Beyonce: Lemonade

BEYONCE: LEMONADE (2016)

1) Pray You Catch Me; 2) Hold Up; 3) Don't Hurt Yourself; 4) Sorry; 5) 6 Inch; 6) Daddy Lessons; 7) Love Drought; 8) Sandcastles; 9) Forward; 10) Freedom; 11) All Night; 12) Formation.

Look, I really do not want to Queen Bey in this «damned if you do, damned if you don't» posi­tion, particularly not when her latest album almost sounds as if she were personally responding to all of my criticisms for the previous one — well, not mine, obviously, but clearly her goal is to find that one perfect spot where she could have her legions of fans and the small, but demanding, detachment of elitist critics all roll together. There's no stone cold reason why the consummate hitmaker, the glitzy fashion icon, the fight-for-your-rights symbol could never grow into a real artist, even with all the difficulties brought on by fame and fortune. Well... come to think of it, maybe there is: at least, I'd hypothesize that if you were not a real artist before the onset of fame and fortune, the chances of your, let's say, «spiritual transformation» after you have been caught up in the cogs and wheels are pretty slim.

But still, at the very least Lemonade has a clear edge over Beyoncé in that here, it is at least interesting to see her take on the challenge — the record is much more turbulent, dynamic, and diverse. It's got some unpredictable collaborators, too: I mean, Kendrick Lamar could probably be expected at some point, sooner or later, but Jack White? (There's also some pseudo-crediting: ʽ6 Inchʼ, for instance, lists The Animal Collective as co-writers, apparently because one of the lines in the song somewhat reminded the production team of a line in ʽMy Girlsʼ — the result is an extra credit for Avey Tare, Panda Bear, and Geologist, formally as a safeguard against lawsuits, but I'm pretty sure the lady thought it cool to have some respectable indie names included in the liner notes. I mean, some people might actually think that way that she got The Animal Collective to work for her, you know? And everybody's happy — the guys will probably make more money off ʽ6 Inchʼ than they made off all their records put together, anyway).

Like Beyoncé, the record is all about herself, yes, but now that her daughter has grown up a bit, intimate family matters take a small step back, whereas her iconic status makes an advance. The very first single, which preceded the album by a couple months, was ʽFormationʼ, which, for all I know, could just as well have come from Nicki Minaj — people made a stupid fuss out of it be­cause it, like, celebrated Beyoncé's black heritage and all ("I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils" — first time I ever heard about the Jackson family as a metaphor for all Afro-Ame­rican people), but actually, it's more about celebrating Beyoncé's bitchiness: "I'm so reckless when I rock my Givenchy dress" sounds just about right to me. She might slay all right, but the song itself is a mediocre piece of very routine hip-hop — and, in the context of the album, one of its weakest tracks, perhaps not incidentally delegated to the very end of the record, almost as if it were a bonus track after the much more logical conclusion of ʽAll Nightʼ.

Although it is somewhat atypical of the album in general, ʽFormationʼ still ties in with a whole set of other songs that focus on strength, power, independence, and various ball-breaking activi­ties — at least she's honest about it, because a whole album of whining by one of the world's big­gest superstars would be worse than pathetic. And I have to admit, I really like some of these. ʽDon't Hurt Yourselfʼ has a thick, dark, thrashing groove (not surprising for a song that samples ʽWhen The Levee Breaksʼ — as done by Led Zep, not Memphis Minnie), a cool arrangement of backing vocal harmonies that sound like they're appropriately and shitlessly scared of the lead singer, and enough metallic effects on Beyoncé's vocals to make Jay-Z run for cover ("you ain't married to no average bitch boy"). ʽDaddy Lessonsʼ is a mix of New Orleanian jazz and neo-country-pop (Bey going Taylor Swift on us now?) that unexpectedly turns out to be the catchiest number on the album (even as it formally defends the 2nd amendment, much to the delight of Uncle Ted Nugent — then again, isn't a country song supposed to?..).

