will.i.am — #willpower

I don't know what to add. Six years later, will.i.am. returns to release as a solo artist, it's his fourth album. 65 minutes divided into 15 tracks. Stop with the hip-hop, finally, now let's move on to EDM, which brought so much good and so much money to the Black Eyed Peas. Before their break.

Released by his label and distributed by Interscope, the CD ranks worldwide, comes third in the UK, ninth in the US, and is certified on four continents. It's his biggest commercial success as a solo artist and seven singles are released, half of the album: five out of seven are certified platinum, "This Is Love" is first in all of Europe, "Scream & Shout" is a world super hit, first on five continents, first in Lebanon! Platinum in fourteen countries, and one of the best-selling dance tracks of the decade.

The whole project seems like a corollary, a testament, a last, inevitable, necessary and irreproachable declaration of authenticity of Murphy's law: all the mistakes that could have been made, have been made.

Will.i.am is the lead producer of the record, joined by fifteen other people: every rhythm is horrible, impossible to carry on. When this guy raps, he's really one of the poorest performers in history. When this guy sings, you almost regret the moments he raps, he's even worse. He can't rap and can't sing. Autotune cannot save him. He has no charisma, he has no personality, he has no talent, he cannot carry on the CD neither alone nor accompanied by guests, no matter how competent they may be.

The guests are a manifesto of the typical modern mainstream pop album: there are some rappers, some singers, some school friends, some pop stars, people with connections, people passing by in the studio by chance, internet phenomena, half rappers, half singers. There's a k-pop group. It's hard to say anything positive about most of the guests, they're going pretty light-hearted, effortlessly, they're doing nothing and they're not doing it right. I don't recognize Juicy J. Nicole Scherzinger isn't that thing, she has also done good things in her career. Britney brings out the lifetime hit of will.i.am and that's all her. Justin Bieber humiliates him. The song with Chris Brown is soon removed because, will.i.am, not knowing how to make music, is convinced that he can steal it from others. The track is replaced with "Feelin' Myself", which is a sensational choice: your album went really bad when your best rapper is Miley Cyrus! Props to her overshadowing everyone else in that track.

All this over music that's a euphemism to call music, it's just insignificant noise that repeats itself over and over for an hour. The title with the hashtag and the cover are among the worst of the season. 1/10.