We generally try to avoid rejoicing in others’ misfortune, but as music lovers, we couldn’t help but cry tears of joy this morning when we saw the news that the Black Eyed Peas are going on an indefinite hiatus. But even so, there was a tinge of sadness behind the unconstrained delight that we won’t have to suffer through any more dreadful half time shows or Slash collaborations again any time soon, because before the Black Eyed Peas were the band responsible for a constant stream of songs that make you want to claw your own face off, they were a perfectly acceptable middle-ranking hip hop trio who made a couple of decent albums in the early 2000s. Where did it all go wrong? Join us as we chart the key points on the Black Eyed Peas’ journey from respected alt-hip hop crew to critically reviled commercial behemoth.
The arrival of Fergie (2002)
It all starts with Fergie. It’s probably unfair to lay all the blame for the Black Eyed Peas’ dramatic left turn at the feet of the woman who can’t spell “duchess” — clearly, whatever music the band makes has to be a collective decision, and in any case, it’s always looked like will.i.am rules the BEP roost. But equally, there’s no avoiding the fact that in the years Before Fergie, the Black Eyed Peas made pleasantly Native Tongues-influenced socially conscious hip hop. In the years After Fergie, they’ve made music that’s not Native Tongues-influenced, not hip hop, and not pleasant. Two thousand two was Year Zero for the new-model Black Eyed Peas, the year that they prepared to unleash their new direction on an unsuspecting world.
“Where Is the Love?” (2003)
The first hint of said new direction came with chart-conquering power ballad “Where Is the Love?,” the first single from the Black Eyed Peas’ third album, Elephunk. The last the world had heard of them was their 2000 single “Request + Line,” a pleasantly upbeat party track featuring guest vocals from Macy Gray. “Where Is the Love?” couldn’t have been more different — if the sentiment (“Can’t we just all get along?”) was laudable enough, the execution was sappy in the extreme, all mawkish sentimentality and hand-wringing about how awful the world is. But, shit, everyone’s allowed a big power ballad at some point in their career, right? Ah, but if only we’d known what was to come…
“Shut Up” (2003)
Elephunk‘s second single was the confirmation that all was not well in BEP land. Beside being a dreadful piece of work in its own right, this song also commands a special place in the ninth circle of musical hell for being the tune that catalyzed the whole Fergie experiment in the first place — apparently will.i.am needed a female singer to provide the (maddeningly irritating) chorus hook, and offered Fergie a chance to audition. The rest, as they say, was history.
“My Humps” (2005)
Fergie’s showcase track from Monkey Business, and a song that was so jaw-droppingly appalling that even Alanis Morissette felt justified in parodying it (although Peaches’s pisstake was even better). The lyric manages to combine crass materialism (check out all the product placement in the first verse), the least appealing description of breasts ever penned (“lady lumps”), a couplet that rhymes “sexy” with “sex me,” and the lines “Mix your milk with my cocoa puff/ Milky, milky right.” This won a Grammy for “Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal,” doing more damage to whatever’s left of the Grammys’ credibility than a million awards to The Suburbs could ever repair.
Fergie pisses herself (2005)
So it’s not just her band’s musical legacy she pisses all over, eh?
“Pump It” (2006)
We’ve held forth at length before about the uninventiveness of the sampling techniques used by today’s producers, but this was a new low, and also conclusive proof that the Black Eyed Peas had long abandoned any semblance of restraint or, y’know, shame, by the release of Monkey Business. Apparently will.i.am heard Dick Dale’s “Miserlou” on a compilation he bought in Brazil (he obviously doesn’t own the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, then) and said, “We should do a song like this.” Or, more accurately, “Let’s just lift the entire song, stick a beat under it and ramble over the top.” Press material at the time quoted will.i.am’s account of the recording: “I jump-started the computer and made some beats on the train. Then we had to fly to Tokyo and I tightened up the beat on the plane. Then I recorded vocals in this park in Tokyo. And that’s how we recorded the song, ‘Pump It.’” Yeah, and it shows.
