The Daily Spin, August 8
Black Eyed Peas | THE E.N.D.
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
Album: THE E.N.D. (2009)
Artist: Black Eyed Peas
Link:
We’ve spent the past couple of days looking at albums that I think are on the verge of timelessness in their own right - the sort of music that’s going to be remembered far beyond its years because of the cultural impact that the songs have. Both instrumental and vocal soundtracks to Across The Spider-Verse leave the viewer with glorious sight of what music can become, and both shine as examples of music with lifespans most records can only dream of.
In many ways, THE END was set up to be that album for the poptronica movement of the late aughts and early teens. At the time, the Black Eyed Peas were everywhere - both Fergie and will.i.am had developed strong solo careers in the mainstream eye, and that kept their supergroup centered directly in the public eye - not even getting into the impact of 2003’s Elephunk nor 2005’s Monkey Business. It was THE END that saw the group truly ascend into superstardom, though - I mean, the first five tracks off of this record (‘Boom Boom Pow’, ‘Rock That Body’, ‘Meet Me Halfway’, ‘Imma Be’, ‘I Gotta Feeling’) were everywhere. You could not escape them if you tried.
Unfortunately, there came a point where a lot of us were trying to escape this sound. I was in middle school at the time, and though I have a fond, if intensely awkward, recollection of this album and particularly the highlight songs therein, it’s also a record that I have almost no memory of listening to post-2011, maybe 2012?
The collapse of the Black Eyed Peas, to me, is endemic to their trajectory - you hit it big once, this then you do it again, and then you finally hit the motherlode on your third strike. It’s a powerful combination, but one that leaves you woefully vulnerable to copycats - and at time where electronic music truly began to encroach on the pop scene, that left the Peas without much of a home to rest their laurels on. True to expectation, within a few years, most everyone I know, myself included, had moved on to Calvin Harris and Swedish House Mafia, poppy Eurodance that lacked the sawing synths that were so prevalent throughout Black Eyed Pea music. Lyrics that fell well beyond even the most forgiving definition of corny were traded for sultry and explosive couplets from people like Ellie Goulding, radiant in a way that this group never really hit at their best. Socially conscious it may have been, but it never quite managed to be all that it was during the summer of 2009.
Rating: 6.8/10
Best Tracks: I Gotta Feeling; Meet Me Halfway
Worst Tracks: Ring-A-Ling