After selling close to 20 million albums as the mastermind of the Black Eyed Peas,Grammy winner will.i.am is ready for his solo release – Songs About Girls. Will has recently produced hits for many artists Fergie, Sergio Mendes, Pussycat Dolls, John Legend, Nas,The Game, Justin Timberlake to name a few… Songs About Girls is produced and written by will.i.am with Snoop Dogg confirmed as the 1 featured artist. He has made a concept album with songs surrounding common relationship issues. It really made me aware of how much is possible musically, he says.Talent as big as Will.i.am’s can’t help making a lot of noise, and Songs About Girls is, for sure, a big, noisy record. But in addition to the kind of hugeness, it’s sometimes hard to get your head around–see “Impatient,” a freaked-up, very busy club joint–there’s an outsize effort to connect with listeners on a deeper level here. Will.i.am, whose unstoppable run as a producer may have temporarily rubbed the sheen off his reputation as an artist, pulls it off in his own radiant, loopish, never-boring way. The best of this batch of songs chronicles a failed real-life relationship: “Over,” which was co-written with Jeff Lynne and plucks from ELO’s way-cool “It’s Over,” leads the pack with a bust-the-walls-in beat, and it’s followed by the excellently unruly related numbers “Heartbreaker,” “One More Chance,” “Invisible,” and “Fantastic.” Listen to the hip-hoppy lyrics to these songs–several resonate through the hoots, horns, and hype–and you get the sense Will.i.am’s appetite for the meaninglessly spectacular has diminished. But then “The Donque Song” comes along. Bouncing off a lot of electronic beats, booty references, and sly asides by Snoop–Girls’ only guest star–”Donque” does its pulse-raising thing in classic out-there Will.i.am form; ditto first single “I Got It from My Mama,” which traffics in sound effects and Black Eyed Peas-type call and response. “S.O.S.,” a plea sent out on behalf of the environment, ends the disc on a somber note, but don’t expect to walk off feeling all serious; Songs About Girls sucks its listeners way too far into the center of a stylish, if gloriously unhinged, universe for that. –Tammy La Gorce
Songs About Girls
Pinned on July 20, 2016 at 12:54 am by Jessica Buckley
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A Love Narrative: Words by Will.i.am {3 ½ Stars}
Songs For, To and About Girls Will.i.am AKA William Adams known for most people as the brain and frontman behind Black Eyed Peas and also their producer. After several commercially successful albums with the band Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson went solo last year and released the album that so far gave her three #1 hits and one #2. Not bad at all. With Fergie’s massive success it was natural that also Will.i.am would go solo, however this is actually his third album. But I doubt alot of people heard his previous two albums that were released before Black Eyed Peas had their big break and never got alot of promotion amyway. “Songs About Girls” will be diffrent cause by now he’s a well know man amd he also proved his versability as a producer by making hits for Nas, Common, Macy Gray, Nicole Scherzinger and he’s currently working with Michael Jackson’s new album aswell. “Songs About Girls” is exactly what it is, a Semi-autobiographical concept album about girls. Some songs are more serious and deal with the good and bad times of his 7 year relationship that ended sometime ago. Other songs are funny, less serious and deal about girls in general while some songs are as corny as they can with commercial appeal and deal with female bodyparts. But they are all about women. Will.i.am produces 2/3 of the album by himself while Polow Da Don and Fernando Garibay do the rest. The overall sound is very retro-ish late 70′-early 80′s Influenced but with modern tecnique ofcourse. While most other superproducers have an orgy of guests on their albums, the only one here is Snoop Dogg. Let’s take a look at the songs and see if he manage to make this album more worthwile then his first two.It starts slow with a more serious song called “Over” about the failure of his longtime relationship. For those of you only fammiliar with BEP will be surprised. “Heartbreaker” another midtempo with disco beats continues where the first one ended with a confession of breaking his girlfriends heart. Perhaps not hit material but neither of the two are bad and “Heartbreaker” is a grower. Music lovers probably heard the first single “I Got It From My Mama”, it’s commercial with great beats but the lyrics are so corny that you just want to plug your ears. Will ask hot girls where they got their body’s from and they reply “I Got It From My Mama”. Later Will garantees that if their Mama is ugly they gonna be ugly like their mama. Question: What if their daddy was handsome?. One of the standouts is “She’s A Star” with great hook and sound. I guess it’s about his dreamwoman. “Get Your Money” is about the good hearted stripper that just strips for a living….and then Will’s apparent fascinating for her. A pretty commercial song but it isn’t bad at all, especially it’s lethal electro sample beat. The worst song one the album is “The Donque Song” is just corny and annoying. Donque is reffering to a the female bodypart that strippers should shake. Snoop doesn’t say much but this song is unbearable with or without him. Next up is the instrumental (or more or less) “Impatient” that sound like a disco song from 1977.”One More Chance” is just as serious as the first two songs anout getting another chance in the relationship. It’s amazing that this is the same guy that just sang about female bodyparts. Or maybe his split personality was the reason why it didn’t work out?. Either way, this song is good. “Invisible” is more seriousness, this is a stripped down song where the lyrics are more in focus then the beats. Another good song. “Fantastic” samples Jackson 5′s “I Want You Back”, must have been the 250th person that does that. However, this is another song of his girl where he says that she shouldn’t worry about him cause he’s doing fantastic. Will changed his mind on “Fly Girl” where he regrets not marrying his girl and not trying harder to work things about, he also says he turned down others cause he was still in love with his ex. Let’s hope she listen to this one and they can get back together or something. Next up is an interlude called “Dynamic” but it’s just a bit over 1 minute. “Ain’t It Pretty” is a great love song about a hot girl you just wanna stare at, probably my favorite production here. “Make It Funky” a funky uptempo indeed, not too clever lyrics and serves as mosly a feel good song. The closer “SOS (Mother Nature) isn’t actually about a woman but mother nature. It’s a political song about the problems of the world. It’s one of the best with smart lyrics. More of this on his next album I hope.Overall, the best albums are the one’s you didn’t have high thoughts of before you listened through them and they blew your expectations out of proportion. This album is one of those. I know that Will.i.am was a gifted producer and most of the songs with or without the use of samples are very good but I didn’t know he was able to write so many strong serious lyrics. There…