|
Celeb News: 'BEYONCÉ' - Universal Acclaim on MetaCritic (86)
Member Since: 3/15/2013
Posts: 15,700
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 4/21/2012
Posts: 8,147
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/22/2011
Posts: 18,944
|
Well deserved. Such an incredible album!
|
|
|
Member Since: 5/16/2012
Posts: 12,486
|
Quote:
Originally posted by DG1
For comparison, Guardian gave "4" a 60. Off to a good start.
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 10/29/2010
Posts: 29,249
|
Beyonce's 'Beyonce': Our Impulsive Reviews Media Fire: SPIN's editors zip through an album in 320 seconds or less
December 13 2013, 12:48 PM ET
In the wee hours of Friday morning, Beyoncé debuted her surprise self-titled fifth album, complete with 17 dazzling music videos. Now, SPIN editors and contributors give their hasty and completely impulsive opinions.
JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD
Never mind that the midnight-arrival and video-album concept stunts on both Yeezy's art projections and her beloved husband's Samsung ballyhoo. This is different from anything Beyoncé's done before, not in the sense of the big ballads showing off her vocal elasticity, nor in the sense that she's dipping in Southern-girl ice-grills — she's done both in droves, since the immaculate birth of Destiny's Child. But as the sound of pop music has wadded up EDM beats and dramatic guitar-synth crescendos like dirty Kleenex, there's been a void for something new, even in her hallowed zone.
And so she's tweaked her diva crown just enough to make what sounds — and looks like — the freshest pop since Yeezus, skydiving self-confidence into just-askew Timbaland bangers and the best candy-apple disco Pharrell's done since Kelis' Tasty (yeah, I said it). Most importantly, the references back to Girls Tyme (B's preteen, pre-DC quartet) and a sample from the Nigerian intellectual Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie holding forth on feminism seem to address critics who constantly discount her. But it's the videos that make the statement, in perfect tandem with the songs: Addressing second-, third-, and fourth-wave feminism/womanism/whatever-you-prefer, this is Beyoncé's true-love manifesto and total middle finger. SHE WOKE UP LIKE DAT. Don't front. Early score: 9/10
CHARLES AARON
Okay, fellas. Yeezus, R. Kelly, The-Dream, the Weeknd, even Drake (who appears here on "Mine") — everybody out of the pool. And take your floatie groupies with you. Ms. Knowles is home. And she wants to tell you something, and you better be fully clothed and sitting down (to avoid undue embarrassment). And what she wants to tell you is that relationships are hard work, and women are doing that work and will probably continue doing that work, so maybe STFU every now and then about your struggle.
This album, in its truest form, is 17 songs accompanied by 17 videos. It's not a tossed-off turnt mixtage. It's the real ARTPOP — oh my Lord, is it the real ARTPOP! Here, Beyoncé decides to wipe the floor clean and then dance all over it as therapy and manifesto. While pleading, crying, preaching, testifying, and gettin' as fiercely intimate as homemade sin. I mean, ****, she "cooked this meal for you naked" ("Jealous") and undulated exotically onstage while you sat back and smoked a stogie ("Partition"). Here's the simple, pretty, yet unbearably tangled truth: "Take all of me / I just wanna be the girl you like girl you like and the girl you like and girl you like…." Perfection is a mirage, even for B, so **** all y'all,.
Beyoncé the human being seems "designed to be consumed as a comprehensive audio/visual piece from top to bottom," so it's no adjustment for us to approach her thrilling, sprawling, almost overwhelming new album in the manner she suggests above. For one song, "Flawless," which aims to clarify her controversial "bow down, bitches" lyric from "Bow Down/I Put On" as a feminist wake-up call, the visual gives the sentiment a remarkable, intense, self-deprecating frame. It opens and closes with a Star Search clip wherein a young B and her group Girls Tyme lost to a crew of douche-y rock bros named Skeleton Groove (two members wear berets!); meanwhile, back in the present, she wears a flannel shirt and dances to a trap beat like she's moshing in the basement of a DIY punk dive.
But for me, an aging white dude, to say more than that, at this early prejudging juncture, would be the sort of mansplain move that this album is attempting to address. Listen to the women, Beyoncé implores, again and again, from the perspective of "no angel" who sings like one. So yeah, let's listen — men and women, boys and girls. Let's listen. Early score: 9/10
PHILIP SHERBURNE
In a year full of both unexpected album drops and equally unexpected collaborations, nothing points to the likelihood that we're headed toward some kind of pop singularity than Beyoncéarriving just days after Burial's Rival Dealer. (Even the cover of her album looks vaguely like Burial's.) Burial was sampling Beyoncé and Destiny's Child way back in 2006, and now there's a distinctly Burial-like quality to the sepulchral skulk of tracks like "Haunted," "No Angel," and "Partition."
