Album review: Black Eyed Peas’ ‘The Beginning’

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Dealing with the Black Eyed Peas’ dominance of pop radio is like planning for earthquakes in Los Angeles. There’s no use in protesting about either anymore. You can stock up on supplies and map an escape route for your family, but each is a geologic fact, and you might as well accept the inevitability.

With the Peas’ latest, “The Beginning,” the Big One that will topple freeways and leave Power 106 a smoldering crater is “The Time (Dirty Bit),” a typically house-jacking club track that so flagrantly bites the chorus of “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from “Dirty Dancing” that it has a kind of post-authorial genius. Consider it a musical Snuggie for tottering Valley party girls — it will feel marvelous in the cold, drunken and lonely hours of the night.

But complaining about such is like lamenting the rise of global capitalism. There is no viable alternative anymore. The better challenge is to find the pearls of techno-caveman beauty in the coke-nose vocal tweaks of “XOXOXO” or the Daft Punk aspirations of “The Best One Yet (The Boy).” They have a song called “Love You Long Time,” for goodness sake. That’s all the Peas want to do, and they will not be ignored.

— August Brown

The Black Eyed Peas
“The Beginning”
Interscope
Two stars