Best of the bunch is probably ʽFreedomʼ, which was written in line with the Black Lives Matter campaign but avoids any direct lyrical references and could therefore qualify as just a general, abstract anthem to the nice F-word. Kendrick Lamar adds one of his intelligent poetic raps in the middle, but the song's primary point of attraction is still the chorus. Like most choruses for most songs called ʽFreedomʼ, it is lyrically clumsy ("freedom, freedom, where are you? cause I need freedom too") and clichéd ("I break chains all by myself"), but the bombastic ascent all the way to the epic resolution how "a winner don't quit on themselves" is totally believable. Even a rich superstar, you know, should be allowed to flex some muscle every now and then, and she's flexing it just about right on this tune.

Of course, a Beyoncé album consisting of nothing but kick-ass empowering statements would be unthinkable, and there are plenty of lyrical moments scattered throughout — some of them quite melodic and emotional, like the album opener ʽPray You Catch Meʼ (gorgeous harmony arran­gements, classy «deconstruction-style» minimalistic atmosphere, non-cloying sentimentality) or ʽLove Droughtʼ with its nice falsetto chorus; also, ʽAll Night Longʼ has a beautifully vocalized title, but drags on for a little too long. ʽSandcastlesʼ is a really bland piano ballad, though, that should probably belong on an Alicia Keyes album instead.

Overall, the album is still absolutely not my cup of tea — all that hot-electrifying-sexxxy aesthe­tics of songs like ʽ6 Inchʼ (is it about a podium model or a stripper? who cares, anyway) is ulti­mately just stupid, and although, thankfully, the album is not so thoroughly obsessed with the whole «self-empowering through sex» ideology that was at the core of Beyoncé, it still retains that angle; let, I dunno, Rolling Stone and the NME sing praises of it rather than the grumpy conservative Only Solitaire. But I was pleasantly surprised, this time, at how many of these songs actually stuck around, enough to suspect that from a purely musical angle, Lemonade may indeed be Beyoncé's (or, rather, The Beyoncé Concern's) greatest achievement so far. Strip away all the ideological elements for sociological gender-based analysis, forget the English language (most people outside of the US will probably not get most of the references anyway, and who cares what Red Lobster really means to a starving Afro-American family of three, worth no more than a measly 600 million bucks?), and you're left with a bunch of perfectly crafted vocal hooks, accompanied with elegant arrangements that meld together live playing, electronic programming, and sampling in an undeniably «artsy» style.

So yes, this is even better than B'Day, and so here comes another thumbs up. If she keeps it up this way, who knows, maybe the next album will feature Tom Waits as special guest and a fully credited sample from Can's ʽUp The Bakerlooʼ — I guess that she's now pretty much earned the right to do anything, and she'd be a fool not to use it to her advantage.

Beyoncé: Beyoncé

BEYONCÉ: BEYONCÉ (2013)

1) Pretty Hurts; 2) Ghost/Haunted; 3) Drunk In Love; 4) Blow; 5) No Angel; 6) Partition; 7) Jealous; 8) Rocket; 9) Mine; 10) XO; 11) Flawless; 12) Superpower; 13) Heaven; 14) Blue.

Here is a question. If the first three or four albums released by an entertainer like Beyoncé, despite having their «moments», never really made you believe in the entertainer as «artist», what would it take, then, to trigger that belief? Would it be downright impossible, or might there ever be a chance of her sliding into a different, more respectable paradigm? After all, people have managed to escape the machine before, or, at least, operate with their head slightly sticking out of the window. And now, with the money made and the fanbase established and the name in lights all over the world, why not go for a small push-up of your reputation among the «highbrows»? Not a bad idea at all — but how?..

Clearly, this was a subject of deep worry for Mrs. Carter herself, and she embarked on the task with plenty of verve. The self-titled record — «rebooting the franchise!» — came out without a single warning, unexpected and unpublicized, dropped as a package of 14 audio tracks and 17 accompanying videos on iTunes and sending a perfectly predicted shockwave through the fan­base. Physical copies of the album then arrived in an unusually minimalistic shape (the Kazimir Malevich Estate probably settled out of court), with none of the glamor that usually surrounds such releases (to be fair, there is plenty of glamor in some of the accompanying videos, but I guess the day we get to see Beyoncé without makeup is the day that her crypt is excavated by archaeologists, and it wouldn't be a pretty sight anyway). And, most importantly, the songs were almost «artsy» in their stubborn refusal to be dominated by dance grooves — dark, soul-probing exercises in emotional expression of the everyday cares, troubles, worries, comforts, and orgasms of a grown woman: wife, mother, and superstar all in one.