Furthermore, if you were working on a self-empowerment mixtape, you could do worse than to segue from Burial's "Come Down to Us" to B's "Pretty Hurts." The former offers a triumphant swell of quiet-storm chimes and a closing sermon about self-worth from the transgender director Lana Wachowski; the latter, a skies-rending, breast-beating protest that "It's the soul that needs surgery," is equally ecstatic in its self-affirmation. (The video, meanwhile, features Beyoncé suffering through the self-hating hellscape of the beauty-pageant circuit before the crown finally goes to a woman who may or may not be albino — a story line that opens up a wealth of readings about race, skin tone, beauty standards, and her own mutable image. I'm not going to lie — I teared up a little at the end.)
After Jay Z's Magna Carta… Holy Grail drove home the one-percenter lifestyle that pop's First Couple enjoys, it's refreshing to hear Beyoncé singing, "Nine-to-five just to stay alive" like a mantra; intra-class solidarity is scarce these days, so we'll take what we can get. Make no mistake: Beyoncé sounds expensive, as they'd say on Project Runway. This is some top-shelf ****, from the Teflon-plated 808 toms on "Partition" to the million-dollar glitter-ball guitars of "Blow" to the zero-G bounce of "XO," which, purely in terms of sonics, makes the most compelling argument for space tourism I have yet to come across. While we're getting hyperbolic, "Jealous" is the most uplifting take on invidiousness since "Suspicious Minds." "Rocket," meanwhile, is a pitch-perfect rendering of D'Angelo's Voodoo, which feels pretty bold, since D'Angelo was about the only long-absent star who didn't make an out-of-the-blue comeback this year.
Above all, though, the whole thing sounds incredibly intimate and incredibly human — no small trick for a blockbuster of these proportions. It aims big; its peaks are soaring, full-on, sky's-the-limit peaks, some real yelling-from-mountaintops stuff. But it asks you to lean close, too, like there's a secret hidden behind every muffled snare and sub-bass rumble.Early score: 8/10
PUJA PATEL
As if we weren't worshipping at the altar of Beyoncé already; as if we didn't already regard her as the queen of style-stuntin', high-heeled-struttin', she-who-runs-the-world swag. Here comes "Flawless," an anthemic track that envelopes Queen Bey's "Bow Down Bitches" Soundcloud snippet from last winter, adds an interlude from Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (wherein the writer purposefully defines the word "feminism"), and stomps out naysayers over sauntering, tightly rolled snares.
Marketing histrionics and the intense, en-masse release of this amount of content aside, the most refreshing part of this thing is just how deep she goes with it. Drake and Frank Ocean both appear for love ballads rife worth worry, possessiveness, and tough decisions. But unlike Drake, who often gets so wrapped up in his feelings that it’s suffocating, ‘Yonce’s approach is dynamic: She always finds a way out. “Drunk in Love” makes a husky-voiced body party out of Mr. and Mrs. Carter, though even Hova’s creepo sexualization of his diva-wife (“Your breast-es are my breakfast” / “I beat the box like Mike in ‘97”) is nothing compared to her own flaunts. While she’ll take it from her hubby, Beyoncé doesn’t need anyone to subtly dress her down; she can do it herself.
Really, sex is fully on the table here. “Partition” has the singer asking her man to, ahem, “Monica Lewinsky” all over her gown, while the video for “Rocket” is practically a tribute to her curves as she croons, “You rock hard / I rock steady” before erupting into an orgasmic finish. Sonically, Beyoncé is loaded with hi-hat hat-tips to her hip-hop homeland. Putting the ballads to the side, trap beats and future-bass influence lurks under a handful of these songs. “Haunted” and the video snippet "Ghost" stand out in particular: Produced by someone credited as Boots, they're full of clappity, clickity percussion and minimal garage-influenced bass, as though produced by a new-waving, trap-loving Burial. They also bolster one of this album's overarching themes, exposing the sinister underbelly that creeps below all that is pretty. And while self-mined, underground-processed art-pop is certainly en vogue at the moment, Bey is quick to promise that this isn't a front. As she so perfectly puts on "Flawless": She just woke up like this.
Early score: 9/10
ROB HARVILLA
First off, on the evidence, Beyoncé is the most sexually active mother of a one-year-old in parenting history. (Your hero and mine Tom Breihan has some valuable insight there re: Jay Z's risible "your breasteses are my breakfast" line, though you may not want it.) But this is her singular genius, the mingling of humanity and intergalactic goddesshood, that we shift here from raw vulnerability ("Perfection is a disease of a nation") and at least an attempt at working-class solidarity ("9-to-5 just to stay alive") to the overpowering triumph of "***Flawless" and a ******* of life-changing superhuman boasts on the order of "I sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker / Yoncé all on his mouth like liquor." How "It took 45 minutes to get all dressed up" is later compressed to "I woke up like dis." How "I'm not feeling like myself since the baby" somehow summons Drake, of all people. How "I cooked this meal for you naked" splits the difference between humility and supreme confidence. She walks among us; she orbits high above us.
