The first thing that pops into my head as I’m blasted with the hard thumping bass and autotune warbles of the new Black Eyed Peas album is: music nowadays is crap. Everything is synthesized and electronic, harsh and impersonal. Where is the love?
Then I realize, god I’m old. Throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s and up to now, everything teens listened to was crap. Now, I’m one of those old guys talking about golden eras of music when there never was a golden era of Hip Hop, just the era I grew up in. The Black Eyed Peas The Beginning 2CD album drop is going the way all of their albums have been received and really, the same way most groundbreaking achievements are received. Typically, the critics and we old people always hate the Peas’ new direction, naysaying it until the album’s top singles are banging in every club and the Peas are opening for the World Cup.
BEP is simply doing what it always does, putting out their positive philosophy and following Will.i.am’s eccentric lead while sampling with a contemporary world view in mind. The driving force behind The Beginning is no different from their first commercial album Behind the Front (which I still listen to at least once a week on my cheap iPods roadtrip playlist). The twanging guitar samples of Jorge Ben’s Cinco Minutos or Comanche and the catchy Blondie and Frankie Valli loops I used to spin endlessly on my broken cd players and Technics is the same template Will.i.am used to pick samples from KC & The Sunshine Band, Dirty Dancing and the catchy though cannibalistic Slick Rick sample in the hard hitting XOXOXO.
The album may be about new perspective, growth and new beginnings but every album they’ve put out has been about new growth and perspective, regardless of the prevailing Hip Hop trends. Cheers to BEP keeping it fresh as always, leading the way for Hip Hop’s wider acceptance and popularity.
