Fergie's debut makes for an uneven ride

Glenn Gamboa | DROPS

September 19, 2006

Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas makes her solo album debut with "Dutchess." (Getty Images Photo)

How come every time they come around, singers like Fergie always seem to let us down?

Her single "London Bridge" is a thrill, a sassy slice of pop that has a cranky groove so bold it more than makes up for the nonsensical, dirty nursery rhyme lyrics. So what happened to the rest of "The Dutchess" (will.i.am/A&M), the Black Eyed Peas singer's solo debut?

"The Dutchess" is like one of those albums from the late '90s that helped bring down the music industry - one with a few extraordinary singles and loads of filler, turning it into a roller-coaster ride of quality highs and embarrassing lows.

"Clumsy" is one of those remarkable highs, an updated version of the '60s girl-pop of the Ronettes, right down to the spoken-word break. Fergie's trashy delivery and Ludacris' wild rap cameo contrast nicely with the sleek synths on "Glamorous." And the Pink-ish, Linda Perry-like guitar-driven confessional "Big Girls Don't Cry" works well.

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Unfortunately, "The Dutchess" has more than its share of clunkers. There's the crazy "Mary Jane Shoes," her reggae tribute to, well, Mary Jane shoes, that wastes the lilting harmonies of Rita Marley and the I-Threes. There's the overwrought ballad "Finally" with John Legend. And the ridiculous "Fergalicious," which rips off the JJ Fad classic "Supersonic."

In the end, "The Dutchess" is a missed opportunity, the result of rushing to capitalize on a hot single instead of waiting until the album was actually ready.

("The Dutchess," in stores today; grade: C+.)

MY AIKEN EARS. Clay Aiken's new album, "A Thousand Different Ways" (RCA), will sell well. But it's so poorly conceived that Aiken is cheating his fans and himself of any meaningful musical future. He mopes from one soupy power ballad to the next, delivering them all in an oddly phrased, ham-fisted, overreaching style that makes it hard to distinguish his take on Bad English's "When I See You Smile" from his take on Bryan Adams' "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)." Even the four new songs get mired in the same Celine Dion wanna-be production muck, smothering whatever sweetness and likability Aiken may have given them. Ironically, Dion's "Because You Loved Me" is the one song Aiken undersells, making it the album's most listenable track. Aiken's good voice and a good-natured personality took him far on "American Idol," but both are lost in the robotic blandness of "A Thousand Different Ways."

("A Thousand Different Ways," in stores today; grade: D+.)

ALSO IN STORES. Kenny Chesney revisits his hits on the live album "Live Those Songs Again" (BNA), while Elton John revisits his "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" characters on his new album "The Captain and the Kid" (Interscope); rapper Chingy brings club bangers on "Hoodstar" (Capitol), while Lupe Fiasco takes backpacker rap to the mainstream with "Food & Liquor" (Atlantic); Brit-popsters Kasabian's sophomore album "Empire" (RCA); New Found Glory makes rock even catchier on "Coming Home" (Geffen); and Joseph Arthur's stellar, well-crafted "Nuclear Daydream" (Lonely Astronaut).

SONG OF THE WEEK. On its brilliant new single "Welcome to the Black Parade" (Reprise), My Chemical Romance squeezes an indie-rock manifesto of epic proportions, three distinct musical styles, and a bookshelf of storytelling into a mere 4 1/2 minutes. Starting with a rock opera benediction ("Son, when you grow up, would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned?"), "Black Parade" moves into an emo rallying cry and ends in a triumphant mishmash of soaring guitar solos, trumpet flourishes and Gerald Wray's wailing promise, "We'll carry on." It's jagged and unexpected and impossible to listen to only once.