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"One Love" by David Guetta
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The paths of urban and dance music have been converging for some time now.  Look at recent chart entries from Rihanna (“Suburbia”), Chris Brown (“Forever”) and Ne-Yo (“Closer”) for examples of recent songs by R&B artists that more in common with a dance track than an R&B track.

Add to the mix artists like Lady Gaga priming the radio for dance-friendly songs, and you’ve got lightning ready to strike. David Guetta, on his third outing with “One Love,” takes the ultimate step, and does quite well putting it all together.

Guetta is no stranger to the dance scene, but he decided to pair up with marquee urban artists for his latest outing.  A taste of what was coming appeared earlier this year when his pairing with Kelly Rowland, “When Love Takes Over,” stormed the clubs and made an impact on the Hot 100, a hard chart for any dance song to break. He also produced the recent #1 Black Eyed Peas track “I Gotta Feeling.”  If anyone would succeed with this mash-up, it would be Guetta.

Luckily, Guetta delivers on the promise of the concept, delivering both heavy hitters on the singing side and some good beats to back it up. I recently lauded two of the tracks found on the album, “Sexy Bitch” for its cleverness and “Gettin’ Over,” another solid song (with more of a pop feel, leaning similar in the spectrum to “I Gotta Feeling”) with a previous collaborator, Chris Willis.

Elsewhere on the album, “One Love” with Estelle is a welcome return for the singer, and she is in quite the fine form here.  The piano and choir backing her are quite catchy, and it’s an emotive and uplifting track.  A collaboration with will.i.am, “I Wanna Go Crazy,” has one of the hardest beats on the album, a fitting backdrop for a potent set of lyrics leading to the, well, crazy-sounding chorus.  will.i.am and bandmate Apl de Ap join Guetta to bring another dancefloor jam to the table with “On the Dancefloor,” another simple track in the same vein as “Let’s Get it Started” to just get people dancing.

Guetta gives Rowland the biggest platform, with her featured on three tracks in total (Ne-Yo joins in on one of them).  The Rowland tracks prove to be the strongest of them all, with “It’s the Way You Love Me” having lush harmonies and a potent beat, while Rowland and Ne-Yo banter on “Choose,” which also one of the strongest and catchiest beats on the album.

The closest thing to a ballad comes from Makeba’s contribution, “If We Ever,” with a subtler beat and strings as a backdrop to a heart-wrenching song.

Wisely, Guetta puts a lot into the beats, but doesn’t do so at the expense of his collaborating singers; the beats only get as strong as necessary to carry the tune, and allow the singers to float above them.  The female singers therefore end up with slightly stronger tracks as a result, although the men acquit themselves wisely.

But most of all, Guetta proves his mettle again as a producer, while attempting to push the dance genre out of the margins and closer to the mainstream again.  While Europe has long embraced dance music as a form of pop, the U.S. has stayed on the sidelines, for better or worse.  If the recent Black Eyed Peas’ success with a Guetta song is any indication, it appears the tide is turning, and that will open up the doors to a new round of strong dance-pop tracks, with Guetta at the forefront.  Highly recommended.