Single Review: Fergie, "L.A. Love (La La)"

Fergie has taken her sweet time following up 2006’s The Dutchess, squandering the pop capital she earned from her multi-platinum solo debut on two new albums with the Black Eyed Peas and a couple of soundtrack cuts that barely made a blip—though last year’s “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got)” played a vital part in one of the most exhilarating moments from Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. “L.A. Love (La La),” then, is the official reintroduction of Stacy Ann Ferguson Duhamel, and it’s not unlike her previous solo coronation, “London Bridge,” what with its heavy hip-hop beat and braggadocious rapped verses (her faux-Southern patois, it should be noted, sounds a hell of lot like Iggy Azalea’s). This time Fergie swaps London for, despite the song’s title, “every city, every state, every country you know,” and at one point even crams three terrible accents—British, Jamaican, and French—into one bar. While the DJ Mustard-produced track is a definite earworm, hopefully the singer, ever the crossover-pop diplomat, has some more multi-format tricks up her sleeve.

Fergie’s sophomore effort currently has no release date or title, though judging by the single’s artwork, Smile Now, Cry Later, is a possibility.

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