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Album Details
- Artist: Black Eyed Peas
- Album: Elephunk
- Label: A&M
- Year of Release: 2003
- ME Rating:
- Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-07-29
RecommendBlack Eyed Peas have been one of my long-standing hip hop favorites next to Jurassic 5 and Dilated Peoples. The reason these groups stick out in the ever crowding world of rap is that they integrate other styles of music into their own style of music. This works well on all fronts considering that an entire hip hop album can sometimes be overwhelming without any interference from other influences. Elephunk is the first album that Black Eyed Peas have delivered on their new label, A&M. The album opens with the spastic rhymes of "Hands Up", one of the best tracks on the album. BEP see a new member joining on Elephunk, a girl that goes by the name Fergie. She makes her debut on "Labor Day (It's A Holiday)", a track that sticks a little closer to traditional hip hop sounds. Some of the new ideas that they tried out here are "Anxiety", a song they recorded with Papa Roach. Another is "Latin Girls" which, surprisingly enough is filled with Latin rhythms and a cool guitar sample. Elephunk is a great album but not quite up to expectations. I guess I'm still waiting for another "Joints & Jam", one of the groups best tracks ever. Elephunk will have to do for now and it is indeed a fine hip hop album.
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on 2011-11-03 CharlesMartel Said:
Will.i.am once was a guy who had some sort of artistic integrity. It was as if he wanted to popularise a sort of conscious style of hip-hop and bring it to a wider audience. Less of the odious themes of gangsta and more of the ideas and the issues which really ought to be at the heart of any genre which aims to represent and galvanise the frustrations of any social group. He and the two other guys, whassisface and whassisname, actually started out with an intention. So, where did it go wrong? Oh, I know, they got in an ex-meth-head as eye candy and sold out.
" Elephunk" is the sort of unmitigated rubbish which gives any genre a bad name. The only thing positive I can say about it is that is not as awful as " Monkey Business" which followed it, and which contained the beyond awful panegyric to Fergie's plastic tits. But that dreadful album is presaged by the awful " Let's Get Retarded" which is an insulting, demeaning tribute to the pleasures of binge drinking and its consequences - fighting, staggering around and vomiting. You either have to be really cruel or really stupid to combine those two themes in what is a startling display of musical idiocy. But it shows where this album was targeted: teenagers who think that this sort of thing is actually amusing.
The lyrics rarely rise above the sort of simple-minded doggerel which appeals to people who do not want to switch on their brain cells when listening to music. The music itself is bland and has nothing to recommend it. Only on " Where Is the Love " do the band display any of the originality and the edginess which they started out with. But that track, massive hit though it was, is buried in a morass of the most bathetically mediocre dross that makes you wonder whether or not the Black Eyed Peas comprise the same individuals as they did when the band started out.
The headlong rush for commercial success, whatever prompted it, meant that " Elephunk " was their break through album. They got what they wanted, radio airplay, appearances on MTV and Top of the Pops. They left behind any shred of credibility which they staretd out with. It's not just adding Fergie, though that is a big part of what is wrong with this album, the band seem to have left behind who they were and what they wanted to achieve when they started out.
Rating: 1/10
