The Dutchess

If the only thing you know of Fergie is her stint with the Black Eyed Peas or her four heavily played singles then you're in for a treat upon purchasing `The Dutchess'. Fergie is not the most talented of singers, and I'll be the first to admit that her live performances leave much to be desired, but on her debut solo effort she appears polished and controlled and delivers 13 well established tracks. Of her singles `London Bridge' is still the most desirable. It immediately lets us know what she was about, slick beats and seductive lyrics. `Fergalicious' is fun if a song ever was, catchy and one of those great sing-a-long type tracks. I'm not impressed with `Glamorous' and `Big Girls Don't Cry' at all and have no desire to ever hear them again, but the good thing is that those two tracks aside and `The Dutchess' is worth listening to track to track.

`Clumsy' follows `Fergalicious' with a nice track, very early 90's feeling which suits Fergie well. She continues this top form with `All That I Got', which is probably one of my favorite tracks here. It sounds like the early R&B type jams, straight back in the day vibe. It reminds me of my childhood and I just love that about it. That and the fact that Fergie hasn't ever sounded better. Speaking of never sounding better, with her closing track `Finally' Fergie finally won me over with her voice. Having the beats stripped away her voice is allowed to really soar and she surprised me, I mean really surprised me. `Velvet' is another track that finds itself sliding over the listeners ears with sultry expertise.

`The Dutchess' thrives though of hard hitting hip hop beats and Fergie's slick delivery, and tracks like `Pedestal' prove to be what this album is all about. `Here I Come' is another one that uses its beats to invest themselves in your ear. Fergie spits fire on this track and it works wonders for her. `Voodoo Doll' lays it on a little thick. Fergie tries something very different here and I'm not quite sure it works so well. She tries the same thing on `Mary Jane Shoes' but with enlisting the help of Rita Marley and the I-Threes she manages to pull of the island vibe to her benefit. `Loosing My Ground' is probably the deepest of the tracks, speaking of relationship with self over relationship with others, and she actually pulls this off which is hard for a pop/diva/mediawhore to do.

So, in the end, `The Dutchess' sure has room to grow, but Fergie I'm sure will do that with time. Her debut album though is definitely worth a listen through. If you're fortunate enough to find a disc containing her three bonus tracks `Put Your Hands Up', `Wake Up' and `Maybe We Can Take a Ride' you're in for more Peas action. `Put Your Hands Up' features her Peas band mates and it works fine, a decent hip hop track. `Wake Up' is even better though. Fergie continues to spit fire amidst some heavy guitars, strong rock influence and irresistible beats. It's probably one of her best songs. `Maybe We Can Take a Ride' is definitely skip worthy, probably the worst song she's ever done, even worse than `Glamorous' and that's saying a lot in my book.

Surprisingly `The Dutchess' is definitely worth a look at. Fergie proves to be more than a backup singer for a talented group. She proves that maybe, just maybe, the Peas are nothing without her!

I normally listen to country music but heard her song big girls dont cry and so i had to purchase the cd and i have listened to it many times and put it on my MP3 player also

Other than the single "Big Girls Don't Cry" the CD was a bit of a letdown. I paid $16 for one single - not a good value in my opinion.

This is the kind of CD you don't mind spending the money to purchase the whole CD instead of just downloading a couple of songs! This CD has a lot of really great songs...

I bought the adult version & there are many curse words thrown in and some derogatory statements about women... now I wished I'd got the kid friendly copy and I would have given it a 5 star rating. Oh well... I stilled really liked the music & songs with my head bobbing as I sing along. This girl ROCKS - Of course my favorites are the most popular songs Big Girls Don't Cry, Fergalicious, Glamorous and London Bridge 4 great songs out of 13 songs ain't bad for a break out album for the Black Eyed Peas plus the other songs are pretty catchy too once you've listened to them a couple of times to get the lyrics.