The Dutchess
The Dutchess is the debut solo studio album by American singer and songwriter Fergie. It was released through A&M Records and the will.i.am Music Group on September 13, 2006. The album was recorded between the Black Eyed Peas' tour in 2005, and the songs were written in the eight years preceding its release. Fergie wanted to create an autobiographical album that would be more intimate between her and the listener. Musically, it experiments with different music genres, including pop, hip hop, R&B, reggae, punk rock and soul. Lyrically, it contains themes about critics, love, and her personal drug abuse and addiction.
The Dutchess peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200 and was praised by music critics for its production and Fergie's vocals, but some criticized its lyrics and felt the material was not strong enough for her voice. It has since been considered an influential pop album of the 2000s. It was certified five times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and platinum by the British Phonographic Industry, and has sold 12 million copies worldwide. It was nominated for the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and the 2008 Juno Award for International Album of the Year, among other accolades.
The Dutchess is one of the best-selling albums of the 2000s, propelled by five of its singles which set a number of records. "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Glamorous", and "London Bridge" topped the Billboard Hot 100, and "Clumsy" and "Fergalicious" appeared within the top five. Those singles also sold over two million digital downloads individually in the United States, setting a record in the digital era for the most multi-platinum singles from one album, which Fergie held until 2012.
Background and recording
After ten years with the band Wild Orchid, Fergie joined the hip-hop group The Black Eyed Peas in 2002, replacing Kim Hill and receiving a prominent role in the group. Fergie's debut album with the band, Elephunk, was the group's breakthrough, spawning the worldwide hit singles "Where Is the Love?" and "Shut Up", selling over 8 million copies worldwide and receiving four Grammy nominations. Later, while releasing her second effort with the group, the even more successful Monkey Business, which features the hit singles "Don't Phunk with My Heart" and "My Humps" and sold 10 million copies worldwide, the singer announced that she and the other members of the group were working on solo projects, with her debut album being announced for a 2006 release. In an interview for Jam! Canoe, Fergie claimed, "We've been working on it, Will and I," she says. "And I'm so happy with the way it's turning out, but we just felt after 'Elephunk' that we needed to make another Black Eyed Peas record." Regarding the album's musical direction she said, "It'll be a deeper look into who I am. Soundwise, it'll be eclectic like the Peas but I'll get to experiment with more of the different sounds of my voice. I like to use my voice as an instrument sometimes and I'll be able to show that on that album."File:will.i.am in 2012.jpg|left|upright|thumb|will.i.am, fellow member of The Black Eyed Peas, is the album's executive producer and produced eight songs.
The Dutchess was initially recorded in 2005, among promotion from The Black Eyed Peas' album Monkey Business. Much of the album was recorded on the John Lennon studio bus while touring with the band. She stated "We'd go in a couple of hours before going on stage and that's how it got done. The songs span a seven-year period. Some were done before I was in the Black Eyed Peas – we just updated them, and some were done in this one-month span that we took off from touring, which is very rare for us. Will and I moved into this studio house in Malibu called Morningview. It's like a ranch. It was very serene-complete opposite to the chaos of touring. I was alone a lot, which is something that doesn't happen to me on tour, so I got to find these emotions that are a little bit deeper than the surface. , 'The Makeup Song ' and 'Velvet' are very intimate lyrically and feeling-wise. I wanted to sound like velvet feels-very smooth-and I wanted it to be sensual."
