The Black Eyed Peas are, unsurprisingly, one of the most renowned Hip-Hop and Pop groups in the music scene today. Lead vocalist Will.I.Am has the honor of being one of the last few people on the planet to have recorded an album with the late “King of Pop” Michael Jackson, Fergie has her insanely successful solo career and fellow members apl.de.ap and Taboo have 2 solo albums waiting in the pipeline.

Naturally, with their follow-up album to The E.N.D going by the name The Beginning, one would expect a fresh, new feel from the band that made their mark on charts across the music industry with smash hit albums like Elephunk (2003) and Monkey Business (2005) that cemented their transition from a Hip-Hop-centric sound to a more refined Pop feel.

This anticipation of a brand new start is heightened with the Peas’ claim that this album will be “symbolic of what’s actually happening in the world right now” and “being experimental and taking songs we’ve liked from the past and playing around with sick, crazy beats”.

Unfortunately, even with the sizeable fan respect as the Black Eyed Peas elicits, it’s a dull showing that they have put forth, and perhaps it’s precisely their solid focus on being “experimental” with great previous hits that has resulted in this sad state of affairs.

The opening track “The Time (Dirty Bit)”, is a prime example, featuring a mish-mash of electronica with a slight disco feel, the song is a very obvious throwback to the song “(I’ve had) The Time of My Life” from the movie Dirty Dancing, sung by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, but fails to give a much of an experimental feel. Instead, alongside very lackluster electronic beats, apl.de.ap’s slow verses call forth a boring and uninspired feel to the late 80’s classic.

The next track, “Light Up the Night”, fails to do much better. What looks to be a re-imaging of the smoothness from the classic of the same name from The Brothers Johnson combined with the ice-cool of Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It” and toned-down energy from The Protomen’s very own “Light Up the Night” is marred by a lackluster feel that would probably fail to inspire any sort of movement on the dancefloor . To make matters worse, main chorus “It’s on and poppin’/and we ain’t stoppin’/Let’s light up the night”, which aspires to be the core of energy for the song, is accompanied by very halfhearted, limp club beats.

But what perhaps comes as the biggest shocker of the entire album is the track “Let Me Love You Long Time”, with a verse straight out of the 80’s hit “Me so Horny” by 2 Live Crew which constantly repeats itself as “Let me Love you, Let me Love you Long Time”, coming up somewhat repulsive and distasteful. What mars the song even more is that its beat, while catchy, combines a sparse electronic buzz with a slow dance tune, failing to produce anything but all-confusing direction and doing injustice to Fergie’s amazing vocal range with a very unnecessary vocal synth.

To speak negatively of the entire album would be a foolish though, as the album definitely is worth a light listen, with the slower vocals ironically bringing out a relaxing touch to the album.

The track “The Best One Yet”, reinforces this point, bringing with it an honest-to-itself progressive electronic beat that helps showcase Fergie’s vocal prowess (which has always been a selling point for the Peas) and marry it perfectly with will.I.am’s lower, deeper vocals that would remind any fan of their hit single “Where is the Love”.

In short, the album itself is very much like a club. It’s not one you’d go into and expect a dance floor aflame with the adrenaline and energy of a pheromone-induced crowd, but definitely one you’d visit for slower, lighter dancing.

While the Black Eyed Peas have failed to “be experimental” and bring out a “sick, crazy” sound over older classics, the album itself stands alone fine as a slower mix of beats from the Black Eyed Peas of today.

Artiste: Black Eyed Peas

Album: The Beginning

Rating: MMIII

Language: English

Genre: Pop

Record Label: Interscope

Track List:

Disc 1:

1: The Time (Dirty Bit)

2: Light Up The Night

3: Love you Long Time

4: XOXOXO

5: Someday

6: Whenever

7: Fashion Beats

8: Don’t stop the Party

9: Do it Like This

10: [The Situation]

11: [The Coming]

12: [Own it]

13: The Best One Yet (The Boy)

14: Just Can’t Get  Enough

15: Play It Loud

16: [Everything Wonderful feat. David Guetta]

17: [Phenomenon]

18: [Take it Off]

Disc 2:

1: Boom Boom Pow

2: I Gotta Feeling

3: Meet me Halfway

4: Imma Be

5: Rock that Body