So we should all «buy» it, right? The final act of humanization, in which the blue-haired fairy comes down from the sky and gives Pinocchio his well-deserved emotions chip? Having already sat through a whole sack of five-star reviews beginning with constructions like «who would have thought that...» and exclamations like «HOLY COW!» and statements like «finally, Beyoncé comes up with an album worthy of her talent» and suchlike, and, more importantly, having pati­ently endu­red three complete listens to the record, I still would not want to be too hasty about that. Miracles do not happen, and the whole enterprise, to me, smacks of just another well-calculated move — «we got the average Joes hooked up, now let us conquer the demanding critics». Well, congratulations, Mrs. Bey, you and your team got really smart this time: save for a few renegade dis­senters, well within the statistical margin of error, congrats on a decisive victory.

In fact, I wouldn't mind joining the saluting crowds as well — the only problem is that, three lis­tens into the record, I still cannot remember a single tune. Removing the hot dance grooves also means removing the hooks, and removing the hooks means that the album is fueled exclusively by «soul» and «atmosphere», yet where are the musical innovations that make the «atmosphere» even marginally interesting? All I hear is same-old same-old: same programmed drums, same electronics, same adult contemporary sonic backgrounds, sometimes interspersed with same lone­some romantic piano pop melodies. «Sonically experimental», Pitchfork called this record, but where are these «experiments»? Oh, that's right, the proper context was «her most sonically ex­perimental to date». This puts stuff in a different light. Maybe twenty years ago this kind of re­cord, minus the benefits of cutting-edge production à la 2013, might have been called «experi­mental» — as it stands, its only braveness is in that it does, indeed, sound significantly different from the lady's previous albums. Different, for sure; but better? Not certain.

As far as my opinion is concerned, it is not with the music that Mrs. Carter has managed to sway the critics (who, as a rule, do not even begin to discuss the actual music, and I can empathize, since there is very little to be discussed in the first place), but with the attitude. For that, she must be given credit. Briefly stated, there are few records in the world that manage to share lines like "each day I feel so blessed to be looking at you / 'cause when you open your eyes, I feel alive" (explicitly addressed to her daughter) and "daddy what you gon' do with all this ass up in your face?" (explicitly addressed to her husband), fortunately, not within the same song, or she'd pro­bably have child protective service on her back in an instant.

Actually, some do, but very, very few make an active point of it. Beyoncé essentially comes across as a sort of concept album — an «honest» glimpse into the life of someone who has to combine several distinct personalities, not in an artificial Sasha Fierce-like way, but out of pure necessity. First, there remains the glamorous star personality (ʽFlawlessʼ); second, there is the lady of the family, committed to behaving like an angel in the spirit and like a slut in the body; third, there is the responsible loving mother; fourth, there's all sorts of interactions between the three (ʽPartitionʼ, which fuses the public star with the private slut and feels no remorse). I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that this whole concept were completely fake, primitive, and de­void of interest. I'd also be improperly insinuating if I said that Beyoncé's almost «salivating» depiction of sexual scenes with her husband (ʽRocketʼ is the quintessential example, but it's really all over the place) betrays an unhealthy fixation and should rather have been left in their bedroom — I mean, it's a world of free choice, and if you invite me in your bedroom, it'd probably be im­polite to refuse the invitation. I'd probably even fall into the perennial trap if I started doubting the album's feminist stance — since almost every second song here can be interpreted both as an anthem to the equality of the sexes or to sexual objectification of woman, that'd just lure us into another round of the never-ending, long-boring discussion.

