I'm gonna make you work

Continuing my trip back through the 2005 album charts.

05/06/05 : Monkey Business - Black Eyed Peas

In my mind, Black Eyed Peas are the very definition of wasted potential - they had a couple of decent singles and it all went downhill VERY fast after that ("My Humps" anyone?).  I have absolutely no idea where this lies on their trajectory but it feels safest to go in with low expectations.

Oh good, this is actually the album with "My Humps" on it (which as Wikipedia puts it "centers on a female protagonist using her breasts and buttocks in order to accomplish her goals, namely expensive material goods").  And it really is a terrible track on so many levels - fortunately the rest of the album isn't as bad, with some definite skill and creativity on display in many places.  But, it's just all SO annoying - I know it's not aimed at me but it feels like they've gone out of their way to antagonise me.  Having said that "They Don't Want Music" (which is really mostly James Brown) is at least bearable but I can't imagine any reason why anyone would want to listen to the whole album (all 70 minutes of it) - and let's just leave it there shall we?

We're at #4 with a new entry on the start of a frankly incredible 72 week run with this being as high as it got.  The rest of the top five were Oasis (a new entry), Gorillaz, Faithless and James Blunt and the next highest new entry was Turin Brakes (#9) which I would have much rather listened to than this.

Wikipedia has a massive amount (417 milliPeppers) and I really couldn't be bothered reading any of it except for looking at all the people on it - James Brown, Cee-Lo Green, Jack Johnson, John Legend, Branford Marsalis, Q-Tip, Sting, Justin Timberlake and Timbaland are just offered up for starters.  But, they've got a controversy section - yay!  Apparently some critics thought they might have sold out and "made the rare leap from underrated and overlooked to obnoxiously (and undeservedly) overexposed" - no, say it ain't so!  The only other controversy is that some people thought "My Humps" is rubbish, which doesn't really seem all that controversial to me (although apparently it won a Grammy).  However, whatever I or anyone else thought of it all, there's not denying it was fantastically successful - surprisingly it didn't make #1 in the US but it still sold over four million copies there and it made #1 in a load of other countries.

"Customers also listened to" Fergie, will.i.am, Pitbull and Flo Rida - no, no, no and errr no.  This album is quite interesting because (for the most part) it's not objectively terrible and you get the feeling they created what they wanted with a reasonable amount of care and skill.  But what they've created is just incredibly, incredibly annoying...

29/05/05 - Pleasingly tuneful and mildly challenging
12/06/05 - All just a bit too much

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