According to Fergie, the songs on the album are "from a seven-year period, but Jimmy Iovine heard some and was like, 'This is great, let's put it out'. One of the album's executive producers and fellow Black Eyed Peas member will.i.am stated that she was "writing about her personal struggles and casting her demons away and feminine power. her singing for young girls to be strong, and what they're going through in life, just growing up in this world of uncertainty." Ludacris, John Legend, B Real from Cypress Hill and Rita Marley, Bob Marley's widow, were also confirmed on the album. B Real was set to appear on a track called "Thriller Man", an homage to Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill a Man", with B Real stating, "It's pretty hot. Basically she took the song and switched the story around to suit it to her and put the female touch on it. She did the same chorus, she even did my same rhyme style, but she sung it. It's hard to describe it, you just got to hear it – she did it justice." However, "Thriller Man" was not included on the album. Ron Fair and DJ Mormile were also the album's executive producers, with Fair, chairman of Geffen Records, expressing, "Once people get this album and hear what she's capable of as a singer and writer, I think that's when the roof blows off it. That's when she's not just a little trifling pop girl doing disposable hits." It was also announced that the album would feature samples from Little Richard, The Commodores and The Temptations.
The album's title, The Dutchess, is a derivation of the noble title "The Duchess of York", as Fergie and Sarah Ferguson, the then Duchess of York, share a surname and nickname. The album's title garnered media attention, with Sarah Ferguson commenting, "Automatically, everybody in America thinks I'm Fergie, the most beautiful woman in the world, from Black Eyed Peas. You know, I rang her up about that. I said, 'Fergie, it's Fergie... Now that you've done this, you have to sing at a concert for my foundation Children in Crisis'." Fergie then commented about its title, "If you notice, on the album cover it says 'Fergie as the Dutchess' because I wanted each song to be a movie poster. But because 'London Bridge' did so well so fast, we had to get everything done so only half the songs on the album have movie poster themes. For example, for 'Fergalicious' I'm holding a lollipop; it's pretty campy and cute. The pictures were all shot by Ellen von Unwerth in Paris so a lot of them are very Brigitte Bardot-esque."
Composition and themes
According to The Age newspaper's website, "'The Dutchess' offers a more introspective Fergie, a woman willing to talk about her loves, her critics and her former meth addiction." Fergie explained in a Q&A interview for Billboard that, "This is a complete thought. It's not just a verse or a sentence. It's my complete feeling and emotion. I think people will be surprised because they don't know that sensitive side of me yet. I also like to experiment with different tones in my voice, and I wanted to make the album really colorful." She further explained the album's concept: "I couldn't have written songs today that I wrote five years ago, because I wasn't feeling that, so that's why I'm really excited about this, because it's just a mixture of emotions on this record. And it's very autobiographical. All of the love songs are definitely about different boyfriends that I've had. I've made a personal decision to not mention which ones are about who, out of respect for the people, but there are breakups, there are make-ups, there are dysfunctional relationships. There are also struggles with my substance abuse, a lot of vulnerability which I think people haven't seen from me in the Black Eyed Peas."Regarding the album's sound, Fergie explained, "It's a very colorful album. There's dub, there's reggae, there's stuff like the Temptations, a band that I saw when I was 10 years old in concert. There's the low rider, oldie style that we revisit that I was really inspired by in high school. There's that punk-rock aspect – that just really raw rock and roll, get your hair messed up, sweat as much as you want, don't feel pretty onstage – that aspect. There's jazzy. We're just crazy." "Every song has its own character," she elaborated. "They use different pieces of my voice and that's what I want to express, 'cause it's fun. It makes the album less boring for me and hopefully for others as well." According to The Age, the album contains "everything from torch songs to bouncy pop, reggae and even techno," representing her wide musical influences. Andy Kellman of AllMusic noted that the album has "throwback hip-hop, throwback soul, reggae, ska-punk, scat, vaguely torchy midtempo fluff, and a classy string-drenched ballad.
"I'm not claiming to be a battle MC," she says. "That's not where I'm taking this. This is just paying homage to artists like Roxanne Shanté, Monie Love, Salt-n-Pepa, JJ. Fad – women I looked up to." Fergie loves hip-hop, but she has always known she's an outsider. "In junior high I was fascinated by gangsta rap," she says, sipping a caipirinha. "I was suburban, yet I had glimpses from where I lived. I'm hearing all the stories about what was going on in East L.A. and South Central, looking at it from the outside. I think I come from a whole generation of that. That's why a lot of people can relate with me, because they lived that, too. Seeing it but not really living it. So there weren't any of the negative consequences to the guns and all of that. It was just interesting and sexy."
