will.i.am's #willpower, as Reviewed by a Dude on Molly

The hazardous materials in question.

I don't particularly care about will.i.am nowadays. Sure, there was a time when I danced to the Black Eyed Peas in loud nightclubs, and before that funny moments when I listened to "Where Is the Love?" and got introspective about peace in the world. There was also the time when I was a sophomore in college, going through a serious breakup with my high-school girlfriend, and will.i.am coincidentally put out Songs About Girls, an emotional journey of an album, filled with pre-Future raps about parting ways with someone you thought you loved. It was a great album, the fact that it came from the same guy who produced "My Humps" was honestly kinda weird but that's whatever.

Now you might be thinking, "This guy sounds like a guy who cares about will.i.am." Short answer, yes, long answer no but I did, and now I don't because the will I once (for six months) identified with has become a baldly shitty electro/dance/pop/whatever-making old dude. This new will is not a person or musician I particularly care for, but regardless of my care he's putting out a new record and a lot of people are excited (?) about it so I felt like I owed it to him and myself to at least listen to it.

There is a thing about this new will.i.am, and that thing is this: this is a will.i.am album one ought not to listen to sober. We're dealing with a will.i.am who makes music for shithead, club-rat weirdos in Ibiza who gyrate for 12 hours straight after popping a triple-stack of mollyecstasyspeedacid. The only way I could successfully engage this new will.i.am was by sinking to his level. What you are about to read is a man's first impression of a will.i.am record as viewed through the lens of the world's ultimate beer goggles, aka molly. My main takeaway from this experience is that molly will make anything sound pretty good, especially music that's made for people who are on molly.

Anyway, here's my track-by-track take on will.i.am's #willpower, aka me rambling into a recorder to myself while listening to this album on drugs.

"Good Morning"
Okay, starting slow. Very emotional, very thematic. This sounds like the beginning of either a Moby album or a PBS PSA. "We laugh, we cry, we dry our eyes." I guess that's the meaning of life. This is the "We Are The World" of our generation.

"Hello"
Here he's talking about how he really just wants to hang out with his friends, and that's something we can all relate to. This reminds me of that Martin Solveig song from a few years ago, also called "Hello," that got everyone to look around any bar or club and go, "Hello!" to a stranger. You can't be lonely when you listen to this. You're just in a pool of will.i.am's warm bath water, in a good, good way. This is tough, because I'm sitting here alone, listening to this and I want to be… you know what? Whatever, it feels good.

"This Is Love" ft. Eva Simons

My dad's always been a big Julio Iglesias fan. He says it's love music that always makes him feel good about love, and I think this is exactly that. I love when will raps about music. He just said, "Love for the notes on the sheets." This would probably be a fun song to have sex to. will.i.am just drops you in this valley of love and then takes you up in a helicopter of joy and pushes you out into an ocean. He's such an asshole.

"Scream & Shout" ft. Britney Spears

I've seen the video for this a lot of times. Britney rapping. Do you think him and Britney actually go to the club and listen to this song? Do people feel like they need to look at them when they hear this and they see them in the club?

"Let's Go" ft. Chris Brown
This is the obligatory Chris Brown song, but this is also German pop music. This is heavy metal with romantic vibes, like, let's just spend the night together and then die together for a hundred thousand years while we orgasm forever. This is something Boys Noize would do for 5 seconds and then go do something serious. This song is a little too aggressive, but I guess this is what you play in the middle of Ultra or something when everyone is peaking. The end of the song is a weird robotic-voiced will.i.am saying, "To have the time of your life, you must abandon all logic and inhibitions. Hence the term, let's go crazy!"

"Gettin' Dumb" ft. apl.de.ap & 2NE1
I think the craziest thing about will.i.am's music is that he's making it in a studio with a bunch of professional musicians but they all write like they're just regular people. All the lines are, "I've been working all week and I'm super tired and I just want to dance and fuck somebody." It's so manufactured but…I feel that too! I feel the same way. They probably do focus groups and talk to people about how they feel about the end of the week.

"Geekin'"
This is trippy. This has a 8-bit Super Mario, Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong, Mario Kart vibe. The bass is crazy. This is will.i.am all on his own, letting himself shine and get geeky. "I made Google money!" This song is about being nerdy! He just shouted out Mark Zuckerberg and Tweety Bird. This is grimy though, you can absolutely Diddy Bop to this. "I roll with gangster geeks!" This should be music in a Microsoft commercial.