All this, yes, and much more, but in the end, all it really does is distract us away from the musical qualities of the album. And the good musical qualities, as far as I can tell, are limited to a tiny handful of non-trivial vocal modulations (usually on the ballads: ʽHauntedʼ, ʽHeavenʼ, and ʽBlueʼ all have their moments), which are still heavily set back by unimaginative arrangements (usually confined to ideas like «okay, let's make the synth loops on ʽHauntedʼ sound real dark, bass-heavy, and distorted, it's a sound that's been used fifty billion times already, but we do need to focus on "dark", right?»). Say what you will, but Beyoncé is simply not enough interesting either as an «artist» or as a «human being» to save it all just on the strength of conceptuality and atmosphere. She is nowhere near «proverbially dumb», of course, but neither is she some sort of modern day Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, or even Lauryn Hill. In pitching for this sort of maturity, she over­stepped her boundaries, and made a record which, while striving to be «respectable», has ultima­tely landed in the area of «dull». As entertainment, this does not even begin holding a candle to B'Day; as «serious art», I have a hard time understanding why I should be spending my time trying to digest it as such.

Naturally, for someone whose musical world does not extend far beyond the likes of Beyoncé, The Black Album might be a spiritual revelation — more power to you if it helps you become a better human being, or solve your conjugal sex problems, or whatever else. But it'd be even better if it helped such people understand that there might be a better musical world out there some­where: like Amazon.com says, «if you liked this album, you might also like...» — not making any suggestions here, of course, just a small hint at the reason for which I am giving the album quite a violent thumbs down here. And this does not negate the fact that she does have a very cute, adorable daughter, or that having wild sex with Jay-Z cannot serve as a basis for writing exciting songs. It can! It just didn't, that's all.

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Beyoncé: 4

BEYONCÉ: 4 (2011)

1) 1 + 1; 2) I Care; 3) I Miss You; 4) Best Thing I Never Had; 5) Party; 6) Rather Die Young; 7) Start Over; 8) Love On Top; 9) Countdown; 10) End Of Time; 11) I Was Here; 12) Run The World (Girls); 13) Dreaming; 14) Lay Up Under Me; 15) Schoolin' Life; 16) Dance For You.

Beyoncé Knowles may be dumb, but she's not stupid. Or vice versa. Whatever. In 2010, she pub­licly confessed to «killing Sasha Fierce», saying that she was mature enough to merge both per­sonalities — a glamorized way of admitting that the whole idea just sucked, I think, and that the producers did a boring job on the first half and a muckjob on the second. To atone for somebody else's sins, she now decides to move from «conceptually serious» to «spiritually authentic». A right decision if there ever was one, but... too late, too late.

The main ideology behind 4 was to make a good old-fashioned R&B album. Not a sampler's de­light, not an electro-pop extravaganza, not a technofest, but a record that would actually bring in some refreshing retro flavor. You know — real musicians blowing real horns, strumming real guitars, a real emotional singer channeling that gospel spirit to hit high notes at full power, that whole deal. The one that made a star out of Aretha Franklin and... uh... Diana Ross? Tina Turner seems a little too far out for Beyoncé's careful imagemaking. «Wild wild» does not get you nearly as many fans, in terms of sheer quantity, as «gentle wild».

However, as you may well guess, there are several problems here that are really hard to beat. First, the trendy keyboards, digital procedures, loops, overdubs, Jay-Z raps, and unbearably repe­titive choruses are not really going anywhere. Understandably, Beyoncé did not want to make a thoroughly «retro» album, but rather one that would look forward to the future by means of looking back at the past — a sensible decision for any progressive artist, provided the futuristic component is every bit the worthy rival of the nostalgic layer. But what good is it when a typical­ly Seventies' piano melody is married to a programmed beat and an assortment of carefully sliced, wrapped, and weighted vocal strips?

And the worst thing about it, she can get it right when she really puts her heart into it. ʽLove On Topʼ may be utterly derivative of Stevie Wonder in the verses (and of the Jackson 5 in the chorus, for that matter — her pitch on "you're the one I NEED!" is just plain old little Michael), but it may be the only Beyoncé song in the world that I can freely enjoy from first to last note, with a wonderful groove and chorus that give off happy shiny vibes without sounding too self-conscious or self-important. The song could use a little less obviousness in the production department, for sure (those bass keyboards are way too adult contemporary, although Stevie did use a lot of them in the 1980s), but in terms of melody and sheer emotion, it is beyond any complaints I could think about. The build-up, the come-down, everything perfect.