Music and lyrics
The album starts with "Fergalicious", an electronica, hip hop and dance song, which according to the song's co-writer, producer and featured guest, will.i.am, has Fergie "just being sassy and flaunting her stuff from a strong female perspective, paying homage to Salt-N-Pepa." He also labelled it "the sister of My Humps'." Fergie stated that, "In 'Fergalicious,' I emulated J.J. Fad, and sampled the track from Afro-Rican's "Give It All You Got." Lyrically, the song uses food metaphors to describe how tasty the singer is. "Clumsy" follows, with will.i.am comparing the song to Shangri-Las "Leader of the Pack" with a ghetto-ass beat, guitars and background singers." Lyrically, it finds Fergie "trippin', stumblin', flippin', fumblin'" after being struck by Cupid's arrow. In "All That I Got ", she wants a guy who will love her for more than her outward appearance, with the singer asking, "Would you love me/If I didn't work out/Or didn't change my natural hair?" "London Bridge" was co-written by Sean Garrett and produced by Polow da Don and includes sexual innuendo. It was described as "a club track that only lightly touches on personal lyrics about fame and celebrity", with the singer also threatening to mace pushy photographers and boasts. "It's poking fun at certain things. I'm really not going to spray the paparazzi with mace – I don't know if you know that about me," she said in an interview. Regarding the song's title, she claimed, "There are a couple things that you could relate with that title, but I'm just going to leave it to people's imagination.""Pedestal" lashes out at gossip bloggers like Perez Hilton who "hide behind computer screens", as noted by Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine, while "Voodoo Doll" is a reggae song, with dub influences, where Fergie talks about her past and getting over those demons. According to Fergie, "It's about my struggle with crystal meth. There's a demon part that's a completely different voice than the singing part, and it's almost like two voices. It's me battling with myself." "Glamorous" is again produced by Polow da Don and features Ludacris. It was described as an R&B song with techno influences. Lyrically, it talks about how fame doesn't give her amnesia about where she came from. "Here I Come" features once more will.i.am and it is done to the tune of The Temptations' "Get Ready." In "Velvet", Fergie invites a man to share her bed. As stated by Fergie, "I wanted it to sound like velvet feels – very smooth – and I wanted it to be sensual." The pop/rock song "Big Girls Don't Cry" talks about a crumbling romance. will.i.am admitted that it "really pushed my production skills. I did an Edie Brickell type of production – 'I'm not aware of too many things,' on guitars."
"Mary Jane Shoes" is a song inspired in reggae, ska-punk and scat. It features Rita Marley, Bob Marley's widow, and I Threes. "That was quite an honor for me," Fergie said of the song. "I kind of get to play Bob Marley in that song, which is a beautiful thing." She went on to describe the song as "a breezy reggae song, and at the end I go into a little bit of punk-rock mosh music because I love to do that if you've ever seen my stage shows." will.i.am commented, "She goes from dub, doing her interpretation of roots, to some ska-punk and ends up with jazz. From a production standpoint that was fun, flipping all those different styles." The melody of the chorus bears striking resemblance to the chorus of Marley's "No Woman, No Cry." The song is followed by the ballad "Losing My Ground", which is about desperation, and the album closes with "Finally", a slightly Broadway-styled, ballad. It was named a "dramatic piano and string-laden coda" track. It was co-produced by John Legend, who also plays the piano. Lyrically, it reflects on lessons learned the hard way and decides that life is good. Fergie further explained the track: "'Finally' is the last song on the album. It's piano, strings and vocals, played by John Legend. He co-wrote that song. It's a timeless ballad that you can play 30 years from now, and it'll still be cool because it doesn't lend to any era. And it's really stripped down. I really had a chance to sing, although I didn't oversing anything. My taste is more to bring it out at certain moments."