Pepsi (2007-2010)
Here’s how things work in Black Eyed Peas World these days. In 2007, the band embark on the mammoth Black, Blue and You world tour, which — as every piece of marketing material that accompanies the tour is quick to remind attendees — is presented by Pepsi. In 2008, the band reconvene to write a new album. In 2009, the album (The E.N.D.) is released, and includes a track called “One Tribe,” a bit of pseudo-political waffle about how all the world is “one tribe, one planet, one race.” In 2010, a new advertising campaign is launched to sell gallons of America’s second-favorite sugar water to a public who clearly don’t drink enough calorie-laden bilge. And, in a remarkable cosmic coincidence, the campaign is based around a nebulous new-age concept of caring about one another and the frankly hilarious concept that “every Pepsi refreshes the world.” And shit, doesn’t it just happen that “One Tribe” is just the perfect accompaniment for the campaign? Wow! Didn’t that just work out perfectly?!
“Boom Boom Pow” (2009)
In which will.i.am, apparently inspired by a festival set by Australian duo The Presets (who, it should be added, would probably be mortified at this), lays out his vision of cutting-edge musical futurism. It’s a vision that involves beats that sound suspiciously like Afrika Bambaata’s “Planet Rock” (released in 1982, lest we forget), copious use of Auto-Tune, and a refrain that sounds awfully like “I got a Kit Kat.” The future is now, eh?
“The Time (Dirty Bit)” (2010)
In the same way that it’d be kind of perversely interesting to spend a day with Charles Manson, we sometimes wish we could see into will.i.am’s brain. It must take a special kind of musical sociopath to just keep coming up with the ideas that underpin Black Eyed Peas singles. Normal people just don’t get ideas like “Hey, what if we take an Auto-Tuned rendition of the chorus from the Dirty Dancing song and then mix it with some ’90s trance clichés and a synth tone that sounds like a mosquito? It’ll sound like someone taking a shit in your ear, but it’ll sell gazillions of copies!”
Closing thoughts (2011)
The public often has unfairly romantic expectations of artists. We expect them to create for the sake of creating, to make art for art’s sake. We like them to live out clichés we would never essay ourselves, and if any of them dare to make money in the process, we turn around and accuse them of “selling out.” No one’s denying that such notions are largely juvenile, and ignore a) the fact that everyone has to pay the rent, and b) the fact that art doesn’t exist in a commercial vacuum.
But. But. Even so, there’s something thoroughly depressing about the Black Eyed Peas’ career arc. Arguably, there’s never been a band who have started out (apparently) making music for their own artistic reasons, and then gone on to court the mainstream so deliberately and cynically.
Since about 2003, every move they’ve made has come across as cold, calculated commercialism. Hearing a new album is like listening to a bunch of ghastly marketing executives plot out strategies for appealing to new demographics (“Hey, if we get Slash, we might be able to hit the old rock dude market!”). In 2011, their output has nothing to do with art — it’s a product, the dark side of the Warholian notion of art-as-commodity, the musical equivalent of KFC’s Double Down sandwich. Theirs is a world where videos exist for product placement (we wonder how much HP TouchSmart paid for those first five seconds of the “Boom Boom Pow” video, for instance, or the watch company that’s constantly and shamelessly shown off in “The Time (Dirty Bit)”), where collaborations are strategic alliances to sell more records, where songs are written to cement corporate partnerships.
And the worst thing about Black Eyed Peas is that they know it. They’re not naïve 14-year-olds or a manufactured boy band put together by some godawful cynical svengali. Obviously we’ll never know for sure, but it looks for all the world that somewhere in the early 2000s, they made a decision to make a play for megastardom and untold riches, and in doing so, to make music in a way that looks at nothing beyond its commercial value. It’s worked a treat, obviously, so we hope they enjoy their riches, and trouble our radios no more. Goodbye and good riddance, Black Eyed Peas. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Comments (48)
This is fucking awesome. The fact that they’re gone (at least for awhile), AND this epic article.
nothing like unbiased quality journalism is there? jeez.
@Rob
Has it ever occurred to you that you’re using the word “biased” to mean “has an opinion”? They actually don’t mean the same thing! Anyway, welcome to the blogosphere, Rob!
This is a fantastic piece! Your insights say so much about the deluge of poptrash we’ve been subjected to over the past decade or so.
BEP have become one of the biggest groups on this planet so don’t know where ‘decline’ comes from. Obvs not a fan :)
THANK GOD! They have finally stopped making the worst music on the planet.
And before all the fans come on and defend them, yes I have a few albums, and I have seen them live and they were shit.(it might be added I never paid any money for such things).
