Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 18/08/08
Label: Polydor

Never mind pop eating itself, hip-hop has come to eat its own feet and beyond after failing to pause during a particularly frenetic toe-nail biting session if the execrable "One More Chance" is anything to go by. To the genre's many detractors, hip-hop is little more than someone talking over someone else's records all underpinned by a drum machine. "It's not real music!" they wail, lamenting a golden age of songwriting that they were probably never privy to in the first place whilst doubting a return to Glastonbury thanks to the appearance of that Jay-Z bloke.

Palpable nonsense, of course, yet Black Eyed Pea Will I. Am is bolstering the naysayers with an almost unrestrained glee from the inside. How else to explain a couplet like: "I'm in love with you like la-la-la / But it be hitting you like blah-blah-blah." What?! Are you having a laugh, Will? When was the last time a line like that worked on anybody outside of a retired gentleman of a certain age attempting to woo a Russian mail-order bride? One more chance? Get out of it - your lives have been used up.

    by Julian Marszalek