day. And luckily for me, the rest of this album is just as obnoxious yet memorable.
Back in the mid 2000s, Fergie was everywhere, as part of the Black Eyed Peas and in various media, so of course, she would have to make a solo album at some point. Of course it would be horribly over-exposed, regardless of its actual quality. Let’s get one thing out of the way. Not every song on the album is awful. I’d say some are pretty good, or at least, more forgettable than truly bad. But the album has a style, an identity of its own: being loud and obnoxious, and I don’t know if it’s just badly written or deliberately trying to annoy the listener.
For example, you have some fairly pleasant songs, like “Pedestal”, which has a nice melody and vocals, but for some reasons, also needed to include a pitch-shifted voice singing “Pedestal is falling down, falling down”. In the same vein, “All That I Got (The Make-Up Song)” is a r’n’b ballad where she sounds pretty good and lays out her insecurities, asking if you’d love her without her good looks. But then, will.i.am comes to say yes to that question with one of the most generic guest verses ever. In the same vein, “Clumsy” is a very catchy, fun song about being awkward around your crush. It’s nice that she admits how she’s not always cool and in control of the situation, but then she does a badly rapped bridge about how irresistible she is. She has good ideas, but ruins them by adding some really annoying ones.
But that’s nothing compared to the infamously obnoxious songs on the album, the first songs I loved to hate.“London Bridge” is almost impressive with how it makes every single thing so annoying. With its loud horns, distorted bass, awful rapping and yelling-singing, nonsense lyrics about how awesome Fergie is, it sounds ugly in every way. She’s not done bragging about herself, like in the other infamous single “Fergalicious”. Here’s all you need to know if you’ve been lucky enough to never hear this song: it contains a sample from the Tim Burton “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” movie, Fergie rapping badly, doing some supposedly sexy singing, calling herself fergalicious (I feel stupid just typing that) and a bunch of other words ending in -ous, and will.i.am playing her hype man. Can I just say that they’re one of the worst singing “couples” ever? Sounding bad on their own and bringing out the worst in each other, they have some real anti-chemistry.
To enjoy the other songs, you have to ignore the mildly annoying parts. “Here I Come” is one more bragging song or maybe party song, but it’s not as obnoxious as the others, a lot catchier too, and she sounds a lot better, except she finds one more occasion to spell her name. “Glamorous” has a few nice melodies, but its shallow materialism and repeated spelling of the title get annoying really quick. I like her more aggressive singing and the sort of reggae/soul instrumentation in “Voodoo Doll”. The other reggae song, “Mary Jane Shoes” is also kind of interesting, starting with a melody ripped off from “No Woman No Cry” like it’s the only reggae song she knows, then suddenly turning to rock on the last verse and ending with vocalizing. Then, there are softer songs like “Velvet” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry”. They both sound nice, although I’m not sure if I really enjoy them or I’m just happy they’re not as obnoxious as the rest.
Similarly, “Finally” ends the album with a nice, sort of introspective and hopeful ballad. We need that after hearing so many annoying songs. I still can’t tell if she’s trying to be as annoying as possible or not, but if the later is true, she succeeds. It’s almost impressive how annoying her voice can get, how loud and ugly her instrumentations are, how arrogant she seems even on songs where she’s supposed to seem insecure or down to earth, how desperately she tries to sound sexy despite using off-putting metaphors or referencing nursery rhymes and other childhood-related things, and how even her good songs are ruined by awful little ideas. I couldn’t really say I loved this album. It was hard to find any song I particularly liked. But it’s still something you really need to hear, because of its confusing mix of bad, strange ideas and occasional good moments. More importantly, it made me who I am: it started my fascination for strange, bad music, and helped me develop my mean-spirited style of reviewing. It’s not just one mediocre, generic pop album, but one of the truly special ones, a fascinatingly awful album
