6 September 2003
One of the fonder memories of my ’00s and ’10s in Paris is being in the starting area of various marathons and half-marathons when the sound system invariably dropped some Black Eyed Peas, to which hundreds of keyed-up pre-race French runners around me would groan a pained “aww mer-de!” As music criticism it’s pretty much peerless. These few lines are a tribute act to that.
Okay, the more dispiriting Black Eyed Peas hits are yet to come. (I remind you that ‘Let’s Get It Started’ is a cleaned-up version of an album track built around the r-word slur. Where was the love then?) ‘Where Is The Love?’ is breezier, in part by featuring less Will.i.am and instead the uncredited cooing of Justin Timberlake. Ultimately, though, I’m swamped by its tepid blandness. Some potentially interesting post-9/11 angles about racism, “fighting terrorism overseas” and a contemporary war where “the reason’s undercover” get sandpapered down into inane greeting-card platitudes about peace and love: “To discriminate only generates hate / And when you hate / Then you’re bound to get irate”. But then, for the Black Eyed Peas—a Super Bowl half-time ad’s concept of a hip hop act—inanity is a mission statement, a brand value. They really do go on to soundtrack the ’00s and early-’10s, to which there’s only one reaction.
