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Since his transition from club DJ to pop producer, David Guetta’s popularity has steadily increased over the last 10 years, and exponentially when he produced the Black Eyed Peas song “I Gotta Feeling.” Guetta is known for adding a thumping beat and heavy synthesizers to all his productions similar to those of the French club scene where he started his DJ career. His style remains all too true in his fifth album Nothing But The Beat.

Anyone familiar with Guetta’s past work or really anything that is played on top 40 radio stations will feel right at home with this album. Within that comfort lays the whole issue with the album: it’s far too mechanical.

Even on my first listen I felt like I recognized every track on the album. Eventually upon multiple listens, the songs just began to blend into each other with the only real difference between songs being the supporting artists who contribute vocals. The album is loaded with synthesizers and constant steady beats and for those who enjoy their fist-pumping music, it delivers.

However, there is nothing new or even somewhat interesting sounding here; the album is completely robotic in its production as not a single new idea lies anywhere inside of it. It is completely soulless.

Guetta seems to think that he is bringing on a new world of music. If this is true, then I assume his new world of music is rehashing the same kind of songs over and over until eventually people become sick of it and move on.

For anybody looking for electronic music that has something more to sink their teeth into besides beat, look elsewhere. The album is by no means aggressively awful; it is just trying to cash in on a sound that is very popular among people in the club scene at the moment.

Songs like “Where Them Girls At” and “Crank It Up” are destined to be danced and grinded to on sweaty dance floors across the world. Then there are tracks like “Sweat,” which features an absolutely awful-sounding auto-tuned Snoop Dogg. The whole song just comes off as embarrassing.

Most of the album goes by without much to really even notice or think about, just the same boring production over and over, but there was one song that had me stop and go back and listen to it again. “I Just Wanna F” is so unapologetically terrible that my ears vomited. Everything about the song is gag-inducing, from its cringe-worthy lyrics and delivery to the extremely annoying sweeping synthesizers. The one song with no vocals, “Lunar,” is easily the most enjoyable one on the album since the pesky lyrics are out of the way — although it still feels like something Daft Punk threw in the trash.

Nothing But The Beat adds absolutely nothing new or interesting to modern mainstream dance music. Fans of Guetta’s past albums and collaborations are likely to enjoy this one as well. For those who are just looking to get sloppy drunk at a club and dance until their legs are numb, this album will probably do you just fine. But for anyone looking for something interesting in their dance music, this album is not for you. It will definitely get your feet moving, but not in any new and memorable ways.

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