albums and tracks

Editor's rating

With a beat revolving around Will.i.am's looped, manipulated vocals and a whirring sound effect, 'Boom Boom Pow' sees Black Eyed Peas stick to the same template that made booty-ballad 'My Humps' such a success. Cue a heavy beat ("Beat so big I'm stepping on leprechauns"), simple lyrics and just enough rap wittering from apl.de.ap and Taboo to see you through.

Reasserting themselves onto contemporary crowds with a hearty lashing of Auto-Tune - the pitch-correction programme beloved of Lil Wayne, Kanye West and T Pain - the four-piece's voices squeak and glitch over a simple beat before Fergie announces "Will.i.am!/Drop the beat now!", whereupon we're taken to Euro-trance synth and 808 beats heaven.

If that's not enough to make it an essential purchase, it also features Fergie delivering the sublimely silly line: "I'm so 3008/You're so 2000 and late". Like we said: essential.