Three years of waiting, and Will.i.am’s sophomore solo album has finally surfaced. After going through names changes (the tentative title was once Black Einstein), and some less-than-stellar attempts at lead singles (“Check It Out” was planned as a joint single between the BEP front-man and Nicki Minaj), #Willpower has finally arrived. With the 2008 reinvention of the Black Eyed Peas in what the group described as “the digital afterlife”, Will changed singularly as an artist as well. And what a shame that is. His knack for making innovative hip hop that helped bring the Black Eyed Peas into the mainstream spectrum is absent here, while noticeably replaced with electronic dance music with little novelty to display. Where as Will’s raspy but charismatic vocals used to serve as an asset, his synthetically convoluted voice sounds like a bad advertisement for the T-Pain auto-tune app. From the beginning of the album’s first track, “Good Morning”, the artist’s synthetic crooning let’s you know that he’s still living in that digital afterlife. Or rather, he’s stuck in it. The problem is that the sound utilized throughout the album is dated rather than futuristic. While the hashtags and features are pleads of relevancy, the content to back it up is a perpetuated sound that is sonically akin to almost every other generic EDM song. The sound was somewhat inventive in 2008, but is far from new in the current pop atmosphere. However, there are a few guilty pleasures on the album. “This is Love” provides an anthemic dance track that demands blasting in the car and the clubs.
