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Celeb News: '4' Review Thread (74 on Metacritic)
Member Since: 8/10/2010
Posts: 14,634
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Originally posted by DG1
The UK
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I thought this album would have been right up their alley.
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Member Since: 8/10/2010
Posts: 14,634
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Originally posted by skyler_
New Musical Express (NME) (UK) - Mixed - 40/100
The Independent (UK) - Mixed - 40/100
is this bad?
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Member Since: 6/15/2010
Posts: 14,318
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Originally posted by Monster
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OMFG
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Member Since: 2/18/2010
Posts: 5,412
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The UK hating hard on the King most of what they wrote in their reviews are totally unnecessary.
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Member Since: 8/22/2009
Posts: 50,646
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Quote:
Originally posted by satellites™
Ive said it once and Ill say it again. People are JEALOUS of Beyonce and always will be, they hate her so much and are so afraid to admit it straight out that they find any small reason to nitpick at her from behind the scenes. The fact he started off an album review with how much money she made on a Forbes list proves this to be true. And while most people think im reaching or cant see it, Ive been stanning long enough to know when someone is letting their personal judgement on her personality, life, and attitude come into play when they are criticizing her work. People dont like a powerful black woman dominating an entire industry from music to film and etc... They want to break her down piece by piece just like they did Michael and watch her do crazy, embarrassing things until she just disappears.
BUT IT AINT HAPPENING!
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So it is with Beyoncé, every mention of whom comes accompanied by references to the 16 Grammies she's won, the 75 million albums she's apparently sold, the $80m she earned in 12 months, the alleged $1m she received for performing for the Gaddafi family,
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Member Since: 2/18/2010
Posts: 5,412
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Originally posted by Monster
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Be patient with Skyler.
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Member Since: 4/17/2011
Posts: 9,162
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The U.K reviewers sucks major balls. But it does make sense I guess since they are their country is the reason for ****** electro pop music. Eh.
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Member Since: 12/4/2010
Posts: 37,894
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Somebody find Andy Gill's twitter. Please.
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Member Since: 3/10/2011
Posts: 5,354
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What the **** at these reviews
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Member Since: 8/22/2009
Posts: 50,646
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Quote:
Originally posted by Beyond Say
The U.K reviewers sucks major balls. But it does make sense I guess since they are their country is the reason for ****** electro pop music. Eh.
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Truth.org
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Banned
Member Since: 11/24/2009
Posts: 61,404
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Quote:
Originally posted by Beyond Say
The U.K reviewers sucks major balls. But it does make sense I guess since they are their country is the reason for ****** electro pop music. Eh.
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But the UK thinks Adele's 21 is like the cure for cancer.
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Member Since: 4/17/2011
Posts: 9,162
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Originally posted by Haus_of_Nicole
But the UK thinks Adele's 21 is like the cure for cancer.
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She's one of them.
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Member Since: 6/1/2010
Posts: 65,177
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UK
I don't think you guys should be expecting big reviews. Beyonce is not a huge critical favorite. Her higest reviewed album is B'Day at a 70, and that's under only a handful of reviews. She'll probably get in the 60s.
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Member Since: 6/2/2011
Posts: 69
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Quote:
Originally posted by satellites™
ve said it once and Ill say it again. People are JEALOUS of Beyonce and always will be, they hate her so much and are so afraid to admit it straight out that they find any small reason to nitpick at her from behind the scenes. The fact he started off an album review with how much money she made on a Forbes list proves this to be true. And while most people think im reaching or cant see it, Ive been stanning long enough to know when someone is letting their personal judgement on her personality, life, and attitude come into play when they are criticizing her work. People dont like a powerful black woman dominating an entire industry from music to film and etc... They want to break her down piece by piece just like they did Michael and watch her do crazy, embarrassing things until she just disappears.
BUT IT AINT HAPPENING!
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Let the church say AMEN. You better PREACH.
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Member Since: 4/17/2011
Posts: 9,162
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Quote:
Originally posted by Cap10Planet
UK
I don't think you guys should be expecting big reviews. Beyonce is not a huge critical favorite. Her higest reviewed album is B'Day at a 70, and that's under only a handful of reviews. She'll probably get in the 60s.
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Most reviewers like review Beyonce instead of her music.
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Member Since: 4/4/2011
Posts: 2,385
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Female pop acts go through so much nonsense and preconceptions, it is ridiculous.
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Member Since: 10/29/2010
Posts: 29,249
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COKEMACHINE GLOW - Beyoncé "4" Album Review
Here is an album which through conviction alone transcends its own puerility, an album steeped in obtuse sentimentality and problematic politics but which, in its earnestness, is adversely affected by neither. Cynics will scoff, but 4 is so fervently committed to its own wide-eyed claims of empowerment and liberation that, like a hopeful child espousing the virtues of world peace, its naivety emerges unassailable. This is an album of gleaming pop platitudes, an album not so much by but of Beyoncé, or Beyoncé-by-committee. It’s a collection of twelve songs culled, as Wikipedia tells it, from the 85-odd complete works submitted to and vetted by her label. The result feels like less an artistic statement than a wholly commercial product, though one designed to forge a believably personal bond with each and every one of its listeners. That Beyoncé can actually sell such a bond—that 4 does indeed feel personal even if it resolutely isn’t—can only be a testament, corny though this may sound, to her power.
