The Black Eyed Peas - The E.N.D.

IN 2003, three Los Angeles MCs (African-American Will.i.am, Filipino-American Apl.de.ap and Mexican-Native American Taboo) hired a blonde bombshell named Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson to be in their band called The Black Eyed Peas.

Since then, they have gone from strength to strength. And now comes The E.N.D, the Peas’ fifth studio album and their first since Monkey Business in 2005.

The title is an acronym for “The Energy Never Dies”, and it’s somewhat representative of this collection of tunes.

Throwing every studio trick in the book at these songs, Will and the gang have gone more experimental this time around. This is further explained by Will’s computerised basso profundo voice introducing the opening track with: “This version of myself is not permanent/Tomorrow, I will be different”.

The record then segues into the number one hit Boom Boom Pow, and all hell breaks loose with eerie synth chords, screechy disco-diva wailing, 808 thuds, raps about 808 thuds and a dizzying barrage of doggerel.

The E.N.D. is slathered with vocals electronically altered by the Auto-Tune effect featured on recent singles by MSTRKRFT, David Guetta and Keith Harris. Will takes on electro, deep house, dancehall and dance-punk, to name just a few trends.

There are plenty of strong songs on the album. Ring-A-Ling, blending jittery keyboard figures, is a strangely innocent celebration of drunken booty-calling.

Now Generation, where the gang bellows over power-pop guitar chord, is a rant about social media.

I Gotta Feelin’ relies on a simple sunny pop melody to spread the joy of plunging headfirst into celebrating the end of the work week.

Rock That Body tosses up everything from huge kick drums to synth figures that sound like crow caws to a famous Rob Base sample, while One Tribe follows a bouncing-ball beat as Will suggests that world peace might come from an amnesia epidemic.

No song drives this point home better than Out of My Head, in which Fergie helpfully announces the coming of at the end of previous track Party All The Time by cooing, over and over, “I’m so ti’sy”.

Whether she’s being weepy in Meet Me Halfway or superbad in Imma Be (a rhythmic exercise that demonstrates hip-hop and jazz fusion grooves can be equally effective in inspiring movement), Fergie takes her part to its logical end.

The Peas has left the socially-conscious party raps of its past completely behind, in favour of club hits and the type of radio fodder that’s going to be filling the airwaves these few months.

In the end, The E.N.D. sounds like one big Café del Mar-style mix album with barely distinguishable song boundaries.

The true gift of The Black Eyed Peas is its demonstration that great pop music is ultimately constructed of the two primary elements — memorable melody and rhythm that produces a kinetic response. Both are in great abundance here. — NST