On the other hand, this is the same album that gave us ʽRun The World (Girls)ʼ, which might just be the worst, tackiest, silliest idea for a single — further developing the «aerobics-as-art» line of ʽSingle Ladiesʼ, only this time in an even more repetitive twist, and with a martial rhythm to boot: G.I. Beyoncé and her Girl Squad taking over the world. As «music», the song is a non-song; as «groove», the song belongs in the gym at best; as «feminism», I'd rather have Ani DiFranco, un­less this is actually supposed to be parodic (at least the video for the song definitely bordered on parody, going completely over the top with all of its «military» imagery).

The rest of the record fluctuates between these two points, never quite reaching the same high or sinking to the same low (although the power ballad ʽI Was Hereʼ, donated by none other than the Wicked Witch of the West herself — Diane Warren, sounds just like any other Diane Warren song). The songs that are intentionally retro-oriented are generally listenable — ʽ1 + 1ʼ works as an old torch ballad, tastefully arranged (pipe organ!) and interestingly sung, with Beyoncé taking cute little falsetto «dips» at line ends. But they are actually in the minority. More often, the «ret­ro» feel ends up confined to a few lyrical lines, like the James Dean reference in the appropriately lifeless ʽRather Die Youngʼ, or the "killing me softly" reference to Roberta Flack on ʽCount­downʼ, otherwise just a robotic dance groove.

Retro references aside, 4 gets a special reprimand for containing some of the lady's worst lyrics ever — every time she lays it down on Jay-Z, we get deeply poetic lines like "still love the way he rock them black diamonds in that chain", and songs like ʽPartyʼ do nothing but solidify the stereotype of «spoiled rags-to-riches mentality» for the general public. You have to appreciate, of course, the lady's being so honest with us — her and her folks are rich, posh, decadent, loving it, and giving the people exactly what they want. But for every ounce of real feeling that a song like ʽ1 + 1ʼ is working its ass off to generate, a song like ʽPartyʼ produces two ounces of disgusted counterfeeling. And what is the point of turning "Who run the world? Girls!" into a mind-numb­ing mantra, if on approximately half of the rest of the tunes she is explicitly "giving you my life, it's in your hands"? "Not only are you loyal, you're patient with me, baby"? ʽDance For Youʼ is neither feminist nor «humanly» sexy — above all else, it sounds like a properly wound-up auto­maton for mechanical sexual satisfaction. (At least Prince could make it sound humorous).

In the end, this is just another failure to break out of the exoskeleton. ʽLove On Topʼ accidentally comes close to artistic escape, and I have learned to really enjoy ʽ1 + 1ʼ, but the rest is too full of clichés and stereotypes, too market-oriented, too safe-playing, and too swamped with legions of faceless corporate «musicians», «songwriters», and «producers» to even begin matching the sur­realist claims made by the artist: "I wanted classic songwriting... bolder than the music on my previous albums... really focused on songs being classics, songs that would last..." — every time I re-read that original statement, the only thing that springs up in my head, for some reason, is the line "me and my boo and my boo boo riding" from ʽCountdownʼ, and I cannot help but wonder exactly how long a line like that would «last» in the musical world. Thumbs down.

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Beyoncé: I Am... Sasha Fierce

BEYONCÉ: I AM... SASHA FIERCE (2008)

1) If I Were A Boy; 2) Halo; 3) Disappear; 4) Broken-Hearted Girl; 5) Ave Maria; 6) Smash Into You; 7) Satellites; 8) That's Why You're Beautiful; 9) Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It); 10) Radio; 11) Diva; 12) Sweet Dreams; 13) Video Phone; 14) Hello; 15) Ego; 16) Scared Of Lonely.