Much has been made of 4‘s nostalgia for pop icons past, and it’s true that many of its strongest ballads, particularly opener and album highlight “1+1,” attempt to synthesize a well-curated melange of conspicuous influences in order to lend themselves the vaguely “timeless” quality of the veins of balladry into which she taps. But if at times 4 recedes into a catalog of classics, it’s less a romantic gesture than an attempt to find a venue for the virtuosic vocal performances that are Beyoncé‘s real bread and butter. The content of these songs may be almost remarkably vacuous, but that’s sort of the point, because it gives Beyoncé an opportunity to show off just how convincingly she can forward even the most shallow, underdeveloped sentiment. When she pleads, on “1+1,” “Make love to me,” there’s an earnestness in the delivery that’s disarming. Cringe-worthy lines on paper, or even in the mouth of a lesser performer, are here alternately devastating and euphoric.
The success of 4‘s ballads (of which there are a great many) hinges entirely on the believability of Beyoncé‘s delivery, and part of what makes this such an interesting if flawed pop record is how often she seems to set herself up for failure. The piercing, hard-edged “I Care” must have felt like a safe bet from the start, but on a song like the Frank Ocean-penned “I Miss You,” Beyoncé has nothing to hide behind: built around a simple, almost quaint idea, it requires such self-serious candor it’s astounding how well it works. Of course, self-seriousness and candor are also the principal reasons for existence of inexcusable missteps like “I Was Here” and the practically archaic power-ballad (and completely inexplicable second single) “Best Thing I Never Had,” but such a strategy is not without its risks in the same way that mainstream pop records are not without their filler.
And of course it wouldn’t be a future-platinum Beyoncé album if it didn’t include an obligatory crossover club anthem, and if “Run the World (Girls)” doesn’t quite reach “Crazy in Love” heights it’s still pretty exhilarating on its own terms. “Run the World” finds Beyoncé copping M.I.A. by way of a well-appropriated (if heavily leaned on) Major Lazor sample, and the result is a banger that’s both enormous and enormously stupid (in a good way). It feels about as empowering as a tampon ad, but like the saccharine ballads which precede it, Beyoncé sells the sentiment like she’s selling her soul.
At its best, 4 manages to make pop cliches feel fresh again. There’s something pure about full-bodied songs built around stuff as simple as “missing you” or “caring.” Perhaps it’s simply that Beyoncé, incapable of matching either the faux-art posturing of a commercially cultivated “oddity” like Lady Gaga or the bleeding-heart melodrama of a visibly “authentic” working class Brit like Adele, is left holding the line where doing straight-up emptiness but doing it really well is the only niche left.
She’s still a nearly peerless vocal performer, and if that’s the one edge she retains over her otherwise edgier contemporaries, then it’s probably for the best that her material be simple enough for her voice to really shine. Though I Am…Sasha Fierce (2009) wasn’t exactly a detour into experimentation to begin with, it was still smart move to ditch any pretense of an alter-ego and re-embrace the no-frills approach to love ballads and pop jams that endeared the nation to Beyoncé from the start.
RATING: 70/100
http://www.cokemachineglow.com/recor...beyonce-4-2011
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Member Since: 10/29/2010
Posts: 29,249
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METACRITIC SCORES:
BBC Music (UK) - Positive - 80/100
HOT Press - Positive - 80/100
Entertainment Weekly - Positive - 75/100
Slant Magazine - Positive - 70/100
CokeMachine Glow - Positive - 70/100
NY Magazine - Positive - ?
Guardian (UK) - Mixed - 60/100
NOW Magazine - Mixed - 60/100
The Telegraph (UK) - Mixed - 60/100
New Musical Express (NME) (UK) - Mixed - 40/100
The Independent (UK) - Mixed - 40/100
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Member Since: 10/29/2010
Posts: 29,249
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CokeMachine Glow Past Reviews are always hard on her so 70/100 for '4' is great
B'day - 50/100
IASF - 30/100
They are usually hard on pop stars!
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Member Since: 10/29/2010
Posts: 29,249
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SPUTNIK MUSIC - Beyoncé "4" Album Review
Summary: The queen reigns over her kingdom, a place where cynicism and romanticism don't have to be enemies, where love is the only real battle worth fighting for. And damn, she can sing.
It's tempting to say that in this day and age, "pop music" as a concept has become meaningless, since, given the rise of file-sharing and basic Internet-driven buzz, it's easier than ever for consumers to have a decently high level of discernment. And so popular music - music intentionally made for the mass public to enjoy - is a frustratingly difficult idea to wrap one's head around, because if we take its definition literally, just about everything is pop music. Yet it's obvious that this isn't the case. "Pop", as a genre, often seems to be clearly defined, with countless artists aping one basic framework, but its actual most prominent attribute is its constant stylistic motion. Try to imagine a time when bass wasn't in, when pop music made active use of slippery guitar solos instead of energetic, short synth hooks - it isn't easy to do. As is the case with any other genre possessing one crucial demographic, pop has a constant ebb and flow, with trends coming and going at varying speeds determined by their performance on the genre's ultimate focus group - charts. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Femme Fatale, Cannibal, and Loud, three of the most prominent pop albums to be released in the past twelve months, are all dominated by Eurotrash beats, cut-up vocals, and occasionally pseudo-dubstep bass. They're trendy records, barely deviating from formula. Sure, Born This Way went against the grain with its unique brand of techno-metal, but it sucked.
