Elephunk

Elephunk
Studio album by The Black Eyed Peas
Released	June 24, 2003
Recorded	December 26, 2001 – March 3, 2003
Genre	Hip hop[1] pop[2]
Length	59:29
Label	A&M will.i.am
Producer	apl.de.ap Ron Fair Poet Named Life will.i.am
The Black Eyed Peas chronology
Bridging the Gap (2000) Elephunk (2003) Monkey Business (2005)
Asian special edition
Singles from Elephunk
"Where Is the Love?" Released: June 16, 2003 "Shut Up" Released: November 4, 2003 "Hey Mama" Released: January 12, 2004 "Let's Get It Started" Released: June 22, 2004

Elephunk is the third studio album by American group The Black Eyed Peas. It was released on June 24, 2003, by the will.i.am Music Group and A&M Records. The album charted at number 14 on the American Billboard 200 albums chart and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, and has gone on to sell more than 9 million copies worldwide, with 3.2 million in the United States alone.^[3] This is the first album with Fergie on vocals.

Recording

Development of the album began on November 2, 2002 and was released just under one year later in 2003. At the time of development, only will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo were to feature on the album. During the production of "Shut Up" (the second single released from the album), they realized that a female vocal would work well with the song. Originally, Nicole Scherzinger (lead singer of The Pussycat Dolls) was approached to make a guest appearance on the record, but was forced to decline because she already was signed to a contract with Eden's Crush. Danté Santiago then introduced Fergie to will.i.am who was impressed with her vocal talents. She immediately formed a bond with the band and became a permanent member of the Peas and her photo was printed onto the album cover.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(66/100)[4]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
Alternative Press	[4]
The A.V. Club	(positive)[6]
Blender	[4]
Drowned in Sound	(9/10)[7]
Entertainment Weekly	C[8]
Mojo	[4]
PopMatters	[4][9]
Robert Christgau	A-[2]
Rolling Stone	[10]

John Bush from AllMusic said that Elephunk "possesses some of the most boundary-pushing productions in contemporary, (mostly) uncommercial hip-hop" and gave the album a 4/5 star rating.^[5][11] Chris Nettleton from Drowned in Sound complimented the album saying: "This record is full of first rate rapping, first rate tunes, first rate instrumentation. Look on the surface, and you've got an album full of memorable songs, hooks that lodge in your mind... but look in depth, and it's quality from the top down."^[7] In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau commented that the group "remain unbelievable, but in pop that's just one more aesthetic nuance", and stated, "In which the unbelievably dull El Lay alt-rappers fabricate the brightest actual rap album of 2003."^[2]

Entertainment Weekly had more of a negative view on the record: "They try dancehall ('Hey Mama'), salsa ('Latin Girls'), even nu-metal ('Anxiety' with Papa Roach), but the biggest offense for a once smart-sounding rap collective is 'Where Is the Love?', the horrifyingly trite single. It's enough to make longtime fans wonder, 'Where are the Peas?'" The album received a C grade.^[8] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 66, based on 15 reviews indicating generally positive reviews.^[4]

Commercial response

In the United States, Elephunk reached number 14 on the Billboard Top 200 and was their first album to chart in the top 15. It gained even more commercial success in the UK Album Charts where it reached number 3. It has sold over 1.6 million copies in the UK and 8.5 million copies worldwide.^[12] The singles "Where Is The Love?" and "Shut Up" reached number one in many countries. "Hey Mama" has been used for several advertisements including advertisements for Apple and iTunes. A cover version of "Let's Get It Started" was also featured in the film Hot Tub Time Machine.^[13]

After the success of Elephunk, the Peas were approached by EA games to feature some of their music on the 2004 game The Urbz. They remixed some of the tracks on Elephunk and translated it into Simlish and created new tracks for the game. They also feature in the game as playable characters.^[14]

Track listings

Personnel

The Black Eyed Peas

• will.i.am – vocals on all tracks except 11; backing vocals on track 11; Moog synthesizers on tracks 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13; drum programming on tracks 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10; clavinet on tracks 12 and 13; drums and piano on track 2; Wurlitzer electric piano on track 4; synthesizer on track 10; executive production; production; engineering on tracks 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 12 and 14; mixing on tracks 10 and 14
• apl.de.ap – vocals on tracks 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 12 and 13; drum programming and production on track 11
• Fergie – vocals on all tracks except 6, 7 and 12
• Taboo – vocals on tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 13; guitar

Main session musicians

• George Pajon, Jr. – guitar on tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13 and 15
• J. Curtis – guitar on tracks 5, 7, 11 and 13
• Mike Fratantuno – bass on tracks 1, 2, 3, 6, 13, 14 and 15; guitarrón on track 7; double bass and acoustic guitar on track 13
• Dante Santiago – backing vocals on tracks 1, 3, 4, 6 and 10; vocals on track 7

Other contributors

The album is considered a victim of the Loudness war, with the worst possible ranking in the Hall of CD Clipping Shame, as 1 minute 19 seconds of the CD's audio has been destroyed by clipping.^[19]

Charts

Certifications

Release history

References