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Celeb News: New Yorker clocks true tea on the pop girls
Member Since: 10/29/2010
Posts: 29,249
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New Yorker clocks true tea on the pop girls
Beyoncé doesn’t win the pop gold for America because she had the best single—that honor goes (if we trust this week’s mood) to Rihanna’s “You Da One,” a tissue-light piece of robot reggae and human charm written by Rihanna, aspiring Voldemort Dr. Luke, dependable top-line writer Ester Dean, and other professional song builders. And though Beyoncé’s video for “Countdown” is close to the top of pack simply on the strength of extreme shoulder work, the video art form is going through a phase of robust, competitive health, probably because the money’s gone. Her big budget edit fest can’t necessarily top Battles’ “Ice Cream” video, directed by the Spanish collective Canada, or the stop-action clip for Joy Division’s “Transmission” made entirely with Playmobil figures. (Adele almost walked away with this nod, too; the video for “Rolling in the Deep,” directed by Sam Brown, won awards in the U.K. and the U.S. and haunts housecleaners everywhere.)
Beyoncé wins 2011 simply for loving the job more than everyone else. This year’s “4” is on a par with 2006’s lean “B’Day,” and is a huge step up from 2009’s loopy “I Am … Sasha Fierce.” Beyoncé can win us over repeatedly because her exuberance is equal in strength to her desire to go straight for sequins and wind machines when stumped. Her new live DVD captures the tightly corralled ecstasies of her four-day run at Roseland this past August, and includes all the videos from “4.” The Roseland show was split into very predictable halves—the first was a narrated medley of her career up until “4,” including politic comments on breaking with her manager (Matthew Knowles, her father) and her time as the Diana Ross of Destiny’s Child. The second half was a sequential run-through of “4,” which served the torch songs (“1 + 1”) well but blurred the edges of high-definition pattern tracks like “Countdown.” It was thrilling to watch not because the show was unusually clever—Beyoncé was simply born to be on stage, wear shiny clothes, and work a room—but because Beyoncé means it, wants it, has the voice, and knows whom to hire to flesh out her ideas. And this vision does seem to be hers, as it’s too idiosyncratic a mesh of tastes and textures to reflect some timid P.R. plan.
Rihanna and Katy Perry don’t seem to be entirely masters of their own destiny, though these teleologies are never fully revealed and the party line is always “I’m an artist.” (Ask the songwriting team The Matrix how messy it gets when you step up and reveal who wrote what on a pop star’s album.) None of this process is necessarily bad—the classic assembly-line pop star makes up in flexibility what he or she may lack in songwriting royalties. This has been Rihanna’s greatest strength, her role as delivery vehicle, the gelatin for this year’s flavor. She has been equally plausible on “S.O.S.,” a track that is disco by any other name, “Umbrella,” a track that is either rock music or the version of rock music you’d find in a romantic comedy, and the various tracks that draw from Jamaican music (“Man Down,” “Pon De Replay”). On her new album, “Talk That Talk,” a song called “Where You Have Been?” uses a synthesizer bass line lifted directly from acid house and Rihanna sounds entirely at home. Katy Perry isn’t as adept as Rihanna because she has been narrowly branded as the Naughty American Neighbor from the beginning of her second, non-Christian music career. (The first career was conducted briefly under the name Katy Hudson.) In 2011, Perry rode her 2010 album “Teenage Dream” to the last two of its five consecutive No. 1 singles; all of these involved Dr. Luke, Ester Dean, or both of them. This is how you get Doug Morris to give you your own label.
Ashton Shepherd released the excellent “Where Country Grows,” part of continuum of Nashville pop that doesn’t fear the vocal twang that Taylor Swift drove carefully around on her way to becoming an US Weekly staple. A song like “Look It Up” (pardon the embarrassingly literal video) is in the no-nonsense vein of feminism-by-any-other-name that Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn helped establish as an accepted mode in the country canon. Shepherd’s instrument is as flexible and nuanced as Beyoncé’s, though she is unlikely to do a four-night stand anywhere in New York.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz1g5zLIQk4
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Member Since: 3/27/2011
Posts: 14,660
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aspiring Voldemort Dr. Luke
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Member Since: 8/16/2011
Posts: 4,850
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The shades 
The king praised over and over again for her artistic value & performing skills (while pregnant).hew else? 
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Member Since: 11/4/2011
Posts: 4,121
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SO shady.
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Member Since: 11/7/2011
Posts: 14,651
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Rihanna’s “You Da One,” a tissue-light piece of robot reggae and human charm written by Rihanna, aspiring Voldemort Dr. Luke,
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Member Since: 6/15/2011
Posts: 5,842
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Well, they certainly didn't hold back in regards to some other artists, did they?
But I agree 100% with everything that was said in this article. 
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Banned
Member Since: 11/24/2009
Posts: 61,404
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Quote:
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that honor goes (if we trust this week’s mood) to Rihanna’s “You Da One,” a tissue-light piece of robot reggae and human charm written by Rihanna, aspiring Voldemort Dr. Luke, dependable top-line writer Ester Dean, and other professional song builders.
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I should take it out of SYG and into some publication where I can get paid for it 
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Member Since: 10/28/2009
Posts: 26,465
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Quote:
Originally posted by Nicole
I should take it out of SYG and into some publication where I can get paid for it |
!!! I need to make a job out of my shade, ****.
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Banned
Member Since: 10/28/2011
Posts: 21,283
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Quote:
Originally posted by DG1
aspiring Voldemort Dr. Luke,
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Hey, look! My Voldemort shade is catching on! 
Quote:
Originally posted by DG1
Beyoncé wins 2011
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That's all that matters. 
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Member Since: 11/18/2011
Posts: 7,791
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I see no lies.
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Member Since: 10/14/2011
Posts: 1,200
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As I stated before, they will soon come around and recognize the Greatness that is '4'. *pops gum*
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Member Since: 12/31/2010
Posts: 26,257
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Sis...
http://atrl.net/?t=165047
Her singles really do deserve more success, though, and I agree with the writer that Bey really does care about her music.
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Member Since: 5/21/2009
Posts: 11,151
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and the various tracks that draw from Jamaican music (“Man Down,” “Pon De Replay”).
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Really though? 
Anyways, I see no lies.
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Member Since: 9/21/2010
Posts: 29,122
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They called "You Da One" the best single. 
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Member Since: 9/21/2010
Posts: 29,122
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I was Kii-ing from beginning to end.
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Member Since: 12/31/2010
Posts: 26,257
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Quote:
Originally posted by Deemy
They called "You Da One" the best single. |
I know right?  So weird. I think someone should send a letter to the writer and inform them of their little... mistake.
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Member Since: 8/28/2009
Posts: 7,345
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Quote:
Originally posted by _Monster_
As I stated before, they will soon come around and recognize the Greatness that is '4'. *pops gum* |
This.
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Banned
Member Since: 10/28/2011
Posts: 21,283
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Quote:
Originally posted by Deemy
I was Kii-ing from beginning to end. |
Is that shade?
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Member Since: 11/30/2011
Posts: 5,145
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Nothing but the truth
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Member Since: 3/6/2011
Posts: 9,523
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Oh, what do we have here?
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