"Freshy" ft. Juicy J
This is a weird collaboration, and I'm surprised Juicy J wanted to do this, but what the fuck else is Juicy J doing, right? This sounds like a Soulja Boy beat. This has to be a Soulja Boy beat! I need to listen to more Soulja Boy. Soulja Boy is great at producing. I don't care what Juicy says as long as I hear a "YEAH, HO!" sample in the background. will.i.am just said, "So fresh, so clean - soap!" but that has to be a Tyga line. It has to be. Juicy J is the most versatile dude there's ever been a dude. He has a fucking Oscar, man.

"#thatPOWER" ft. Justin Bieber

This is disco. This is funky palm trees, rolling in an El Camino through Beverley Hills riding that molly wave all the way to the end of the beach. I could marry anybody right now. This is brunch music, at the end of brunch when all the lights go out and everyone takes their shirts off, then Biebs comes like he's standing on top of the Barclays Center, just shitting on everybody. This is music you get on the roof and pee on the street to. I would give up a year of my life just to sing like Bieber. That was the best song so far. 100%.

"Great Times are Coming"
Everything is going to be just fine. Everything's been terrible, everyone's been unhappy, everyone's unsettled. Have a little hope in what's about to happen. We don't have time to be sad, because inevitably, good things happen. Life is hard, and your 20s are hard, and it's hard to get a job these days, but it's going to be okay. That's what everyone needs to know. Oh, this is weird, I wish he hadn't just turned this into a trap rave song.

"The World is Crazy" ft. Dante Santiago
I'm peaking right now as far as the molly goes, and this song is kind of awesome. It's like "Where Is The Love?" over a four-on-the-floor beat. I wish that we all just loved each other. This is a beautiful line: "I think everybody in the world has lost their mind. I believe they lost something they cannot find." That's how everyone is now, man. Everyone's just so confused. Oh god, I totally get will.i.am. This is one of the most well-written songs of all time. Fuck.

"Fall Down" ft. Miley Cyrus
I love Miley Cyrus. This is awesome, this feels so fucking good. Just the guitar, it feels so good. I hope he doesn't do the electro breakdown, but I'm sure he has to. I'm sure that's a clause in his contract. I fucking love Miley Cyrus. I wish I wrote this song for my girlfriend. This is the best Miley's ever sounded. This song makes me want to be…everywhere.

"Love Bullets" ft. Skylar Grey
This sounds like a continuation of the Miley song, and my temples feel like atom bombs. I don't know if he should've put this song on the album. It's definitely not as good as the Miley song. He should've done a song with Mikky Ekko.

"Far Away From Home" ft. Nicole Scherzinger
This sounds like "Gone Till November." This is about all the girls who leave home and try to get famous, or about anybody who leaves their small town and decides to make something of themselves and goes for it and it's bold and it's hard, but it's worth it. It feels kind of homesick too, like will misses his family. I wonder what will's relationship with his mom is like. He got really famous really early. I wonder if she ever said, "I miss you. I wish you just stayed here so I could take care of you instead of becoming this global pop phenomenon weirdo." This song definitely makes you want to hug your entire family.

"Ghetto Ghetto" ft. Baby Kaely
This features somebody named Baby Kaely, and I have a feeling it's going to be really emotional. There's actually a baby singing on this song. Baby Kaely is a baby. Who is singing. But it's cool. I think will would be a really good parent.

"Reach for the Stars"
How does he do this? I can't even grasp…how does he make his songs sound so big? It's outrageous. What he does is say something like, "Reach for the stars!!" and you have to put your hands up. You just have to. I think that was Lil Jon yelling at the end of the chorus! He should go to one of those sixteen-hour parties in Bushwick and play this. No bullshit, if you played this at an all-night rave in Bushwick you would kill the game. Fuck everything else, you play this and it's like you found the meaning of existence.

"Smile Mona Lisa"
This is cool, this is a Spanish guitar jam. It's sexy. Groovy. This is real masculine insecurity. This also sounds like the Gypsy Kings.

"Bang Bang"
I've heard this before because it's supposed to be on The Great Gatsby soundtrack. It's so cool, it's this old-timey, jazzy tune. What a way to end an album. I kind of wish he left this as an old-timey tune, but this is the culmination of the entire album—the emotion, the feeling, and then obviously the techno rave…but that old-timey sound is so cool! He's scatting now. It's like this song sounds could've been on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Then the epic hook. It's epic. Epic synths. Epic shit. Okay, thirty seconds left, how's he going to end it? With a rave. He doesn't stop it. How could he?

Dan Buyanovsky doesn't believe in Twitter so you should follow Noisey instead - @NoiseyMusic