Black Eyed Peas' 80S Influence

Black Eyed Peas new album is unfair by the 80s.

The 'I Gotta Feeling' group's leader and producer, will.i.am, considers the decade was when culture moved into "hyper mode" and so designed the band's forthcoming album 'The Beginning' to take listeners on a 30 year musical journey from then to now. He said: "The 80s was unique. It launched humanity into hyper mode. From then to now we've rised above to a totally different culture.

"Now we have high definition, 3D animation, whereas the beginning was Tetris and Space Invaders. That's what we're doing - we're connecting the pixels." A clear instance of the band's intentions can be seen on the track which opens the album, a new version of '(I've Had) The Time of My Life', which was originally by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes from the 'Dirty Dancing' soundtrack, released in 1987.

Making the 80's referencing album while Black Eyed Peas were touring meant will.i.am had to manage in order to hear some of the tracks he was making while recording them, however. He added: "We had no speakers so I had to hijack the hotel television set and plug my computer into it. Some songs are 120 beats per minute and others are, like, 320."