Elephunk

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Not to be confused with Elefunk.
Elephunk
Elephunk.jpg
Studio album by The Black Eyed Peas
Released June 24, 2003
Recorded December 26, 2002 – March 3, 2003
Genre
Length 59:29
Label
Producer
The Black Eyed Peas chronology
Bridging the Gap
(2000)Bridging the Gap2000		 Elephunk
(2003)		 Monkey Business
(2005)Monkey Business2005
Asian special edition
Asian special edition
Singles from Elephunk
  1. "Where Is the Love?"
    Released: June 16, 2003
  2. "Shut Up"
    Released: November 4, 2003
  3. "Hey Mama"
    Released: January 12, 2004
  4. "Let's Get It Started"
    Released: June 22, 2004

Elephunk is the third studio album by American hip hop 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.[2] 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)[3]
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 4/5 stars[1]
Alternative Press 4/5 stars[3]
The A.V. Club (positive)[5]
Blender 2/5 stars[3]
Drowned in Sound (9/10)[7]
Entertainment Weekly C[8]
Mojo 1/5 stars[3]
PopMatters 9/10 stars[3][6]
Robert Christgau A-[4]
Rolling Stone 2/5 stars[9]

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.[1][10] 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 pop album of 2003."[4]

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.[3]

Commercial response

In the United States, Elephunk reached number 14 on the Billboard Top 200 and is 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.[11] The singles "Where Is The Love?" and "Shut Up" reached number 1. "Hey Mama" has been used for several advertisements including advertisements for Apple and iTunes. "Let's Get It Started" also received universal acclaim in the media section where a cover version of the song appears in the film Hot Tub Time Machine.[12]

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.[13]

Track listings

No. Title Writer(s) Producer(s) Length
1. "Hands Up"  
will.i.am 3:35
2. "Labor Day (It's a Holiday)"  
will.i.am 3:58
3. "Let's Get Retarded"  
  • Adams
  • Pineda
  • Gomez
  • Terence Yoshiaki
  • Fratantuno
  • George Pajon, Jr.
 will.i.am 3:35
4. "Hey Mama"  
  • Adams
  • Anthony Henry
 will.i.am 3:34
5. "Shut Up"  
4:56
6. "Smells Like Funk"  
will.i.am 5:04
7. "Latin Girls"  
will.i.am 6:17
8. "Sexy"  
will.i.am 4:43
9. "Fly Away"  
will.i.am 3:35
10. "The Boogie That Be"  
will.i.am 5:12
11. "The Apl Song"  
  • Adams
  • Pineda
2:54
12. "Anxiety" (with Papa Roach)
  • Adams
  • Pineda
  • Papa Roach
 will.i.am 3:38
13. "Where Is the Love?" (featuring Justin Timberlake) (includes hidden track "Third Eye")
  • will.i.am
  • Fair
 8:29

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.[18]

Charts and certifications

Release history

Country Date Edition Label
Canada[49] June 24, 2003 Standard Universal
Germany[50] July 1, 2003
United Kingdom[15] August 7, 2003 Polydor
United States[14] May 26, 2004 Re-issue A&M

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 21.6 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ "Oficjalna lista sprzedaży :: OLIS - Official Retail Sales Chart". OLiS. Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ U.S. Billboard 200[dead link]
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ http://musiccanada.com/gold-platinum/?fwp_gp_certification=32&fwp_gp_format=25
  36. ↑ http://www.ifpi.fi/tilastot/kplista.html?action=vapaa&tyyppi=ulko&haku=artisti&julkaisuntyyppi=albumi&teksti=black+eyed+peas
  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  38. ↑ German Sales and Certification Archived September 27, 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  39. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  40. ↑ Japanese Sales and Certification(in Japanese)
  41. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  43. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  44. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  45. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  46. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  47. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  48. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  49. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  50. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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