I watched every video last night. Was up until 4. ("Superpower" is the funniest, "Heaven" the heaviest, "XO" the sweetest.) By the time I got to "Partition" I was ready to declare this the single greatest musical thing that has ever happened. I have since calmed down, but only slightly. The broad-strokes gloss here is between this and 4, she's trading monster singles for monster albums, instant three-minutes-and-change mega-pop gratification for erotic minimalism ("Partition," seriously) and full-length immersion. (Plenty of maximalism here, too, though, of course: "XO," for one, has monster-single potential.) I'd say this is a brave decision even if it affects her bottom line, but I just spent $16 on this outta nowhere, and it's the best $16 I've spent in ages. Early score: 9/10
BRANDON SODERBERG
There are surely some groaners that will stick out once the excitement over the totally random-ass arrival of a new Beyoncé album subsides, so let's start there, and then get onto why this thing's better and more coherent than this year's elaborate PR stunts from Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, and even Kanye West. The paparazzi whining on "Drunk on Love" needs to go, but the line that clocked me in the jaw right away with its pop-star cluelessness is stuffed inside "Haunted." Otherwise a highlight — foggy like a Burial record, yet propulsive like, well, a Burial record —that "9 to 5 just to stay alive" thing leaves me cold: Most of her audience can't even get a 9-to-5 anymore! But hey, Springsteen's workin'-man songs are equally douche-y if you put them up to a close read, so let's move on.
So, wow, Beyoncé is a Prince punk-funk Rick James-circa-Cold Blooded electro album (see the Mtume riff "Blow" or the distortion boogie of "No Angel," produced by Chairlift's Caroline Polachek), a Houston hip-hop homage (her rhymes on "Drunk In Love" nod to "Swangin' and Bangin'" and constitute better rapping than Jay Z's verse, plus there's a Slim Thug flow on "Partition"), and a capitalist-considering, pop-feminist treatise. The inclusion of some goof mispronouncing her name at the start of "Haunted" is an interesting little self-deprecating detail that contains within it the work-a-day indignity so many people of color suffer for having weird-to-white-ppl names. Also, she does a Kendrick Lamar impression on "Haunted."
Elsewhere, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie appears on "***Flawless" (an adjustment to the "Bow Down" freeload from earlier this year that got the "ain't feminist enuff" think-piece treatment) and makes explicit Beyoncé's vision of being a woman with power and what she will do with that power. "Mine," featuring Drake, is a reminder that B is the OG sing-rapper, long before dudes like Kanye, Lil Wayne, and Drizzy supposedly sparked a melodic-rap revolution (shout out to that late-'90s MTV2 bumper where Del The Funky Homosapien explained that Destiny's Child were pretty much rappers). And in what has got to be one of the bravest combinations of songs in often album-averse modern R&B, closers "Heaven" and "Blue" take on her miscarriage and the birth of her child. So Beyoncé is an "I love my child and I love my husband and I love doin' it with my husband" record that doesn't stink of comfort — it begins with those emotions and spirals out from there. In that sense, it's a lot like Yeezus, also empowered by an interior life seemingly in order, but here, that just allows her more time to focus on the outside world's oppressive ******** — and inspires her to fight back. Early score: 8/10
JEM ASWAD
Irresistible as some of her singles have been, Beyoncé’s albums have always felt laborious and labored-over to me, like she was trying so hard for Michael Jordan-esque levels of perfection that she wasn’t having any fun; that the emphasis was more on the feat than the feel. (See disc one of I Am… Sasha Fierce, or the series of octave leaps at the end of “Love on Top.”) So it’s surprising that this, her most Herculean, long-percolating and (given 17 videos and unprecedented secrecy campaign) presumably effort-full effort yet is also, at first blush anyway, her most human. Whether it was Solange’s influence, frequent trips to Williamsburg. or whatever, B’s previous album, 2011’s 4, had moments of creative flowering, and here her muse is in full bloom.
As always, the collaborators are key: Pharrell looms large, teaming up with Timberlake to create a vintage Prince groove (more than slightly reminiscent of “Blurred Lines”) on “Blow”; “No Angel” has a wild, jazzy, Joni-ish melody that flies all over the scale; the opening piece de resistance, “Pretty Hurts,” has a shimmering, melancholy-yet-radio-friendly landscape that perfectly suits the song’s heavy subject matter; “Rocket” is a loving interpolation of D’Angelo’s steamy “Untitled” that oddly doesn’t credit him (maybe the fine print is buried somewhere in iTunes). Throughout, guest spots from Drake, Hov, Frank Ocean and others provide some vocal variety without stealing the spotlight. Whatever the cause, Beyoncé sounds like she’s enjoying making music more than she ever has before. And while the videos may not cohere into the full story she implies in her explanatory video, her attempt at reinvigorating the album as a concept certainly raises the bar: Beyoncé is the first album on this scale that you can watch as well as listen to. So who’s next? Early score: 8/10
http://www.spin.com/articles/beyonce...gn=spintwitter
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 58,053
|
This will be the highest rated out of Katy, Gaga, & Britney.