This article is spot on. I’m a huge BEP fan (pre-2002) and saw them live before Fergie was even remotely close to joining. They had phenomenal shows back in the day. I miss the old BEP.
I don’t hate on them that I dislike their music now, or that they sold out. They have every right to, and everyone is entitled to an opinion, whether positive or negative. I just rue the fact that what I thought was the good stuff is now long gone, and nowadays, we barely hear from who I think is the best lyricist in the group, Apl de ap.
Spot on! lol @ ‘My Humps’ and “a bit of pseudo-political waffle”.
I love this article. It says everything that I was too busy throwing up into the back of my mouth to say.
Just don’t forget how good “Behind The Front” was/is.
While I loved them pre-2002, I personally was ok with Elephunk and Monkey Business. I mean “Like That” is my favourite song from them period (maybe cuz there’s almost NO Fergie lol). It’s “Boom Boom Pow” onwards that makes me not feel sorry about this hiatus at all.
soooo, you dont like black eyed peas. big whooopie doo
Great article, but you forgot to mention that The Time (Dirty Bit’s) farting synthesizer was overlaid on top of an uncredited sample of deadmau5 / You And I
Aye, don’t you say nuffing about My Lumps ok, that was a tres quality song. I like it.
You’re not better than anybody else. Elitism has no place in the top 40 charts. Get snobby about something exclusive. By the way, like it or not, these songs are BANGERS. Check a dance floor of college age to young professionals when this music is playing. It’s not mozart, it’s not supposed to be. It’s funny how you can come off holier than thou, “weighing in” on such a trite subject. Perhaps, a better reference to make would be the BEP “no samples” t-shirts in the 90s (not early 2000s)- or, I don’t know, any other sort of information on the group that wasn’t “mother birded” to you from VH1. They’re corny, they’re rich. You’re trying to be a whale in a pond of entry level indie elitests, and I’m not mad at you. You’ve got quite a way to go, however.
-AP
@Alan Peterson
What you see as elitism, many readers and the author of this article included, would see as acknowledgement and respect for musicians with artistic integrity. There is still something to be said about a performing artist that doesn’t crank out pure uncut ‘merican commercialism, top 40 or not. The Black Eyed Peas don’t even mask that they’re a business model with every action dictated by their brand, and that is the source of the vitriol directed at them.
Crap, why am I feeding the trolls. Back to the land of puppy videos and Nyan cat for me.
what? no mention of the “Instant Def” mini-series/mega-schill Snickers commercials they made? The ones in which they play regular folk losing the fight to save rap music from the corporate glam machines until a freak accident in the (apparently nuclear powered) peanut factory they work in gives them all not-really-superpowers (well, 3 of them get powers and apl gets to turn into a dog, not really sure what the benefit is in that).
how can i respect Flavorpill when it’s home to such an omission? go back to DipDive, ya hacks.
Haha! This is great. I never knew Fergie peed herself. You have so many good points, I loved reading this article. I tend to appreciate it when certain people keep their opinions to themselves, but I wouldn’t mind hearing more of what you think on different artists.
Bull. You’ve bopped along to Boom Boom Pow just like everyone else and evidently your ashamed of yourself for enjoying bubble gum pop. What a piece of trash this article is. If they had stayed ‘righteous’ and remained the middling hip hop act they were in the early 2000′s you wouldn’t be writing anything about them right now and no one would have any idea who they were. They’d have long ago faded into obscurity. You act like they owe you something as you bang away your article at 5 cents a word while you wish you were writing for Vanity Fair.
If you don’t like their music, turn it off, don’t go to their shows and listen to something else (on the radio, no less, who the fuck listens to the radio anyway?). You’re a sad little hater.
if they did make a conscious effort to target megastardom and calculated, informed decisions to attain commercial success, then i applaud their genius and success.
@Alfasi – read back through your (thoroughly unpleasant) post, and reconsider exactly who the word “hater” applies to here.
Maybe the art is the very product they’re creating, making more significant commentary on popular success and corporate interconnectedness than lyrics ever could. Consider this in light of bust of Chairman Mao sculpted out of shit by a Chinese ex-pat, or the animal scuptures assembled of found road-kill by a vegan (I apologize for not remembering the names of the artists whose work I referenced, but this speaks even more to the effective businartistry of this BEP assemblage that we recognize the name)
“It’s not mozart, it’s not supposed to be.”
