Will.I.Am”s solo efforts have yet to yield any of the traction that his Black Eyed Peas” success has brought.
Will that change with “This is Love,” presumably the next single from his forthcoming solo album, #willpower. The first single was non-starter “T.H.E.” featuring Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger. Our guess is that the answer is no.
[More after the jump…]
To his credit, “This is Love,” produced by Swedish House Mafia, is more than the usual BEP series of grunts and sounds that they take to the top of the charts. Here Will.I.Am sings and raps and gets very autotuned at parts on the song that debuted on Britain”s Capital FM radio on Monday, according to Billboard. He’s doing his best Bob Marley at sending out a “Love all” message.
The song opens with a nice piano run and Will.I.Am singing. Vocalist Eva Simons, clearly playing the Fergie role, comes in asking “Can you feel the love?” From there, it goes into hard dance mode and Will.I.Am comes back rapping, talking about his love for the beat and the melody and he”s got a rocket that he”s taking straight to our musical hearts.
There”s a lot going on here and it”s nice to hear Will.I.Am at least doing something a little different. There could be some fun club mixes here, but this tune feels like it”s about three separate ideas all joined together in the hopes of making a one strong song and it doesn”t work. There”s not a catchy enough hook in any of it to make it a must-play at radio.
Will.I.Am told Capital FM earlier this year, so we don”t know if this still stands, that the album includes collaborations with Alicia Keys, Shakira, and Britney Spears. No release date for the album has been released.