(on metacritic)
|
|
|
Member Since: 10/29/2010
Posts: 29,249
|
Beyoncé: The 'Grown Woman' Changes The Game
On her new self-titled album, Beyoncé goes for greatness, in Bigger Than The Sound.
It all makes sense now.
For twelve months, we've been asking "What the heck is going on with Beyoncé's album?" And on Thursday, right around midnight, we finally got our answer: She's been working on it this entire time.
In an era where the element of surprise is all but dead, Bey pulled off the impossible: she shocked the world, releasing her self-titled fifth album without a shred of promotion or advance notice. Not only that, but she packaged the thing with a staggering 17 music videos — each of which is a gorgeous, fully-realized piece — making Beyoncé a true 360-experience, perhaps the first of our time (and certainly the first by an artist of her magnitude). Given the profile of the project, and the sheer amount of people involved in its creation, it's a miracle no one knew it existed ... but somehow, she managed to keep it under wraps. Beyoncé is the Area 51 of albums.
But is it any good? Well, given that it's only existed for 12 hours now, it's tough to give it a full-and-proper review, though since we're all experiencing it together, I think it's safe to side with popular opinion: Yes, Beyoncé is good. Very good. It's a common practice to refer to any artist's latest release as "their most personal," but in this case, that assessment is true. Beyoncé pulls no punches, makes no attempt at hiding her flaws or insecurities. Believe it or not, she is not always perfect, a point she drives home on tracks like "Pretty Hurts," "Jealous" and "Mine," where she reveals the rocky patches in her high-profile marriage to Jay Z — "I'm not feeling like myself since the baby/Are we even going to make it?" — and seems to confirm reports that the couple went through a separation.
She also spends portions of the album exploring the transformative powers of motherhood ("Blue," featuring a cameo by her daughter) and the changing face of feminism ("*** Flawless,") yet despite her newfound sense of self, on cold, coital tracks like "Haunted," she is unafraid to admit that she needs someone to make her feel whole. There are homages to her hometown of Houston — the re-appearance of her "Third Ward Trill" character, the re-purposing of early track "Bow Down," the rap-sung jabs of "Yoncé — celebratory odes to love ("Drunk in Love," "XO") and, of course, plenty of affirmations for her females ... chief amongst them, the "I woke up like this" coda to "Flawless."
And, oh yes, there are plenty of songs about sex, and they're the best of the bunch: "Blow" is a roller-disco jam that starts all breathy, then morphs into a masterful recreation of mid-'80s First Avenue funk, "Partition" is a slinky, silky ode to auto eroticism, and "Rocket" is a slowed-down jam in the purest sense of the term. When combined with the other subject material covered on Beyoncé, these songs help flesh out the most fully-realized portrait of a superstar in recent memory. The fact that she includes old track "Grown Woman" as a music video almost feels like overkill: after listening, we all know she's good and grown.
Speaking of those music videos, while most artists tend to include them as deluxe-edition ephemera, Beyoncé made them an integral part of the experience. "I see music, it's more than just what I hear," she said in a statement that accompanied the album's release, and she wasn't lying. Working with the best in the business — directors like Hype Williams, Jonas Åkerlund and Jake Nava — she's created a collection of 17 clips, each of which could serve as a standalone (and some of the best, like "Pretty Hurts," "Blow," "Superpower" and "Rocket" probably will). But, when viewed as a whole, they truly elevate Beyoncé beyond a mere album ... it becomes a work of art, a fully conceptualized experience few could hope to match.
In the coming days, Beyoncé's release strategy will undoubtedly be the subject of much discussion, and rightfully so. But, when the smoke clears and attention turns to the album's content — the honesty, the ambition, the homages, the anthems, and the artistry — its true impact can more accurately be measured. This is an album that reveals itself gradually, with pace and purpose, the kind of thing artists dream of making. And Beyoncé's done it. With one bold gambit, she's turned the industry on its ear and proven that, yes, it's still possible to surprise. She's given us all a gift, and now it's up to us all to unwrap it. All hail Her Majesty the Queen, our patron.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/171...-changer.jhtml
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/17/2013
Posts: 1,236
|
Quote:
Originally posted by DG1
...Perhaps with radio stations having all but deserted her – in America at least – Beyoncé has realised that she doesn't need them. Her superstar aura is now strong enough to hide the fact that, 4 aside, the majority of her albums have been fairly inconsistent, almost like vehicles for singles rather than a cohesive body of work.
|
It's official. Beyoncé is now an album artist
BTW that would be the case even if this new album wouldn't have become nr.1 next week (or whenever that's scheduled)
|
|
|
Member Since: 1/20/2012
Posts: 25,077
|
She'll stay in the higher 70's or 80's i hope
|
|
|
Member Since: 9/26/2011
Posts: 3,765
|
Quote:
Originally posted by DevonRoars
This will be the highest rated out of Katy, Gaga, & Britney.
