In terms of music that is flat out fun, electronic, simple, and bass-friendly, there is no one in my mind that can compete with Daft Punk over the last fifteen years. When Daft Punk is on their game they not only legitimize dance and electronic music as a genre, but their electronic creativity is just so damn fun to listen to. Case in point: “Digital Love”—I defy anyone to not enjoy this song, especially the break that begins at the 2:15 mark.
I bring up Daft Punk because the first time I heard “I Gotta Feeling” I had no idea who made it but my initial reaction was that it reminded me of the type of song that Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter would produce. When my wife told me that the song was by The Black Eyed Peas I thought to myself, “Finally, someone figured out how to make an American-ized Daft Punk song.”
I fully realize that, as someone who has previously written a 700+ word piece about Neutral Milk Hotel and devoted a volume of posts to Minutemen, I should possess some level of contempt towards The Black Eyed Peas; that I should view Fergie as some sort of modern day Nico who is infinitely more vapid and talentless, that will.i.am should be seen as a tool, that the band as a whole is something that transcends “disposable,” that the sins of their past (bringing Fergie into the group and, consequently, ditching their previous hip hop sound for something more mainstream) should cloud/taint their legacy. And if their entire catalog of music was awful I would probably subscribe to some of this thinking.
But I can’t do it—”I Gotta Feeling” is so perfect that it erases any desire to point out any shortcomings associated with the artists or their other art.[1] Furthermore, “I Gotta Feeling” does not have as its grand aspiration a desire to be seen or categorized as Important; it’s a primer song, designed almost solely to get you prepped for a night out. Of course, its inherent un-lofty expectations could be seen by some as instant justification for it to not be a Pantheon-level song. To be sure, this will be the only song on this site that includes a liberal use of random celebratory expressions (Mazel tov!) and idioms (Drank!) but its quirkiness and commercial appeal should not disqualify it from critical praise.
Every year, every decade, and every era has its disposable pop music—its “one hit wonders” and general piffle, to borrow a word that one of my friends likes to use—and amongst that crop of songs and artists, a very small number of artists[2] will emerge as the receivers of glowing endorsements and positive criticism. Typically, the praise will be rooted in how the artist possesses more than meets the eye, or that their image transcends something. (Example: Lady Gaga, whose bizarre fashions aren’t simply born out of a desire to look interesting—no, they are an editorial on the fragility of celebrity and of turning the nature of sexiness on its head. Or something.) Nothing can ever be just good, there has to be a reason why it is good and there has to be a way to assimilate it into the construct of “these times.”
With that said here is my positive criticism of “I Gotta Feeling” with a nod to trying to assimilate them into a statement about the 2000′s as a decade. Chuck Klosterman once wrote that the ’00′s was the era of Predictable Disillusionment. We convinced ourselves to be appalled that PEDs were rampant in organized sports; we were shocked to find that politicians lie (even, gasp, during wartime!); we celebrated the ubiquity and awesomeness of the Internet by bemoaning the life support state of the newspaper; we were stunned to find that an old Cape Cod in a metropolitan area wouldn’t always keep its $400,000 value in perpetuity. Add to all of this the divisiveness of what the media pushes out and you had a decade that could be summed up as “passionate ignorance.” And it could have become a time in which mainstream art finally suffered a death blow, a final stab to the carotid or aortic arteries.
Instead, the quality of mainstream art has probably gotten a little bit better, all things considered (especially w/r/t television). Times of social disjointedness usually translate to an uprising of great art, and while no one will ever try to convince you that the ’00′s were on par with the ’60′s, we did have our Zeitgeist moments (The Lord of the Rings movies, Lost, The Wire, De Stijl, The Corrections, books 4 through 7 of Harry Potter). And with these great works of art comes a trickle-down effect that affects things like pop songs—things that might be considered disposable—positively by osmosis.
And while it does not contain the raw energy of a “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)” “I Gotta Feeling” is like this generation’s version of that Beastie Boys single. Amidst a time of social change (AIDS, Reaganomics, Star Wars) and fears of impending technological innovations (cable TV, VCRs) that seemed so big as to cause our society to gradually destroy itself, we were reminded that we had a right to party. Fast forward 20 years and the same fears and conversations were still being had w/r/t new technology and the sitting Republican President.
And we were reminded, again, that sometimes a Saturday night is simply a good night to party, and to forget about the outside world every once in a while. This is one of the best party songs of the last ten years, and one that is sure to become a staple at weddings for years to come.
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[1] Or to put it another way: it’s kind of like how we overlook flawed logic and discrepancies in a sci-fi or superhero story that we like/love. (Why didn’t Glory just kill everything while looking for The Key? She would’ve eventually found it had she chosen to do that. I don’t know and I don’t care; the fifth season of Buffy is still the greatest season of television I’ve ever seen.)
[2] As of this writing, Lady Gaga is pretty much the darling of anyone who has a college degree in writing and a job in the music industry.
