Third pop rap effort for Salt-n-Pepa. I can't express how disappointing this album is in words, I think "facepalm" does quite well. The girls don't make progress compared to the previous album, on the contrary, they regress towards the lowest pop, making an LP that doesn't Represent.
The production is handled by Salt, Steevee-O, The Boy Wonder, The Invincibles, Hurby Luv bu, Excalibur, Spinderella and Quicksilver. The music is based on simple, minimal, light-sweat ("Doper Than Dope"), lazy ("I Don't Know"), cheap, poor ("I Like to Party, title track) skinny beats, consisting of sung, weak and trivially functional hooks and samples not particularly guessed. The guests are Kid-n-Play, Jacci McGhee, and Sybil.
The rapping of the duo is weak, at its best almost decent, slow, never inspired, the rappers deliver sung-spoken. The disc is pop, so don't give up on the ballad ("You Showed Me"). "Let's Talk About Sex" should be the single-banger of the album and the biggest success of the third edition of Salt-n-Pepa: it is, in fact, a gold record that drags the entire album towards platinum in the 1992.
Delivered in a somewhat lazy and a little forced way, it's a lean, banal tune, it touches the argument it wants to talk about without ever facing it openly, almost turning around it; it wants to be a kind of cut that addressed to parents with a wink to teenage children, I see it as sort of "Parents Just Don't Understand", with the difference that everything works in the song of The Fresh Prince and, in essence, is an excellent cut, while here nothing goes in the right direction.
The album produced five singles, almost all of which were hits, namely "Expression" (#1 in the rap singles, platinum certified by RIAA in few months, and best-seller rap single of 1990 in US), "Independent" (in the top 20 among rnb singles), "Do You Want Me" (global hit, #5 in UK, certified gold in homeland), "You Showed Me" (global hit, peaks #5 in Netherlands, #15 in UK) and "Let's Talk About Sex". The latter is certified in three continents, topped the charts in half Europe, Australia, and Zimbabwe, peaks #2 in UK and #13 in US. Released by Next Plateau and London Records, the album is welcomed positively by music critics and by crowds, managing to enter the top 40 of the Billboard 200, becoming one of the best-selling rap albums of the year and achieving platinum status over two years after its release. It's not one of the best albums of the season, but it's certainly dear to pop rap fans who will find plenty to satiate their appetites here.
Rating: 4/10.
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