(on metacritic)
|
Well looking at their latest album scores it is nothing to be proud about.
I personally think album will get close to 80 average meta-score.
|
|
|
Member Since: 7/23/2012
Posts: 17,269
|
I want those stellar reviews for Drunk in Love
|
|
|
Member Since: 10/29/2010
Posts: 29,249
|
Beyonce, Beyonce: Track-By-Track Review
"I see music," Beyoncé said in a video on her Facebook page, dubbed "Self-Titled, Part 1," just minutes after her surprise announcement of "Beyoncé," her fifth album. “It’s more than just what I hear. When I’m connected to something, I immediately see a visual or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion, a memory from my childhood, thoughts about life, my dreams or my fantasies. And they’re all connected to the music.”
Inspired in part by her childhood memories of watching music videos like Michael Jackson's "Thriller" as a shared experience with her family, "Beyoncé" was released Friday morning as a simultaneous audio and visual album, with full-length videos for each of the 13 tracks (plus a bonus video-only clip for "Grown Woman," a song she premiered in a Pepsi commercial earlier this year.)
While many fans stayed up until the wee hours listening to it – over 80,000, to be exact, according to sales estimates from the first three hours on iTunes – many more were tweeting, Facebooking and Instagramming about it. How did she pull it off, and who's on it? For starters, there's Boots, the virtually unknown producer/songwriter signed to Bey's hubby Jay Z's management company Roc Nation, who revealed on his Facebook page Friday morning that he produced 85% of the albm and contributed four original songs. There's also several contributions from Pharrell, guest raps from Jay and Drake, a featured vocal from Frank Ocean and co-writing contributions from the likes of Justin Timberlake, Charlift's Caroline Polachek and Miguel.
But once the initial novelty and shock wears off of Beyoncé's impressive stealth-release feat, the brilliance and creative audacity of the album itself can sink in. Though there are a few songs with traditional pop structures ("XO," "Blow" and "Drunk In Love" chief among them), many of the tracks are more experimental, half-rapped/half-sung songs with suites and interludes that pack more ideas (and more sexually explicit dialogue) than radio-friendly hooks at times.
And yet that's exactly what "Beyoncé"'s aim is – to shift your perceptions and expectations about everything, from release dates to marketing launches to what "pop" should sound like. Much like her sister Solange's compilation "Saint Heron," which featured vocal-heavy, minimalist R&B compilation "Saint Heron," "Beyoncé" signifies where the future of R&B is heading, with less focus on beats and more emphasis on emotive falsetto, stream-of-consciousness ideas and the occasional burst of braggadocio ("Bow Down," the much-debated hype track she released in February, makes its return as an intro to the flossy "***Flawless," and "Yonce" rivals "Single Ladies" as her most quotable song ever.) It's as impressive an accomplishment creatively as it is for shifting the industry towards a more nontraditional take on the "single-album-tour" strategy.
Which tracks on "Beyoncé" take the crown? Read on for our track-by-track review.
1. "Pretty Hurts": “What is your aspiration in life?” a beauty pageant judge asks Bey, credited as “Miss 3rd Ward” (a reference to the Houston neighborhood where she grew up.) “My aspiration in life would be…to be happy.” What follows is a litany of expected beauty staples (“brush your hair / fix your teeth / what you wear / is all that matters”.) The song was penned by Sia, the go-to girl for pop divas who want to show their emo side (see: Rihanna “Diamonds,” Celine Dion “Loved Me Back To Life,” Christina Aguilera “Blank Page.”) But unlike those other vocalists, Beyonce doesn’t just re-sing a Sia demo – she fully makes this self-empowerment anthem fully her own, with a powerhouse “Halo”-esque vocal, and a bridge that could take you from Houston to Brooklyn in five seconds flat (“it’s my soul that needs surgery.”)
2. "Haunted": The spine-tinglingly glam Madonna-meets-“American Horror Story” video for this track is worth Beyoncé’s case for making this a simultaneous visual-and-audio experience alone. But divorced from those powerful visuals, “Haunted” still emerges as one “Beyonce”’s strongest tracks – and most insightful in terms of how she chooses to run her own business. “I don’t trust these record labels / I’m tourin’,” she says in the spoken-word intro, making a chant out of “workin’ 9 to 5 / just to stay alive” as if her Mrs. Carter World Tour was some sort of tribute to the working class. (Which, have you seen it? No one worked harder for your applause on the road this year.) “I probably won’t make no money off this. Oh well,” she later says. Starkly minimal, with a spectral falsetto applied amid warped, ghost-ly vocal effects, “Haunted” is one of the album’s most staunchly non-commercial moments, but endlessly listenable just the same.