4 isn't a trendy record, but it's hardly unusual - which, after witnessing the sheer ineptitude of Lady Gaga's attempts at "experimentation", may be a good thing. Taking its main stylistic cues from Prince's intoxicatingly sexy R&B (as well as some more traditional pop balladry), Beyoncé's most recent album is a largely low-tempo set that finally gives that gorgeous voice room to breathe. There are few recent pop albums that begin with three slow-burning tracks in a row, but 4's opening trio of "1+1", "I Care", and "I Miss You" is a strong and effective statement of the album's overall purpose: Beyoncé is in love and will do whatever it takes to see that love reciprocated. Hardly an original concept, but it's at least a nice counterpart (and complement) to the militant not-quite-feminism of lead single "Run the World (Girls)", which opens with an unsubtle play on an obscenity: "Who run this mother?" While I'd venture that the song has been unjustifiably maligned and actually works well as the climax of 4's majestic build, it serves as a hugely misleading first single, suggesting "Single Ladies" rather than "Irreplaceable". Far better as a summation of the album's sound on the whole is "1+1", a gorgeously produced ode to love and desire - "make love to me," Beyoncé practically moans over and over again. It would be annoyingly trite if it wasn't utterly undeniable, if that guitar break at the song's midpoint wasn't unexpectedly moving.
Which is par for the course across almost every song here, save the unlistenable "Best Thing I Never Had", a glaring misstep that sounds like the kind of ballad a soulless pop singer might put on a record as a cheap grab for "emotional significance". Lyrics take a backseat to the album's occasionally delirious throwbacks to silky-smooth R&B and funk - "Party" and "Love on Top" are two nearly perfect examples, their shamelessly artificial horns and unabashedly cheesy key changes making up for constant, mind-numbing refrains of "We like to party". Indeed, Beyoncé's commitment to her clichés helps rid them of their tendency to induce vomit - her utterance of "you're my James Dean / you make me feel like I'm seventeen" on "Rather Die Young" is made tolerable by her honeyed vocal slides. Certainly, the "bad boy" Beyoncé is in love with is more a physical representation of countless painfully banal fantasies about guys who "drive too fast" and "smoke too much", but at least it feels tangible. For once, the pop song trying to make a connection with its listener doesn't feel like a total fraud. Forget Lady Gaga's song about her relationship with her father or Britney Spears' lullaby to her babies - here, I'm convinced, if only for a moment, that Beyoncé really would rather die young than to live her life without her lover, that she cares, even if you don't. This doesn't fully explain why 4 is as enjoyable as it is, but it does convey just how convincing Beyoncé can be when given the right tools - and it turns out that those tools consist of not much more than Beyoncé's voice itself. You'd be loath to find any straight-tone singing here, but 4 is also refreshingly absent of indulgent melisma or showy mannerisms. When Beyoncé does let loose, as she does on the aforementioned key changes of "Love on Top", which force her into a rarely-used high range, the results are absolutely magnificent, serving as a perfect catharsis for the burgeoning sexual passions of the album's first two thirds.
It's appropriate, then, that the album closes with some more uptempo cuts, all of which are irresistible; the "Countdown" makes particularly successful use of its namesake and its dancehall influences. But perhaps even more notable is the record's penultimate track, the Ryan Tedder-produced "I Was Here". Tedder is arguably one of the most irritating people working in pop today, and considering his track record, it's not a surprise that "I Was Here" is the most contemporary-sounding song off of 4. What's surprising is just how good it is. The production is predictably icky, making that increasingly common mistake of using distant footsteps and reverbed guitar to convey a clichéd sense of "epicness". But then there's Beyoncé, at the center of the mix, intoning in an uncommonly hushed tone, "I wanna leave my footprints in the sands of time." Instead of gnashing my teeth, I listen closer, wanting to hear this shockingly affecting elegy directed for once not at one specific lover, but the world that allowed her to express that love in the first place. Oddly enough, the song reminds me of Lars von Trier's best works, which provoke actual emotional reactions while being, on paper, contrived pieces of ****. "I Was Here", and 4 in general, is that kind of a work, objectively middling, subjectively magnificent. It's the best kind of pop album, familiar yet unique, ambitious without having to step uncomfortably far outside of its firmly established territory. The overdramatic militarism that pervades throughout this album is the hyperbole-inviting sound of Beyoncé marching towards a place where cynicism and romanticism don't have to be enemies, where feminism can afford to be reduced to simple bullet points, where love is the only real battle worth fighting for. And for forty-six minutes, that seems to be a pretty damn good place to be.
http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/44167/Beyonce-4/
RATING: 4/5 = 80/100 - EXCELLENT
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