apl.de.ap, Fergie, Taboo and Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas.

Credit: AP Photo/Peter Kramer

Damn Will.I.Am! You know why? I can't get "Boom Boom Pow," the new single from the Black Eyed Peas out of our head and I hate that. I've always been a melody queen. I love songs. Songs you can sing, songs you can hum, songs whose melodies get into your brain and you wake up with them running through your head. They don't have to be particularly intelligent or deep. Some of my favorite songs of the last several years have combined beats with catchy melodies, like Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" or Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy."

"Boom Boom Pow" has none of that -by "that," we mean melody. It's all beats. But what catchy little beats they are. There's not a shred of it you can sing (not that you turn to BEP for sing-a-longs, but at least you could hum "Let's Get it Started.") But as an eclectro-influenced pop tune, it is instantly catchy and it gets your feet moving. All four members get a shot at the vocals, which is a very nice treat since we've been waiting a minute for this album. It's a cool re-introduction. I'm getting a little tired of the vocal vocoding that so many rap records are using these days, but I figure that's got to be coming near an end. In the meantime,

" Boom Boom Pow" came onto Billboard's Hot 100 at No. 71 last week and I expect it will zoom to the top as soon as it's available for download. It is the first single from the Black Eyed Peas' new album, "The E.N.D," which comes out in June.

I interviewed Will.I.Am at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and we talked about "The E.N.D." He told me it stands for "energy never dies," but it is also a literal title. "It's the end of a lot of things, it's the end of the traditional way of looking at music, and seeing the record stores," he says. "When's the last time you went into a record store" It's the end of a lot of things, when was the last time you carried around a CD with head phones, I don't know." He also said it may be the Peas' last CD, but he stresses that he means that only as a format, since physical CD sales are diminishing every year, as digital becomes a more dominant format. The group will continue recording and releasing music together long past "The E.N.D."

Listen to "Boom Boom Pow" below.