3. "Drunk In Love (Feat. Jay Z)": No single was released prior to the album, but if a case could be made for one to be pushed to R&B radio (or Top 40, with the right crossover momentum), it’s this duet with Hov. An ode to raunchy love-making with a dedicated partner, “Drunk In Love” delicately dances around TMI territory with its asides like “grainin’ on that wood” (she’s supposedly talking about a “surfboard.”) But an infectious, wailing of “loooove” on the chorus, a sassy half-rapped second verse from Bey and a memorable rap from Jay (“your breastesses my breakfastesses”) make this a potential smash.
4. "Blow": The dream-team from Justin Timberlake’s “The 20/20 Experience” – JT, Jerome “J-Roc” Harmon, James Fauntleroy and Timbaland – bring on Pharrell as producer and a sexy vocal Bey for this slinky club banger, that recalls previous “B Day” collabs with Pharrell like “Kitty Kat” and “Green Light.” Just don’t try and explain this one to the kids too much, as there’s cunnilingus references aplenty (it’s called “Blow” for a reason.)
5. "No Angel": “Would you rather I be a machine who doesn’t notice when you late or when you lyin’?” Beyoncé says, admitting she’s far from perfect herself. Queen Bey gets breathy and pleading on this throwback track. Once again, that lovely “Halo” falsetto makes a welcome return, but with some heavy bass and a brief interlude to move things to the bedroom. If there’s a recurring to this album, it’s that being happily married life takes a lot of work – but also lots and lots of sex.
6. "Partition": The track opens with the call-and-response Beyoncé asks of her crowd every night on tour (“Lemme hear you say “Hayyy Ms. Carter!”) and quickly turns into a lady-thug anthem called “Yonce” “(every girl on here gotta look me up and down / All on Instagram cake by the pound,” she boasts, adding even more memorably, “I sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker.”) “Partition,” the full-length song within this interlude, is yet another “gettin’ freaky with my baby” jam, with some of Bey’s most frankly sexual lines yet (“oh he Monica Lewisnky’d all over my gown.”)
7. "Jealous": One of several self-referential moments on the album, Beyoncé takes her “Freakum dress out my closet” to make an ex “she used to flex in Texas” envious of how bodacious she’d become. A brooding beat amid distant yelps gives the track a Lana Del Rey/Jeff Bhasker/Emile Haynie vibe, but then that chorus kicks in and suddenly you can see Beyonce singing this from the stage surrounded by smoke machines. An uncanny mix of tones and styles, often within the same song, is felt throughout.
8. "Rocket": “Let me sit this ass on you,” Beyoncé announces from the jump. “Let me take this off while you watch me / that’s my’ass appeal.” It’s a Roger-and-Zapp style slow-jam, baby-making anthem, and Beyonce is fully equipped for the occasion.
9. "Mine": Beyoncé continues to reveal everyday doubts that haunt her ("I'm not feeling like myself since the baby, are we even going to make it? If we are, we're taking this a little too far"), bringing in Drake to turn the darkness into hope.
10. "XO": The magical "XO," co-written and produced by Ryan Tedder and Terius Nash, is the most radio-friendly song on "Beyoncé," and finds the hopeful singer in tranced with love.
11. "***Flawless": When we first heard the Hit-Boy produced track in March it didn't contain the content of the full-version, only to come off abrasive. "***Flawless" though, with the insightful commentary of feminism by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, carries power and highlights camaraderie amongst women.
12. "Superpower": Pharrell lends Beyoncé a cinematic gift, in the form of song. "Superpower" amplifies Pharrell's musical genius, producing a magical bed for Bey' and Frank Ocean's sweet duet of an imaginable force.
13. "Heaven": Mysterious producer and writer, Boots, assists Beyoncé in letting go of a lost love. Boots, whose name appears everywhere on the album, has a way of bringing out the softer, compassionate side of the singer.
14. "Blue" (feat. Blue Ivy): Bey' flexes her vocal prowess for her daughter, Blue Ivy on the angelic Boots-produced song. She dives into the seemingly indescribable love that she feels for her baby girl, whose giggles close the song. Baby Blue made her musical debut on Jay Z's "Glory," which he released shortly after her birth. The accompanying video features Bey' strolling the bright streets and sandy beaches of Brazil with Blue in her arms.
