will.i.am, Fergie, apl.de.ap and Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas, whose skillful but unadventurous new album, âThe Beginning,â comes out todayThe Black Eyed Peas are releasing a new album called "The Beginning" today. But they're not exactly reinventing themselves. A more accurate album title could have come directly from the name of one of the songs: "Don't Stop the Party."
The group’s 2009 album, “The E.N.D.,” was a huge hit, powered by ubiquitous singles “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling.” And the Peas already have a big 2011 planned, with a halftime appearance at the Super Bowl in February and a tour that is likely to include stadium shows. So, understandably, they’re not about to start screwing around with a winning formula and get all avant-garde or anything.
“The Beginning” is basically “The E.N.D., Part 2” — an engaging but utterly predictable assemblage of relentless dance beats, Auto-Tuned vocals, breezy melodies and throwaway lyrics. In promotional material, leader will.i.am unconvincingly explains the title this way: “ ‘The Beginning’ is symbolic of adopting new technologies, such as augmented reality, 3-D and 360 video. It’s also about being experimental and taking songs we’ve liked from the past and playing around with sick, crazy beats.”
“Sick, crazy” is going too far. But yes, there is plenty of skill on display here. Virtually every song would make a presentable single, and though the album boasts nothing as incendiary as “Let’s Get It Started” (the group’s 2004 dance-floor breakthrough), no track is as annoying as “My Humps” (its mindless 2005 nadir).
These songs will almost certainly be all over pop radio for months. Lead single “The Time (Dirty Bit),” inspired by the 1987 “Dirty Dancing” theme “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” is a hit already.
Tweaks to the formula include the classic-disco rhythm and laconic rapping (by Fergie, sounding like Debbie Harry on the Blondie hit “Rapture”) on “Fashion Beats,” and the U2-like rattle and hum of “Someday” and “Play It Loud.”
“Do It Like This” has a hypnotic, minimalistic sound, though the lyrics are embarrassing: “Girls always talkin’ ’bout, ‘I ain’t no groupie!’/I ain’t stup-ie, I know what the truth be.”
The laziest song, though, is “XOXOXO.” The verses sound as if they were improvised on the spot (“Girl, you stole my heart like a klepto/Butterflies in my tummy, need Pepto-/Bismol, baby give me more sex, though”), while the chorus (“You’re on my phone, you’re in my dreams”) could be the slogan of a cell phone commercial.
I guess hard times require hard-core escapism. The opening of “The Best One Yet (The Boy)” sums up the Black Eyed Peas’ appeal, in a nutshell: “Right now is the right time for the good things in life, let’s celebrate/Let’s bring upon the better times and let the sadder time dissipate.”
Then there is the album’s even more explicit statement of purpose: “Play It Loud,” with lines like “I pledge my allegiance to rhythm and sound” and “John Lennon, Bob Marley are my presidents.”
But Lennon and Marley didn’t stop with rhythm and sound. They understood that lyrics are important, too.
For all their success, the Black Eyed Peas have not learned that lesson yet.
Jay Lustig: (973) 392-5850 or jlustig@starledger.com