I Gotta Feeling

The Grammy Awards are coming up this weekend, and I've got a feeling what the Album of the Year will be.

At least I know which one of the nominees SHOULD capture this honor.

"The E.N.D." from The Black Eyed Peas is unquestionably the best album released in 2009.

Fergie and the fellas have been making great pop music for years now, and this is their best effort to date. While this may not fit everyone's definition of a 'concept album', it nonetheless has a beginning, a natural progression, and an end (pun intended), all united by a common theme.
That underlying theme here is the expression of youthful energy in a modern technological society.

The CD features 15 cuts and there is not a dog in the lot, even when the fun borders on silliness. ("Ring-A-Ling" may be a sly wink to the emerging ring-tone market, but what is not to like about a song whose subject is that 2am 'booty call'.)
Fergie is at her finest on "Meet Me Halfway" and at her baddest on "Imma Be". In the former she channels an early 80's Madonna with the 'borderline' chorus. I listened to this song many times before realizing she was not sampling the actual song by that title.
Other cuts on this CD such as "Boom Boom Pow", "Party All The Time", "Rock That Body", et al are quite simply some of the greatest party tunes you are likely to hear.

And on this best "Album of the Year", you will experience what ought to be the Grammy's "Record of the Year", "I Gotta Feeling".
This song sums up the theme of youthful energy and even those of us who are not so youthful cannot listen without dancing and singing along.
This song inspired one of the best viral videos of the year. Seldom does a fan-created video surpass that of the original band, but this one does just that. Created by a group of students in Montreal, it was supposedly filmed in just one take with one continuous camera shot. I have watched it dozens of times, and I bet you can't watch it just once!

If you are having a party, be sure to put "The E.N.D." on, and if you are not, put it on anyway.
The party will surely follow.