RATING: 90/100
http://www.billboard.com/articles/re...y-track-review
|
|
|
Member Since: 6/25/2011
Posts: 28,853
|
Quote:
Originally posted by DG1
Beyonce, Beyonce: Track-By-Track Review
"I see music," Beyoncé said in a video on her Facebook page, dubbed "Self-Titled, Part 1," just minutes after her surprise announcement of "Beyoncé," her fifth album. “It’s more than just what I hear. When I’m connected to something, I immediately see a visual or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion, a memory from my childhood, thoughts about life, my dreams or my fantasies. And they’re all connected to the music.”
Inspired in part by her childhood memories of watching music videos like Michael Jackson's "Thriller" as a shared experience with her family, "Beyoncé" was released Friday morning as a simultaneous audio and visual album, with full-length videos for each of the 13 tracks (plus a bonus video-only clip for "Grown Woman," a song she premiered in a Pepsi commercial earlier this year.)
While many fans stayed up until the wee hours listening to it – over 80,000, to be exact, according to sales estimates from the first three hours on iTunes – many more were tweeting, Facebooking and Instagramming about it. How did she pull it off, and who's on it? For starters, there's Boots, the virtually unknown producer/songwriter signed to Bey's hubby Jay Z's management company Roc Nation, who revealed on his Facebook page Friday morning that he produced 85% of the albm and contributed four original songs. There's also several contributions from Pharrell, guest raps from Jay and Drake, a featured vocal from Frank Ocean and co-writing contributions from the likes of Justin Timberlake, Charlift's Caroline Polachek and Miguel.
But once the initial novelty and shock wears off of Beyoncé's impressive stealth-release feat, the brilliance and creative audacity of the album itself can sink in. Though there are a few songs with traditional pop structures ("XO," "Blow" and "Drunk In Love" chief among them), many of the tracks are more experimental, half-rapped/half-sung songs with suites and interludes that pack more ideas (and more sexually explicit dialogue) than radio-friendly hooks at times.
And yet that's exactly what "Beyoncé"'s aim is – to shift your perceptions and expectations about everything, from release dates to marketing launches to what "pop" should sound like. Much like her sister Solange's compilation "Saint Heron," which featured vocal-heavy, minimalist R&B compilation "Saint Heron," "Beyoncé" signifies where the future of R&B is heading, with less focus on beats and more emphasis on emotive falsetto, stream-of-consciousness ideas and the occasional burst of braggadocio ("Bow Down," the much-debated hype track she released in February, makes its return as an intro to the flossy "***Flawless," and "Yonce" rivals "Single Ladies" as her most quotable song ever.) It's as impressive an accomplishment creatively as it is for shifting the industry towards a more nontraditional take on the "single-album-tour" strategy.
Which tracks on "Beyoncé" take the crown? Read on for our track-by-track review.
1. "Pretty Hurts": “What is your aspiration in life?” a beauty pageant judge asks Bey, credited as “Miss 3rd Ward” (a reference to the Houston neighborhood where she grew up.) “My aspiration in life would be…to be happy.” What follows is a litany of expected beauty staples (“brush your hair / fix your teeth / what you wear / is all that matters”.) The song was penned by Sia, the go-to girl for pop divas who want to show their emo side (see: Rihanna “Diamonds,” Celine Dion “Loved Me Back To Life,” Christina Aguilera “Blank Page.”) But unlike those other vocalists, Beyonce doesn’t just re-sing a Sia demo – she fully makes this self-empowerment anthem fully her own, with a powerhouse “Halo”-esque vocal, and a bridge that could take you from Houston to Brooklyn in five seconds flat (“it’s my soul that needs surgery.”)
2. "Haunted": The spine-tinglingly glam Madonna-meets-“American Horror Story” video for this track is worth Beyoncé’s case for making this a simultaneous visual-and-audio experience alone. But divorced from those powerful visuals, “Haunted” still emerges as one “Beyonce”’s strongest tracks – and most insightful in terms of how she chooses to run her own business. “I don’t trust these record labels / Im tourin’,” she says in the spoken-word intro, making a chant out of “workin’ 9 to 5 / just to stay alive” as if her Mrs. Carter World Tour was some sort of tribute to the working class. (Which, have you seen it? No one worked harder for your applause on the road this year.) “I probably won’t make no money off this. Oh well,” she later says. Starkly minimal, with a spectral falsetto applied amid warped, ghost-ly vocal effects, “Haunted” is one of the album’s most staunchly non-commercial moments, but endlessly listenable just the same.
3. "Drunk In Love (Feat. Jay Z)": No single was released prior to the album, but if a case could be made for one to be pushed to R&B radio (or Top 40, with the right crossover momentum), it’s this duet with Hov. An ode to raunchy love-making with a dedicated partner, “Drunk In Love” delicately dances around TMI territory with its asides like “grainin’ on that wood” (she’s supposedly talking about a “surfboard.”) But an infectious, wailing of “loooove” on the chorus, a sassy half-rapped second verse from Bey and a memorable rap from Jay (“your breastesses my breakfastesses”) make this a potential smash.
