I don’t like the black eyed peas. I think that anyone who makes a video which is ultimately indistinguishable from a commercial for a major us electronics chain hasn’t got music on their minds. In fact, while I thought the first single [color=#999999]can you remember what it was called? I seem to have forgotten[/color] was cute, it was forgettable (at least for me) and passed like all summer toe tappers do. It’s not a heavy trip, pop music is just for fun, gettin’ kids excited about growing up and being able to drink and snort coke and end up inappropriately molested in the back seats of cars. It sounds ghastly to me now, but when I was a kid I didn’t see it that way, and couldn’t wait either.

On the whole I don’t really pay much attention to pop music, hip hop, or tedious down tempo, rock music, or the dull would-be-punk revivalists. I’m generally interested in what I’m interested in, and pay special attention to local artists, live bands, and people working hard to do something different. Rare is a band who come to my attention with either the passion and excitement of an Elvis Costello, David Sylvian or Seu Jorge. Equally as rare is a group or artist who can produce the tedious irritation of a Coldplay, Justin Timberlake, or a Paris Hilton album. Outside of the extremes I’m just not paying any attention.

What does, however, grab my attention is the repeated display of flesh on music magazine covers, billboards, and in music videos. I know that everyone’s really hot for reverse feminism right now, and that “it’s ok to show some skin” in the sense that it is empowering [color=#999999]like a micro mini skirt[/color] to let it all hang out. If you got it, flaunt it mama. Yeah, yeah, I know, but have you considered that perhaps the empowerment of becoming a product for consumption may have its limitations?

Enter Fergie, Stacy Ann Ferguson, of the popular group ‘Black Eyed Peas.’ They’re popular right? They’re everywhere. While its true I don’t know of anyone who has ever bought one of their records, or likes any of their songs [color=#999999]perhaps I’ll learn that I’m mistaken in the comments which follow here[/color] but they seem to crop up everywhere, all the time in cross marketing campaigns, and fast food giveaways, and what not. So they must be popular. My opinion or personal experience is meaningless anyway, afterall I don’t know anyone who voted for Gerorge W. Bush either, but this is Op/Ed so I can say whatever I like.

Fergie’s “long awaited” solo album called ‘The Dutchess’ is essentially a Black Eyed Peas album, complete with tired late 80’s club loops from sample CD’s [color=#999999]Get up on this![/color] and zany change-ups in the middle of songs [color=#999999]you know, to keep you awake[/color], but this is Fergie’s turn to shine. The whole thing is clearly a spotlight on Fergie, the chance for Stacy Ann Ferguson to shine, to let us know who she is, and what she’s all about.

“Can’t no other lady put it down like me, I’m Fergalicious. And My body stay vicious, I’ll be up in the gym, workin’ on my fitness”

Fergie lays it down. She does. She stands right up with her breasts hanging out, with her artificial tan, surgically augmented lips, and dyed hair to let us know she’s not playing. No, Fergie is for real. She’s working on her fitness.

“They say she delicious, but I ain’t promiscuous, and if you were suspicious, all that shit is fictitious, I blow kisses that puts them boys on rock, rock. And they be lining down the block just to watch what I got. It’s so delicious. So delicious. I’m Fergalicious.”

Furthermore, Fergie is disseminating a message: She is a prize, a tease, something to covet, but she’s no ho. Indeed Fergie, indeed. I wanted to stand up a cheer for this bold statement of her royal uniqueness, but I just can’t. Sadly, there’s nothing unique about it. It seems that every woman dancing in the shower, or pho-masturbating in half pants, pouting her lips for the camera is actually saying something along the lines of you can’t mess with me! or maybe don’t even try to play me like that bay-bay. And it’s true. We can’t mess with you. We can’t because you’ve already been messed with. You are beyond aid, it’s much too late for all of us.

So what is the revolutionary subtext of Fergie’s new album? Is it that she enjoys being a boy toy, a sex object, demoting women further from the mother-creator, equal human being, to surgical anomalies suitable for drooling over, further distorting society’s already mutated views on love, sex, and women? On the other hand, who said there had to be political relevance hidden somewhere within the cheezy grooves of Fergie’s album anyhow? Maybe it’s just fun, and maybe I’m just beeing a poor sport. [color=#999999]Maybe.[/color]

Marxists believed for many years that pornography was a good thing, not because of its degradation to women, but because it was a byproduct of capitalism’s failure, and would hasten its collapse. We are collapsing, and I can’t tell the difference between Fergie and this month’s issue of Juggs. Neither hold a drop of interest for me, but the sociopolitical implications are fun to ponder while I’m rumpshakin’ to this fresh jam. So shake it baby, pout it up, and heave them titties in every direction you can, because while Fergie may not yet be the cherry on top of capitalism’s desert course, it’s Fergalicious anticipating the end.