Tonight's the night, let's live it up

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts.

27/06/10 : The E.N.D. - Black Eyes Peas

Black Eyed Peas are an odd bunch - there's obviously a great deal of musical and marketing skill  involved, but some of their output is what I would refer to, in layman's terms, as a BLOODY AWFUL RACKET.  This is my first ever visit to a whole album of theirs though - I'm expecting some bits to be very good and some bits to be very not good.

Well, I thought they possessed musical skill, but it's always possible I was completely wrong - because this is, well, a bit shit.  Actually, that's being nice to it - it's just woo-woo noises with some repetitive lyrics either sung or rapped over them, often with some vocoding involved to show that, like, wow, this is the future, man.  Well, 2023 sends its regards but this ain't the future, I'm afraid.  I will admit that "I Gotta Feeling" does have a catchy chorus - but when you listen to it, that's all it does have.  And I really didn't need 76 minutes of it either.  Just no, thank you very much.

We're at a somewhat surprising #3 in the chart this week - partly surprising because it was at #40 last week and partly because it's on its 55th week of a 68 week run.  #3 is the highest it managed to get to, but again surprisingly, it's managed eight weeks in that spot over five different attempts to climb higher!  It also managed another 25 weeks in the chart over 4 further runs - its popularity bemuses me.  The rest of the top five were Eminem (a new entry), Oasis, Example (another new entry) and Lady Gaga and we have one more new entry in the top ten which is Miley Cyrus (#8) - and who thought she'd still be hanging around the charts another 13 years later?  I'm also going to mention the next highest new entry which is good old Ozzy (#12) - because who thought he'd still be hanging around the charts another 13 years later?!?

Wikipedia has the totally expected but undeserved huge amount (423 milliPeppers) but one scary fact does jump out - the first two singles "Boom Boom Pow" and "I Gotta Feeling" topped the US chart consecutively, which meant that they spent TWENTY SIX weeks in a row at #1.  I also learned that The E.N.D. stands for The Energy Never Dies - I can die a happy man now my life's knowledge is complete.  Amusingly, the tour boasted about employing the latest technology - yes, it was sponsored by Blackberry.  And Bacardi.  Some critics were surprisingly nice about the album but I agree with the guy from AllMusic who said "vapid lyrics, clumsy delivery, vocals smoothed over by Auto-Tune, and songwriting that strains for (and reaches) the lowest common denominator".  But who cared what I thought - it stormed the charts everywhere and was #4 in '09 and #23 in '10 UK year end charts and it sold over eleven million copies globally.  Madness, I tell you!

"Customers also listened to" LMFAO, Will.I.Am, Kesha and Flo Rida - all of whom I am perfectly happy without having them in my lives.  As, I find to my slight surprise, is also true for any of this Black Eyed Peas album - it really was truly terrible.

20/06/10 - Bearable but mystifyingly popular
04/07/10 - Admirable rather than enjoyable

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