I’ll never understand comments like this. Wasn’t Mozart working within the musical constraints of what was popular at the time? Wasn’t Louis Armstrong? Wasn’t Sam Cooke? Weren’t The Rolling Stones? Isn’t Arcade Fire? The difference between the musicians I mentioned and The Black Eyed Peas is not that the former were “supposed to be Mozart,” it’s that they’re not total devoid of any merit and the Black Eyed Peas are. If you think they will be remembered as anything beyond the equivalent of a jingle, you’re kidding yourself. Despite what the corporate shills will have you believe, it is possible to achieve both commercial and critical success.
“You’ve bopped along to Boom Boom Pow just like everyone else.”
Ummm, no I haven’t.
Bahahahahahaa… I know that was supposed to be a serious post (Alan Peterson’s), but I can’t help but imagine an Albert Grossman look-alike sitting behind a huge desk with a cigar, saying what you just said: “Elitism has no place in the top 40 charts”… Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha something about that line just killed me…. these comments are my entertainment for the night, it’s fucking great.
Wait, wait, wait. This is almost as good: “Like it or not, these songs are BANGERS”
I just snorted.
You mercifully left out the part about BEP’s mutilation of Sergio Mendes. Their clumsy, Crayola rhymes only highlighted their blighted sensibilities.
Didn’t mention “I got a feeling” Did you? Know why? Because that song is an instant standard, a classic of the genre and a hit that will continue to get played and enjoyed long after anyone remembers anything you’ve ever written. 88 million hits and counting, but it’s a piece of shit, right?
Know what else, millions and millions of people have enjoyed their music, payed for their shows, followed their careers because they are so good at what they do and they’ve brought those people some pleasure. You’re not the first person who’s ever called a hugely successful band sellouts and hacks, and you won’t be the last. In fact your article and it’s entire premise is so hackneyed, tired and played that it’s practically plagiarism.
You want to talk about lack of originality? Look no further than what you wrote.
@Jeffro, the benefit is you get to lick your own balls. Oh and I hate “The Time (Dirty Bit)” too.
Alfasi, you do know that it’s possible to write a catchy song that’s also GOOD, right? It doesn’t have to be a cheesy, soulless pop song with shit lyrics and obnoxious singers to become an anthem, or to be danceable and enjoyable.
I don’t understand why people are getting mad over this article. I found it pretty amusing. I think part of selling out (which is not a phrase I like to throw around, but it clearly applies here) is being able to accept when someone calls your music shit. BEP don’t care when a critic calls their music shit because they sell millions of records. Their fans shouldn’t care either. If the whole joy of listening to this music is thoughtless fun, then why get all uppity if someone writes an article about how they have no artistic merit? Because it shouldn’t matter, right?
It’s like if someone posted an article about how fast food is bad for you (something everyone knows) and someone was like FUCK YOU BIG MACS ARE DELICIOUS THEY’VE SOLD MILLIONS. That’s not really the point.
Hey, Alfasi, 585 people like this article and one person (you) hates it. By your own logic, this makes the article awesome and you an epic fuckstick. QED. Thank you and goodnight.
@ Michael – I was going to respond to this thread, but you summed it up nicely with that last line. The whole plagiarism/originality argument is pretty devoid of any thought to the critique. Of course, people are going to dance to it, it’s entertainment. But there is a huge difference between entertainers and artists (of course with some interconnection). Maybe it’s a difference between political consciousness, where BEB were a progressive group (and still were commercially successful) until their radical lines were replaced by random hyperbole (POW POW BOOM BOOM HUMP HUMP SHUT UP!).
I think I would have liked the article even more if there was reference to pre-2003 BEB, to really see the breaking point in their artistry.
BEP aren’t drug dealers ruining people’s lives, or junk food peddlers. You can’t equate the two. Nobody needs music to live, or gets addicted to a tune to the point they will rob someone to hear it again. It IS relevant that millions and millions of people enjoy their music, because it’s not hurting anyone and brings pleasure to those people- guilt and harm free. By calling them sellouts, evil, shameless manipulators of the media and culture, you sound like you think that listening to their music is going to rot your brain and turn you into a zombie because you enjoy it. Well it’s not. Music gets you on a gut level that goes beyond what you THINK about it. If it turns you on and makes you feel good then it’s doing something right. And @Otis, thanks so much for cracking me up. Fuckstick….it’s got a ring to it.