Oh dear — here we have nothing less than a Rebellion of the Machine, carefully preplanned, or­chestrated, and publicized: Beyoncé Knowles advances to the rank of Serious Artist! Introspec­tive, thoughtful, and conceptual, the double shot of I Am vs. Sasha Fierce represents an elegant­ly split artistic personality, capturing the formerly straightforward entertainer at a spiritual cross­roads. Will she take the path of the real Beyoncé, a sensitive, vulnerable soul dependent on male support and struggling to balance romantic ideals with the harsh realities of everyday life? Or is she going to take the proactive road of Sasha Fierce, a real hard-boiled party egg who always hides from trouble and suffering behind a wall of glitz, technology, and tough neo-feminist swag­ger? Intrigue! Excitement! Conflict! Critical acclaim!.. oh, wait a minute.

Songwriter Amanda Ghost, who collaborated with Beyoncé on the I Am... part, stated in an in­terview that "she /Beyoncé/ was ready to take risks and redefine who she is... to reach out for a wider audience, the people who buy John Mayer and Carrie Underwood records". As far as I know, little else needs be said — there is nothing wrong with that whole «crossover» business as it stands, but if your artistic ideal in a particular artistic genre is John Mayer or Carrie Underwood, this means that you cannot even properly set yourself the task of «getting higher», let alone fulfill one. But then again, why should you, if your very idea of «artistic growth» simply means «sell my stuff to more people by expanding into other markets»?

And one should not underestimate this «reaching out» strategy, either — Amanda Ghost goes even beyond that, pushing her client to grapple the people who buy The Three Tenors as well, by «re-composing» ʽAve Mariaʼ into an «accessible» pop version that decorates Beyoncé's newly-found spirituality with a touch of Schubert (or is that actually a touch of Disney?). It is quite un­fortunate, really, that the Artist was not provided with an equally gifted and versatile aide-de-camp for the Sasha Fierce part — personally, I think that sampling ʽBrünnhilde's Battle Cryʼ for one of the «hotter» dance numbers would have made for an awesome contrast.

Irony aside (for a little while, at least), most of the hullaballoo about this album stems from the basic fact that most of the «softer» songs were placed on the first disc (I Am) and most of the «harder» tracks, assembled out of electronic elements around dance beats, made it to the second one (Sasha Fierce), with a whole puffed-up ideology concocted, brewed, and distilled around this simple division. Never mind the fact that, for instance, Rod Stewart had already master­minded this «separation» concept a long time ago, on his Seventies' albums like Atlantic Cros­sing and Night On The Town — and, much to his honor, I think, it never occurred to him that either one of these records should bear the title of I Am... Ivan The Terrible.

But I do admit that, from one point of view at least, the album was a bit of a surprise for me. With an announced contrast between the «introvert» and «extravert» parts, and armed with prior know­ledge of Beyoncé's groove-based music, you'd probably expect that the first part would mostly suck and the second part would be more like the «technically acceptable» Beyoncé of B'Day. As it turns out (to my ears at least), the predictable prediction is wrong! Cheap cheese like ʽAve Ma­riaʼ aside, the ballads are really superior to the grooves this time — or, at least, superior when all the vocal overdubs find themselves in place.

Frankly speaking, the «dance-oriented» part of Sasha Fierce beats many a record of dumbness, sleaziness, and gimmickry that I have encountered in supposedly «high quality» mainstream pop muzak (we are not discussing the local Brighton Beach scene or anything like that). ʽSingle Ladies (Put A Ring On It)ʼ establishes the «aerobics-as-art» formula that would be even more suc­cesfully milked with ʽRun The World (Girls)ʼ — undermining the «tough seriousness» of its «feminist» message with a backing track that should have never made it beyond the walls of your local gym (and the famous accompanying video only proves the point) — and it is probably the best song of the entire lot.

In general, it seems as if the sound was seriously re-routed here from the former target audience of «modern R&B» to a newer — indeed, wider — audience of crappy, generic techno (ʽRadioʼ, boasting the kind of sound that I normally hear only from Russian taxi drivers), as well as fans of technical gadgets (ʽVideo Phoneʼ) and silly vocal gimmicks (ʽDivaʼ, a bland rap piece on which «Sasha» is allegedly making fun of the Diva lifestyle while at the same time actively living it). ʽEgoʼ is, of course, the most «provocative» number on the record, since its chorus ("it's too big, it's too wide, it's too strong, it won't fit, it's too much, it's too tough") comes on before one gets a clear explanation of what the «it» in question is referring to. Naturally, it refers to Sasha's lover's BIG EGO, and what did you think?.. (On a sidenote, though, I used to always hear it as "He got a big Igor, such a huge Igor" before I paid attention to the song title, and it kept me wondering when and how did I exactly miss the point at which the name of Dr. Frankenstein's assistant had become one of the many euphemistic replacements for you-know-what).

