The E.N.D — Black Eyed Peas Album Review
It’s 2009. The first decade of a new millennium was ending with many changes in it. Barack Obama was concluding his first presidential period, H1N1 became the first global pandemic of the century, Michael Jackson died, water is discovered on the moon, Bitcoin were created and the iPhone 3S was launched. Such as politics, health and science, music changed too, and a band that showed their adaptability to changes and how well they handled them was Black Eyed Peas.
Since 2005 this California band hadn’t released an album. Media and fans were thinking about the band’s split because Fergie launched her solo album, The Dutchess, in 2006. But, against every conspiracy, in 2008 B.E.P announced that they were working in the third album of Will.I.Am, Fergie, Apl.de.ap and Taboo’s band: The E.N.D (The Energy Never Dies).
The E.N.D set a “before and after” in Black Eyed Peas because, they kept their hip hop essence that took them to the top of the charts, but bringing protagonism to electronic music and dance. In The E.N.D the band showed their affinity to technology and virtuality since the beginning, with an android face on the cover of the album as the result of blending the facial features of the B.E.P members, and also with a robotic voice on the first song that introduces you what you’re about to listen, assuring that “everything around you is changing, nothing stays the same”
Despite electronic is the album’s main genre, we can find more instrumental songs where they give a break to the electronic drums, the bass has a starring role, the guitar send us funky vibes and the harmonica is a special guest. There are also some song samples from Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock, David Guetta, Adam Freeland, The Budos Band, The Strangeloves and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
The album’s standard version has 15 songs and some of them don’t reference technology or emphasize the superiority of Black Eyed Peas over their competence or their haters (Boom Boom Pow, Electric City, Showdown). We can also find songs about wild parties, fun and madness (Rock that body, Imma be, I gotta feeling, Party all the time, Rockin to the beat).
On the other hand, we found the history of a couple whose members are crazy in love but don’t want to keep hurting each other, so to forget each other he’s into booty calls and she goes to parties and gets drunk (Meet me halfway, Alive, Missing you, Ring a ling, Out of my head).
And by the end of the album there are songs with a social message (Now Generation and One Tribe). In Now Generation they talk about that desire of this generation to stay connected with the world through social media and gadgets; and One Tribe it’s a song that keeps fitting in today’s social context because it motivates to stop falling into government's propaganda that divides humanity, deconstructing all the social establishments that we’ve been raised with and start spreading union, empathy and love.
Black Eyed Peas is a band that, even if today it’s not as popular as it was in the 2000s and in the early 2010s, it left a huge legacy and influence in pop and hip-hop music and offered an album that lasts through time and was created to be enjoyed. And it certainly was.