Wow, I thought I was the only one that thought their music was crap. I never could figure out what purpose Fergie served by being there. Did she really pee her pants? Your analysis was great; I won’t shed a tear over their “hiatus”.
awesome….thank you so much…I am so happy to see them go
[...] (NME) and “Celebrating the Black Eyed Peas’ Hiatus by Charting Their Decline” (Flavorwire) typified the general [...]
Superbowl in Dallas.Worst performance EVER!!!!!!!
I’m pretty sure Fergie is actually a man.
[...] (NME) and “Celebrating the Black Eyed Peas’ Hiatus by Charting Their Decline” (Flavorwire) typified the general [...]
I think generally the more successful an artist is, the more critics hate them. It’s seen to be cool to hate popular things, and I think this is what has happened with the Black Eyed Peas. Music critics are tripping over themselves to see who can hate them more, to try and appear cool. And then when they break records, the critics look like idiots, so hate them more, it’s a bit of a vicious circle.
Any group that can top the charts for 26 consecutive weeks is obviously doing something right. So if they did “sell out” they’ve obviously done it very well, and you can’t become that successful by accident.
I personally view the Black Eyed Peas as the lowest common denominators of music. Something everyone likes, whether they admit to it or not. The Black Eyed Peas are a bit like tabloid newspapers; no-one wants to admit to reading them, but they sell millions of copies, and everyone likes to flick through one to read the latest celebrity scandal.
And also, this whole “their music is awful” thing is rubbish. Different people enjoy different music. Each and to their own. I don’t see why people constantly try to impose their music tastes on other people. A lot of the people who dislike the Black Eyed Peas are indie fans. If someone turned round to them and said that their music choice is bad, they would get really defensive.
Disliking the mainstream to appear cool is as shallow as people like to make out Black Eyed Peas songs are.
The Black Eyed Peas music is about having fun. You should all try it sometime.
hey Luke how is it going
[...] (NME) and “Celebrating the Black Eyed Peas’ Hiatus by Charting Their Decline” (Flavorwire) typified the general response. The Black Eyed Peas have long been the most successful widely [...]
Last I heard, Fergie was something like 6 million in debt. I guess “Glamorous” has a down side – you can still luv outside your means.
been saying this for the longest! they are garbage!
I can’t believe we live in a world where ignorant fools actually believe that quality is consistently and definitively measured by popularity and mainstream success. Especially when it’s exactly why BEP are deemed as sellouts
Quite frankly this article is a hilarious waste of time–
music is subjective. me explaining why i don’t like the way a beat ‘sounds’ will probably not make much sense to someone who likes it. this is why most middle-aged white people hate rap. all rap. you probably will never convince them otherwise. we all know this can’t be true. rap is a huge-selling genre and critics exist within the genre itself. how can these two things be true? music is about your environment. music is about your shared experience. music is about your soul. the notion that people everywhere ‘hate’ the peas is simply untrue. while popularity doesn’t necessarily indicate quality in your opinion, it certainly indicates that many other people think that the popular item is quality-enough to be worth paying for. people aren’t zombies buying music cuz of cleverly-placed corporate cues. they buy it cuz they like it. it makes them feel a certain way. and let’s be honest, music is just vibrations and sounds. if the peas don’t register for you, that’s perfectly alright. but to perpetuate the idea that somehow they are just incredibly disliked and only popular because people are ‘stupid’ is simply ignorant and egotistical on your part.
Personally none of their songs do much for me.. scary to think they earned $80m in 2006 so I guess they are going to have the last laugh at their hiatus! :-/
O.K. – gloves off. Anyone defending post-Fergie BEP here can eat a dick, seriously. I bet you still defend Vanilla Ice, too?
This isn’t musical elitism. I spent about 40 hrs/wk from 2009-2011 having to hear crap pop radio, and BEP are the worst of the bunch. I grew to like Lady Gaga, I have no beef with Kelly Clarkson, Britney became meh, Pink has a few enjoyable songs. So no, I’m not listening to them compared to the Smiths, Pavement, etc, but as one-off radio dance tracks.
And I must say, FUCK BEP. I’ll take Soulja Boy over BEP, maybe even Pitbull over BEP. Xtina Aguilera may be bland as hell, but she’s not as condescendingly, bottom-feedingly wretched as BEP.
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