Fergie – Double Dutchess
(Dutchess Music / BMG)
Reviewed by Bridget Herlihy.
It is hard to believe that it has been a decade since Fergie released her debut album The Dutchess, which spawned the singles Big Girls Don’t Cry and Glamorous, cementing her status as one of the most popular female artists of the noughties. The build-up to Fergie’s long-awaited sophomore album has been a drawn out affair indeed, with the album’s first single, L.A. Love (La La) dropping in September 2014, some three years ago. Finally, the polarizing M.I.L.F $ (pronounced Milf money) was released in November 2016, and with it’s accompanying highly sexualized music video featuring a slew of Fergie’s fellow celebrity MILF friends, heightened anticipation for the album. But has the long wait been worth it?
First track Hungry (featuring Rick Ross) opens the album on a promising note with a moody chant overlaid with Fergie rapping about being hungry, starving and ambitious, an ambition that appears to dominate much of the album, for better or worse. The album’s second track Like It Ain’t Nothing sees Fergie waxing lyrical about the size of her bank account along with a pseudo-apology for her extravagant lifestyle, a theme which continues into You Already Know (with Nicki Minaj), which proclaims “Life is a movie, let the camera role”. While dropping some catchy r&b/hip-hop influenced beats, a majority of the lyrical content of the album is heavily braggadocious, and subsequently, at times, cringeworthy, with the excessive use of what appears to be Fergie’s new favourite term – ‘motherf**kers’. Highlights of the album are the quieter moments, in particular the pop-ballads Just Like You and A Little Work where all bravado is cast aside as she laments the demise of a relationship (perhaps semi-autobiographical). Double Dutchess is at times a confused mish-mash of tracks lacking the x-factor need to make the album a cohesive whole. It swings between trying to emulate the critically acclaimed material of her first album, while simultaneously trying to carve out a more fierce persona and a harder-edged sound. Regardless, no doubt die-hard Fergie fans will be ecstatic at the release of Double Dutchess.
