Black Eyed Peas - Don't Lie
*** (of four)
It's been fascinating to watch the Black Eyed Peas complete every step of the selling-out process, from three guys who spit out clever rhymes and put together truly original beats to three guys and a girl singer who used to be a child star now releasing singles that pander to the TRL set. I still like them, but less and less as they evolve and turn over half the vocal duties to the former child star. 1997's Behind the Front - now that was a hip-hop album.
"Don't Lie" is the second straight single to have the former child star singing "No no no no" the exact same way. But it's kinda catchy, and the first two rappers manage to save the song with frequently funny rap verses about lying to your girlfriend. ("Fucked with your heart like I was the Predator / In my book of lies, I was the editor / And the author / I forged my signature.") For the record, the Black Eyed Peas do not advise the practice of lying, but they've definitely pulled a few over on their women in the past.
The former child star - Fergie is her name, I think - walks through the video in various stages of undress. There's a tropical beach setting, a mountain top at nighttime, a street scene that looks to take place in Mexico and a concert from an old, pillar-saturated stone building backlit in green. The editing plays with a three-dimensional feeling layout, with incongruent images frequently overlapping. It creates a trippy but still definitely sanitized feel-good pop kind of mood. Not bad, but definitely a guilty type of pleasure.
It's been fascinating to watch the Black Eyed Peas complete every step of the selling-out process, from three guys who spit out clever rhymes and put together truly original beats to three guys and a girl singer who used to be a child star now releasing singles that pander to the TRL set. I still like them, but less and less as they evolve and turn over half the vocal duties to the former child star. 1997's Behind the Front - now that was a hip-hop album.
"Don't Lie" is the second straight single to have the former child star singing "No no no no" the exact same way. But it's kinda catchy, and the first two rappers manage to save the song with frequently funny rap verses about lying to your girlfriend. ("Fucked with your heart like I was the Predator / In my book of lies, I was the editor / And the author / I forged my signature.") For the record, the Black Eyed Peas do not advise the practice of lying, but they've definitely pulled a few over on their women in the past.
The former child star - Fergie is her name, I think - walks through the video in various stages of undress. There's a tropical beach setting, a mountain top at nighttime, a street scene that looks to take place in Mexico and a concert from an old, pillar-saturated stone building backlit in green. The editing plays with a three-dimensional feeling layout, with incongruent images frequently overlapping. It creates a trippy but still definitely sanitized feel-good pop kind of mood. Not bad, but definitely a guilty type of pleasure.
posted by daytime at 11:21 PM
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