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The beginning of The Beginning is a heinous rip of (I've Had) The Time Of My Life from the Dirty
Dancing soundtrack, taking a well nigh universally known song and pushing it out onto the
dancefloor even though its knickers have fallen down and it's chucked up in the toilets. This, in 2010, is
the world of The Black Eyed Peas.
This year has seen the ascension of dance music on a popular scale. While the artistic auteurs have stayed
austere and secluded - you won't see James Blake DJing an MTV
afterparty anytime soon - somehow a guy like Deadmaus has become an
international megastar and a crusty old producer like Ti�sto is known in
schoolyards right across America. The Black Eyed Peas, in their way, have done their best to keep up.
Since coming to fame as the stupidest, most work-safe crew
this side of Bloodhound Gang, they now more closely resemble a
disjointed group of MCs who occasionally come together to sing or rap over wonked, fritzed and
blared house beats. And the beats are occasionally good; if anything,
this new era for the band pushes to one side whatever one thinks of the
specific personalities at play.
But as before, so now; the Peas are only concerned with the party jam. No matter
how brainless it may make them look, the band's modus operandi includes only a
delirious night at the club amid neon lights. There is not a scrap of
nuance. When Fergie begins to sing over a hackneyed-as-hell acoustic
guitar on Whenever, it only takes 30 seconds for a 4/4 beat to start
pulsing, one minute for will.i.am to appear coated in auto-tuned echo,
and a mere 28 seconds to rhyme skies, lights, delight, and
finally, eyes.
The songcraft being questionable is one thing, but
will.i.am's productions sound like the bare minimum one could throw
together and call a beat, usually encompassed by a simplified
drum sequence and a buzzsaw synth turned up to the red and
repeated long enough for DJs to make their paycheck. Take for instance Fashion Beats,
a hedonistic French house boomer that's about three minutes' worth of
material, but in the hands of The Black Eyed Peas it's stretched out
to a baffling five - which does neither the band nor the
production any favours. If they'd stick to the punchy bangers they're
built for, they'd have a chance of escaping critical taboo and
maintaining their commercial dominance. But whether it's a question of
ineptitude or pride, the band has a knack of elongating their
elementally good ideas into preposterously tiresome compositions.
The Black Eyed Peas need to reach an ultimatum: either stick to the
single market that has made them rich, or buckle down and invest in a
real album. will.i.am, despite being a terrible rapper and an
intellectually boring producer, certainly knows how to whip up a
riotous instrumental, and those talents have a market far beyond the
club. With the right group of people (that is, without Fergie) he has
a chance to bring something marketable and moving to the pop
landscape. He's had flashes - the euphoric bounce of I Gotta Feeling
could soundtrack a thousand midnight episodes of exhilaration - but
he's never aimed that high. If The Black Eyed Peas want to
sing, dance and rap about having good nights and getting laid, that's
fine; but expecting a discerning audience to buy this bottle-rocket crap as an
album is pure delusion. If they're truly trying to achieve more,
The Beginning is a pretty awful start.
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