The Beginning
Proving their career is a bit of a Mobius strip. the Black Eyed Peas have followed up their mammoth hit *The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies)* with *The Beginning*, another collection of dance -party anthems. The fist-pumps start with the leadoff track and first single, “The Time (Dirty Bit),” that incorporates the Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes hit from *Dirty Dancing*, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.” From there, the manipulated beats, the crazy, fat synth lines, the Auto-Tuned vocals all coalesce into an extension of the feel-good drive of 2009’s “I Gotta Feeling.” “Light Up the Night,” “Don’t Stop the Party,” “Play It Loud,” “Just Can’t Get Enough” and “The Best One Yet (The Boy)” bring together a necessary optimism to what is the band’s blatant escapist route. “Fashion Beats” allows will.i.am to cruise over a Chic sample with Fergie providing female protection. “Someday” is the album’s lone turn to personal introspection, as it gives apl.de.ap the chance to get up close and personal, but not without plenty of hooting and hollering from the group to keep the party on track. A band has to have its priorities in order.
No one makes fun of The Black Eyed Peas like The Black Eyed Peas. Ever since the former hip-hop group went pop, each album seems to parody the most saleable moments of the last, making for a meta, ever-deepening body of work that’s actually losing net substance as the years progress. Trite, vanilla, vapid, soulless……
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Not so much a beginning as more of the same, says <strong>Caroline Sullivan</strong>, but it doesn't make Black Eyed Peas any less enjoyable