One thing you can say for the Black Eyed Peas, they sure serve up a buffet of likable sounds.

Even if you cringe every time their 2003 hit "Let's Get It Started" kicks off a sporting event, you'll still find something that goes down easily on the quartet's fourth CD.

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HIP-HOP The Black Eyed Peas "Monkey Business." A&M Records. 15 tracks. Grade: C+

The hip-hop fans who this cartoonlike group was trying to appeal to on their 1998 debut will applaud "Like That," a cool, insistent track with a bossa-nova undertow that features raw soul wonders Cee-Lo and John Legend on the chorus and rappers Q-Tip and Talib Kweli on the microphone.

The pop audience that embraced their third CD, "Elephunk," will be happy about the reappearance of crooner Justin Timberlake on "My Style," a spare, percussive boast produced by drum wizard Timbaland.

The adult contemporary crowd that counts the Peas as the one hip-hop act they actually like will feel justified in their opinion when they hear that genre's poster boy, Sting, singing over his jaunty "Englishman in New York," now reworked into the everybody-join-hands song "Union."

And the funksters of decades ago will raise a clenched fist as pioneer James Brown testifies in "They Don't Want Music," highlighted by a horn section and guitars reminiscent of Brown's own Famous Flames.

But once you push your chair away from the "Monkey Business" buffet, belly full of the album's good party music, you'll realize there's one person still standing with an empty plate and a growling stomach.

That's the lyrics fan. The one who, despite all of this amiable production — and the occasional fiery burst from the Peas' singer, Fergie — still can't dig into stilted, simple deliveries and ridiculous exchanges like: "What you gonna do with all that junk?/All that junk inside that trunk?

"I'm a get get get get you drunk/Get you love drunk off my hump."

— Sonia Murray

The Black Eyed Peas perform at 10:15 p.m. Saturday at Music Midtown.