4. "Blow": The dream-team from Justin Timberlake’s “The 20/20 Experience” – JT, Jerome “J-Roc” Harmon, James Fauntleroy and Timbaland – bring on Pharrell as producer and a sexy vocal Bey for this slinky club banger, that recalls previous “B Day” collabs with Pharrell like “Kitty Kat” and “Green Light.” Just don’t try and explain this one to the kids too much, as there’s cunnilingus references aplenty (it’s called “Blow” for a reason.)
5. "No Angel": “Would you rather I be a machine who doesn’t notice when you late or when you lyin’?” Beyoncé says, admitting she’s far from perfect herself. Queen Bey gets breathy and pleading on this throwback track. Once again, that lovely “Halo” falsetto makes a welcome return, but with some heavy bass and a brief interlude to move things to the bedroom. If there’s a recurring to this album, it’s that being happily married life takes a lot of work – but also lots and lots of sex.
6. "Partition": The track opens with the call-and-response Beyoncé asks of her crowd every night on tour (“Lemme hear you say “Hayyy Ms. Carter!”) and quickly turns into a lady-thug anthem called “Yonce” “(every girl on here gotta look me up and down / All on Instagram cake by the pound,” she boasts, adding even more memorably, “I sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker.”) “Partition,” the full-length song within this interlude, is yet another “gettin’ freaky with my baby” jam, with some of Bey’s most frankly sexual lines yet (“oh he Monica Lewisnky’d all over my gown.”)
7. "Jealous": One of several self-referential moments on the album, Beyoncé takes her “Freakum dress out my closet” to make an ex “she used to flex in Texas” envious of how bodacious she’d become. A brooding beat amid distant yelps gives the track a Lana Del Rey/Jeff Bhasker/Emile Haynie vibe, but then that chorus kicks in and suddenly you can see Beyonce singing this from the stage surrounded by smoke machines. An uncanny mix of tones and styles, often within the same song, is felt throughout.
8. "Rocket": “Let me sit this ass on you,” Beyoncé announces from the jump. “Let me take this off while you watch me / that’s my’ass appeal.” It’s a Roger-and-Zapp style slow-jam, baby-making anthem, and Beyonce is fully equipped for the occasion.
9. "Mine": Beyoncé continues to reveal everyday doubts that haunt her ("I'm not feeling like myself since the baby, are we even going to make it? If we are, we're taking this a little too far"), bringing in Drake to turn the darkness into hope.
10. "XO": The magical "XO," co-written and produced by Ryan Tedder and Terius Nash, is the most radio-friendly song on "Beyoncé," and finds the hopeful singer in tranced with love.
11. "***Flawless": When we first heard the Hit-Boy produced track in March it didn't contain the content of the full-version, only to come off abrasive. "***Flawless" though, with the insightful commentary of feminism by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, carries power and highlights camaraderie amongst women.
12. "Superpower": Pharrell lends Beyoncé a cinematic gift, in the form of song. "Superpower" amplifies Pharrell's musical genius, producing a magical bed for Bey' and Frank Ocean's sweet duet of an imaginable force.
13. "Heaven": Mysterious producer and writer, Boots, assists Beyoncé in letting go of a lost love. Boots, whose name appears everywhere on the album, has a way of bringing out the softer, compassionate side of the singer.
14. "Blue" (feat. Blue Ivy): Bey' flexes her vocal prowess for her daughter, Blue Ivy on the angelic Boots-produced song. She dives into the seemingly indescribable love that she feels for her baby girl, whose giggles close the song. Baby Blue made her musical debut on Jay Z's "Glory," which he released shortly after her birth. The accompanying video features Bey' strolling the bright streets and sandy beaches of Brazil with Blue in her arms.
RATING: 90/100
http://www.billboard.com/articles/re...y-track-review
|
An A from Billboard!!!!
|
|
|
Member Since: 1/18/2012
Posts: 348
|
|
|
|
ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/14/2010
Posts: 78,921
|
Oh, let me bookmark.
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/25/2012
Posts: 30,317
|
Quote:
Originally posted by sal
overrated
|
I disagree
|
|
|
Member Since: 1/20/2012
Posts: 25,077
|
4 deserves this acclaim imo
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/19/2011
Posts: 37,346
|
Does Billboard's review count?
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 25,037
|
We all know her metacritic score is gonna be insane...
Critics love her
|
|
|
ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/14/2010
Posts: 78,921
|
Quote:
Originally posted by heartbeats
4 deserves this acclaim imo
|
'4' is great, but BEYONCÉ is a better piece of work, as a whole.
Metacritic better reflect this FACT. >73.
|
|
|
|
|