Black Eyed Peas, Lady GaGa and Jamie Foxx

It's Memorial Day weekend, and I decided to explore what's big in the pop music world as the summer of '09 kicks off. The top three songs on the Billboard 100 chart this week:

1. Boom Boom Pow, The Black Eyed Peas
2. Poker Face, Lady GaGa
3. Blame It, Jamie Foxx
   

None of the three songs blew me away, and "Blame It" is neither catchy or good. "Poker Face" has the most going for it, I think (it definitely reminded me of something I'd hear when we'd occasionally go to a club during my year in NYC). Lady GaGa sounds like a character -- there was a tiff last fall about her and Christina Aguilera stealing each other's styles, and she's got a funky David Bowie/Queen aspect to her music and presentation.

"Boom Boom Pow" is the first single to be released on the Black Eyed Peas' new album "The E.N.D.," which will be released in June '09. Actually, will.i.am describes "The E.N.D." as not an album:

Group leader will.i.am told Billboard that The E.N.D. stands for "The Energy Never Dies", which describes his model for a project that will be living and frequently updated throughout its designated cycle. "It's a diary ... of music that at any given time, depending on the inspiration, you can add to it," the artist/producer/songwriter explains. "I'm trying to break away from the concept of an album. What is an album when you put 12 songs on iTunes and people can pick at it like scabs? That's not an album. There is no album anymore." He describes the music as "a lot of dance stuff, real melodic, electronic, soulful. We call it, like, electric static funk, something like that."

His take on the demise of the album format seems right-on to me. I imagine Boom Boom will get a ton of play this summer.