Will.I.Am’s New Solo Album Unlikely to Be Mistaken for Timbaland

Will.I.Am, Songs About Girls

Official release date: September 25

We think: As a semi-revered beatmaker and a guy one-third responsible for “My Humps,� Will.I.Am has made some pretty talented friends these past few years. So how come none of them are on his new solo album? Only Snoop Dogg guests — though we’d be hard-pressed to think of a single album released in the past year without a Snoop cameo. Why wouldn’t JT drop by the studio? Maybe it’s because half the tracks on Songs About Girls sound like clumsy “SexyBack� rewrites (seriously, just listen to “Heartbreaker�). Anybody that’s been for a ride in Timbaland’s spaceship is probably unlikely to get much mileage out of this secondhand Winnebago.