American hip-hop group, the Black Eyed Peas, have sold about 20 million albums worldwide. By anyone’s standard, those are serious numbers. Their latest album is called The E.N.D. - short for “The Energy Never Dies”. If the energy hasn’t quite passed away, the creative spark is certainly looking pretty sick.

The band has shifted toward an electro-dance sound, and it has not been a good move. They bring nothing fresh to the genre, and even their imitations of better artists are not particularly effective. Production values are fine, but no amount of polishing can hide the fact that these songs are simply not very good.

The lyrics are repetitive and often inane. Of course, this group have built their career around inane lyrics, but eventually the joke was going to wear off. Then again, it’s even more embarrassing when they try to be a little profound, like in Now Generation -

We are the now generation
We are the generation now
This is the now generation
This is the generation now

Many will still enjoy the dance beats and the electronica wizardry, but you can get that elsewhere, and done better too. It’s hard to imagine any but die-hard fans caring too much about these songs - really, it’s hard to believe the group itself cares too much about them either. You would think they could have produced a better album than this, but perhaps they’ve just run out of good ideas. The E.N.D. may prove to be a prophetic title.