Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Album Review: David Guetta- Nothing But The Beat


Average Rating: 7/10
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
         1. Where Them Girls At Ft. Nikki Minaj & Flo Rida (9/10)
          2. Little Bad Girl Ft. Taio Cruz & Ludacris (7/10)
          3. Turn Me On Ft. Nikki Minaj (9/10)
          4. Wet Vs. Snoop Dogg (5/10)
          5. Without You Ft. Usher (6/10)
          6. Nothing Really Matters Ft. Will I Am (8.5/10)
          7. I Can Only Imagine Ft. Chris Brown & Lil Wayne (6.5/10)
          8. Crank It Up Ft. Akon (7.5/10)
          9. I Just Wanna Fuck Ft. Timbaland & Dev (9.5/10)
          10. Night Of Your Life Ft. Jennifer Hudson (4.5/10)
          11. Repeat Ft. Jessie J (5.5/10)
          12. Titanium Ft. Sia (6/10)
          13. Lunar Ft. Afrojack (8/10)

     David Guetta usually stands out as one of those producers who are known by everyone, and mostly makes entire albums showcasing there production with a ton of features, and if anybody noticed, there is only one famous stand out producer for each genre. The legendary Dr. Dre carries things through so many types of hip-hop, DJ Khaled owns the southern rap scene, Travis Barker debuted this year with a strong rap/rock project, and Guetta controls mixing hip-hop with the dance scene. It’s needless to say Guetta stood out with his style each and every time he makes an album, but can he keep his heat with his fifth album, “Nothing But the Beat”?

      David Guetta keeps expanding. It seems like every year he has more star power on his albums, this year he managed to get a good amount of great artists, who actually can really work around his style and really flow with his music. For “Nothing But the Beat” he had Nikki Manaj, Flo Rida, Snoop Dogg, Usher, Lil Wayne, Dev, Timbaland and more, so given theses guests his album has a lot of star power, plus unlike a lot of guests on other albums there is a lot less to worry about for Guetta since all his guests here are somewhat familiar with his style, but was the expectations too high from the star power here? There is only one way to find out, and that one way is to listen to the album.

   “Nothing But the Beat” is made of 13 club-ready bangers, so you know what that means, fast banging beats, simple lyrics and really just having fast, dance-ready tracks. There is nothing wrong with club tracks, nothing wrong with the, at all, but they are usually something really hard to predict to be good since there is so much of it today, but I have no reason to believe that Guetta can’t pull it off, so I’m expecting this album to be a straight up, successful banger.

  “Nothing But The Beat” has 13 tracks, so it’s clear that even minor mistakes can affect the album’s quality, so based on what I noticed, the album kept it safe with simple production, and something unlikely about it is that it didn’t feel very boring here, I mean, what I noticed, the album’s production did feel familiar throughout every track, but at the same time the production was sequenced a bit different on each track, which was something that I think was obviously missing in a lot of pop rap club ready tracks.
   
      The album had some really good tracks, and as usual for Guetta, they are some of the best club tracks to come out this year. “Where Them Girls At” was generally a really strong track, it had a great beat, great hook, and good verses, but Flo Rida was just a bit lazy on his verse, but at the same time his verse was still pretty much good. “Turn Me On” was a real banger, the beat was strong, but Nikki should have had more of a verse in it. “Nothing Really Matters” was a great track, but it lost a bit of its feel due to its position on the album’s tracklist. “I Just Wanna Fuck” was the best track on the album, it featured Cateracs style production, mixed with Timbaland style production, and to go along with its cocktail like production it had a back and forth flow used by Timbaland and Dev, and “Lunar” which was an instrumental track, and one of the best on the album, it was fast, different, and really something I’ve been waiting for from Guetta to do.
    
      The album did have some weaknesses though. Some tracks did sound really repetitive and just shined out at just one part. Guetta’s remix of “Wet” had a good beat, but snoop would always suck on that song no matter who produced it. “Without You” honestly felt less of a dance track, and more of a pop song to me, and I kinda hate pop to be honest, and “Night of Your Life” had the same issue. “Repeat” was just a disappointment, for again, feeling too poppy, and “Titanium” felt like that but thanks to its powerful dance felt hook it was actually a passable song.

      Nothing But The Beat clearly wasn’t Guetta’s best project, but it’s not really his worst. While not being as good as One Love it’s still a strong enough album to be considered successful. It does have its downers and stepbacks, but if you think about it, every album today has. So overall, this is a good album, club goes, or simply people who just like club music will love it, and I think it will be well received by fans of any genre. There is no denying that this is a solid album, I expected a bit better given the star power here, but still, this album should not be ignored by anyone.

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