Sean Fennessey

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Breaking it down, one single at a time.

will.i.am's Songs About Girls: The Best Sounding Album of the Year

Posted 09/24/2007 at 5:10 PM | Comment?

will.i.am: "Over"
from Songs About Girls

will.i.am: "She's a Star"
from Songs About Girls

When will.i.am came to the office to play his Songs About Girls a few months back the small crew of staffers present were decidedly nonplussed by "Got It From My Mama" and "The Donque Song," maybe the two worst songs and future singles on the album. But there were tracks that captured our attention — "She's a Star," "Fantastic," the sweeping "Over." At times, some of the editors found ourselves looking at each other in shocked surprised that the man who graciously graced us with "My Humps" had such a deft songwriting hand, incorporating '80s R&B and '70s pop so easily into his glossy rap formula. Eventually will also wowed us with his grasp of the industry and I wrote a feature (one out of about 13 others floating in the journalistic vortex right now) about THE FUTURE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY. The piece was fine and will knows what he's talking about and has ideas, a rarity right now. But I can't help but be more interested in the music than the message once again.

There are dashes of Thriller-era Michael, Hall & Oates, Guy, Steely Dan (I'm as surprised as you), Elton John and lots and lots of Timbaland here. The sunkissed harmonies on the chorus of "Over" from above is pure H&O, splashed with some Beatles-esque chord changes and an Electric Light Orchestra-style coda. "She's a Star," meanwhile, sounds like a case study in Timbaland inteprolation: The skittering rhythms, the swaying orchestra, the "O-oh!" on the hook. And it's beautiful. And now the web has begun talking about will's decision to lift M.A.N.D.Y. vs. Booka Shade's 2005 electrohouse anthem "Body Language" for the pulsing "Get Your Money" — on which will actually raps "Watch out boy, she'll chew you up." So add another overt influence to the mix. Say this about will: He's made choices indebted to good taste. Aside from the horrifically obvious "Mama," and some regularly questionable lyrics, this is a shockingly good album, sonically coherent, even challenging in places. Who da thunk it?

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