"The Beginning" is the sixth studio album by American musical group the Black Eyed Peas, released on November 26, 2010 by Interscope Records. It is a prequel to the group's previous album The E.N.D., and their last credited as "the" Black Eyed Peas (with a 'the' prefix). The album was also the group's final project to feature Fergie as a member, and was followed by a five year hiatus. The album received generally mixed reviews from most music critics. It was praised for its production, but it was heavily criticized by the lack of appearance of Fergie, will.i.am's vocals, usage of Auto-Tune and lyrics. Its lead single, "The Time (Dirty Bit)", was released on November 9, 2010. The second single, "Just Can't Get Enough" was released on February 18, 2011, while its third and final single, "Don't Stop the Party", was released on June 24, 2011.
On June 6, 2010, the band confirmed they were working on a new album in an interview for The Big Issue. The album was described as a sequel to The E.N.D., will.i.am announced that the new album, which "symbolizes growth, new beginnings, and starts a fresh new perspective," would be titled The Beginning and be released on November 30, 2010. The album was officially announced in a press release on October 26, 2010. Some songs were made available as promotional singles for the album release. The first, "Do It Like This", was released on November 15, 2010, and the second, "Light Up the Night", on November 22, 2010. The Beginning was one of Oprah's Favorite Things for 2010, and members of Oprah's audience were given copies of the album 11 days before its official release.
A tour called The Beginning Massive Stadium Tour began in June 2011 in France and ended in November 2011 with a total of 20 shows. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 119,000 units. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 47, based on 19 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".
This User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; Source: Last.fm.