Pop Life (Bonus Track Version)

Pop Life (Bonus Track Version)

David Guetta’s third studio album, Pop Life, found him in a state of transition. Prior to its 2007 release, the Frenchman had spent the past two decades growing his profile in Europe. He came up first as a DJ playing EDM, New Wave, and house music across Paris’ nightclubs before expanding into production and throwing his own events. After releasing his first two full lengths, 2002’s Just a Little More Love and 2004’s Guetta Blaster, Guetta entered his third-album era with momentum on his side, having secured his first UK Top 10 with the 2006 single “Love Don't Let Me Go (Walking Away)” and his first Grammy nomination—a big initial step toward overseas success. Vestiges of early Guetta appear throughout Pop Life. Two of his go-to vocalists, Chris Willis and JD Davis, feature on most of its songs, while French producer Joachim Garraud (with whom Guetta made Just a Little More Love) returns for album-wide co-production duties. Most notably, the production still largely reflects his electro-house roots: “You’re Not Alone” evokes riotous dance floors with its stuttering synths and glitched-out vocal fragments, while thumping kick drums and charged electric guitar plucks drive “Winner of the Game.” Even among the hard-edged sounds, the album reveals Guetta’s pop ambition. On “Baby When the Light” and “Everytime We Touch” (co-produced by Swedish House Mafia’s Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso), he trades in the club’s sweat-slicked walls and cigarette-smoke clouds for more radio-friendly fare with impassioned hooks and a softer, more polished approach. But it was the wailing heartbreak anthem “Love Is Gone” that ultimately crossed over, topping the U.S. Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, breaching the Billboard Hot 100 (his first appearance of many), and sliding into U.S. Top 40 radio rotation. By showing the potential of combining heavy dance beats and pop-structured songwriting, Pop Life served as the prototype for Guetta’s star-studded, breakthrough fourth album and planted the seeds for EDM’s global phenomenon.

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