will.i.am shittin’ on y’all opens the Jukebox’s first-ever Slightly Delayed Tuesday…
[Video][MySpace]
[5.36]
Hillary Brown: This shit is more like plantains, maybe, than bananas.
[5]
Martin Kavka: How can a song that proclaims itself to be futuristic end up sounding so much like hip-hop from the early ’80s, especially Afrika Bambataa’s “Planet Rock”? How can Fergie proclaim herself to be “so 3008” when a guy in her own crew ends up quoting the title of Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”? I’ve got nothing against a track that seeks to be tweens’ first taste of adulthood, and this is not ineffective (despite a very annoyingly buzzy note that is sustained throughout almost the entire track). But let’s not conclude that this is anything more than a retread of past futurisms.
[7]
Ian Mathers: If any band sounds ridiculous making boastful claims about how far ahead of the curve they are, it’s these jackasses. Will.i.am is a half decent producer, but he and Fergie are two of the least welcome vocal presences on any songs, anywhere, and this is no exception. They are, apparently, shittin’ on ya with the boom boom pow. Doesn’t that sound delightful? And does Fergie really need Autotuning? And why is the production so schizophrenic?
[3]
John M. Cunningham: I’m tempted to laud will.i.am for the austere production here, which sounds like little else on pop radio, but the song’s disparate elements wind up jarring. (The eerie, mechanical spell of the first half, with its slithery digitized warbles, is broken when Fergie decides to belt it like she’s at a rodeo.) I’m not sure this works on even a superficial level.
[4]
Jordan Sargent: As it turned out, accidental avant-garde pop suited will and Fergie much better than pre-Kidz Bop’d party starters, or at the very least the Peas work best when they get retarded rather when they implore us to. “Boom Boom Pow”‘s weirdness:catchiness ratio is far higher than that of “My Humps”, so it’s unlikely that it will also rule the world. That would be a small shame though, as it would be pretty cool to have a song on US radio that sounds like T-Pain hooking up with Bangladesh to do funky house. Also, “shittin on y’all with the boom boom!” > “my lovely lady lumps”.
[8]
Martin Skidmore: Autotune is all over this, which loses it points with me, but I do like the beats, kind of minimal with shuddering synths and rather spooky high tones – reminds me a lot of hyphy. Hard to imagine Keak on silly club lyrics like this, but for me that thought emphasises the lack of character and human warmth that the vocoder brings to so much of this – you can’t imagine robots rocking anything.
[6]
Al Shipley: Fergie’s run of solo hits was so solid, sometimes even spectacular, that my otherwise low expectations for BEP were a little raised for this, especially when the most immediate point of comparison was clearly “Fergalicious.” Even at the same tempo, however, it lacks that song’s relentless pace, and the sonic ugliness of the AutoTune blather and droning synths drag down what would otherwise be a promisingly bonkers comeback.
[5]
Additional Scores
Dave Moore: [6]
Edward Okulicz: [2]
Alex Wisgard: [6]
Scott Woods: [7]