David Guetta – Nothing But the Beat

David Guetta – Nothing But the Beat

David Guetta gets a bad rap, thanks to the ubiquity of his synths’n’autotune style on pop radio over the past few years. It’s easy to forget that before When Love Takes Over and Sexy Bitch were hammered to death on the airwaves, they were just bloody good pop songs.

This, Guetta’s fifth album, is his most A-list guest-laden yet, and continues the crossover between dance and R&B — with everyone from Chris Brown to Nicki Minaj and Lil’ Wayne guesting here, the genres are virtually interchangeable now.

Minaj steals the show yet again (see also: her starmaking verse on Kanye West’s Monster) with her hilariously filthy rap on the infectious Where Dem Girls At, also featuring Flo Rida and “Two years ago I renewed my licence. Anyway, why’d I start my verse like that? You can suck a dick, you can suck on a ballsack!” Her solo song, Turn Me On, is even better, reinventing her as a big-lunged dance diva.

Elsewhere, Guetta cribs liberally from his contemporaries: Jessie J’s Repeat sounds like a Dr Luke-produced pop-rock radio hit, while Jennifer Hudson hollers all over Night of Your Life, a competent retread of Rihanna’s Only Girl in the World.

But he saves the best until last: our own Sia powerfully riding the wave of trance synths that is Titanium. The song was gorgeous when Mary J. Blige sang it (YouTube it!), but Sia elevates it into a future dancefloor classic.

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