Black Eyed Peas & Anitta – eXplosion

“Why, why why why.”

Tom: To get the obvious question out of the way: yes, they’re still going. Albeit without Fergie.

Tim: Sure, of course they are, why not.

Tom: Which leaves the obvious second question: is this one of their greats? Is everyone going to be singing it? Years later, will people still get hyped up when they hear it? Is this a “Where Is The Love”, an “I Gotta Feeling”, a “Let’s Get It Started”? Or is this going to be… well, one of the others?

Tom: Oh no.

Tim: Or, as I thought a mere forty seconds in, and then even more so another twenty seconds later: holy shit.

Tom: It’s a four-minute track, and it overstays its welcome by minute one. Why is will.i.am suddenly putting on an accent? Why is, uh, that other guy’s rap so embarrassingly bad? Why is there a badly green-screened Rio in it?

Tim: And why, why why why, have they sampled Tombo really really slowly and without the melody?

Tom: In short: what on earth were they thinking?

Black Eyed Peas – Just Can’t Get Enough

Well, it’s got to be better than ‘Dirty Bit’.

Tom: Well, it’s got to be better than ‘Dirty Bit’.

Tom: And indeed it is. Unlike before, when ‘Dirty Bit’ seems completely incongruous with the rest of the song, all this seems to fit together nicely – even the ‘switch up’ bit at the end really works for me.

Tim: Not me – as far as I’m concerned if a phrase like ‘switch up’ appears in anything related to music, it should indicate one thing: key change. And not one that fits in nicely with the tune: one that is entirely gratuitous and would be slammed by every sensible music critic.

Tom: It’s mostly-meaningless, catchy club music, and as long as it’s not pretending to be something greater I’ve got no problem with that.

Tim: Fair point, I suppose, although I must say this is possibly a song that would make me leave the dance floor (and as you know that’s actually fairly heavy criticism from me).

Tom: That video’s also proven something: the rolling shutter problems I complained about months ago have now made it into proper, full-budget videos. Once you see it, you can’t un-see it, and it’s really bugging me that professional producers allow it to hit their videos.

Speaking of which: did they film it in Japan just because they shoehorned the phrases “love you long time” and “Mr Roboto” into the lyrics? I’m not sure what to think of that.

Tim: And speaking of lyrics: ‘vexed-o’? Really?

Black Eyed Peas – The Time (Dirty Bit)

Is it music? Not really. Is it listenable? Not at all.

Tim: Now, what is this? Is it music? Not really. Is it listenable? Not at all. Why, then, are we featuring it? Because it’s too awful not to, and for some unknown (and to me utterly inconceivable) reason the normally fairly sensible British public have bought more copies of it this past week than of any other single. The thing is, I could cope with it if it was a Black Eyed Peas version of Time of My Life, and I might even enjoy it somewhat.

Tom: For the first minute, I was wondering what was so offensive about it – it sounded like they’d just covered Time of My Life, which wouldn’t be a bad thing in itself.

Tim: I could just about cope with it if it was just the other part of it, although I’d probably just dismiss it and forget about it. But as it is, it’s just appalling. The fact that part of it is a cover implies that it’s meant to be music, but I really can’t work out any form of a tune for much of the rest of it, which is surely a necessary part.

The one redeeming thing about it is that, for a five minute song, it seems to pass fairly quickly.

Tom: Not for me, Tim. Not for me.

Tim: Oh, and as for the video: full marks to the CG people, but boxes on heads? What? I’m also wondering what the criteria are for whether someone gets turned into bricks or not – are these the people that are too ashamed to be seen in this video? And also, at 3:26, is that actually a girl fellating somebody on the dancefloor? Because that’s what it looks like, even if he is made of blocks.

Tom: For a while I thought it depended on whether their voices were filtered or not, but… no. It’s just there because it’s there.

Tim: Although having watched the video I am tempted to go out and pre-order a Blackberry Playbook. Except NO. I’M NOT. BECAUSE SHIT PRODUCT PLACEMENT LIKE THAT IS HORRENDOUS. AND I HATE THE SONG EVEN MORE NOW.

Tom: I think we’re in agreement there.