On the other hand, the ballads on the I Am part seem to have been written with at least some in­tentional attempt not to reduce them to pathetic clichés. It does not work too often — the song­writers and producers are as constrained by the commercial requirements of the genre as a Peter Jackson or a Steven Spielberg are by the laws of Hollywood filmmaking — but every now and then, there is an interesting musical moment or two that briefly elevates the «soul sacrifice» of the first disc above elevator muzak status. This does not concern the title track, which does indeed sound very much like Carrie Underwood («take an old country-folk melody and arrange it with all the pomp of a 19th century opera aria»), but ʽHaloʼ has some fine vocal moves written into it (and it deserved a much better arrangement than those rotten synthesizers and drum machines), and so does ʽDisappearʼ, whose movement towards the chorus is melodically inventive (check out the modality shift from "you're nearly here..." to "...and then, you disappear" — they could have easily done without that, but they didn't, and I akcnowledge that).

That said, I have no wish to create the illusion that I Am, on the whole, is «vastly superior» to the silly dance part. Pulling ourselves away from the microscope and assessing the whole album as it is, both of its halves are really near-equal failures, and for a simple reason: it is all but impossible for a mainstream artist to try to go «wider» (embracing more styles and huger audiences) and «deeper» (trying to show the complexity of one's personality) at the same time. The stated goals stubbornly clash with the used means — and, for those of us who generally tend to avoid «mass muzak» but are still willing to give it an occasional benefit of doubt, may simply result in a fee­ling of being aurally and intellectually raped, or, at least, deeply offended. Not to mention all the unresolved questions, of course. Why «Sasha»? What's so «fierce» about her, except possibly the hairstyle? Why two discs and /as usual/ a swarm of different editions? If she were a boy and sit­ting in a record executive chair, would she be reasonable enough to save on plastic? Since we should hardly expect straight and honest answers to all these, I suppose that a thumbs down rating is the only way to go.

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Beyoncé: B'Day

BEYONCÉ: B'DAY (2006)

1) Beautiful Liar; 2) Irreplaceable; 3) Green Light; 4) Kitty Kat; 5) Welcome To Hollywood; 6) Upgrade U; 7) Flaws And All; 8) If; 9) Get Me Bodied; 10) Freakum Dress; 11) Suga Mama; 12) Déjà Vu; 13) Ring The Alarm; 14) Resentment; 15) Listen; 16) World Wide Woman; 17) Check On It; 18) Amor Gitano; 19) Beautiful Liar (remix).

At a certain molecular juncture, I almost caught myself liking this album — a grave error, since «liking» supposes some sort of complex emotional / intellectual reaction, whereas the proper res­ponse to B'Day should probably be purely physiological. For sure, mainstream commercial music may have completely crapped out in the 21st century, but at the same time, it is constantly stri­ving for new ways to conquer the human body, if not the human spirit, and from that point of view, B'Day is a tremen­dous success. No small coincidence that one of the songs bears the up-to-now ungrammatical title of ʽGet Me Bodiedʼ. There is no place for the human spirit on this re­cord, but it seems tailor-made for everything that goes one notch below the spirit.

As usual, there has been a boatload of various releases of B'Day in various forms, so that the fans could spend as much money on it as they desired; I am reviewing the «deluxe» version, or one of several «deluxe» versions, whatever, that has 19 instead of 10 tracks on it — and no, that's quite okay, most of this stuff is listenable, and the extra tracks, whatever they are, do provide better in­sight into the masterplan behind this concoction. There are very few ballads (ʽFlaws And Allʼ, ʽIfʼ) and even fewer power ballads — just one, actually (ʽListenʼ), and none of them were even released as singles, because this is not what the whole thing is about. The whole thing is about "giving it to mama" (ʽGreen Lightʼ, which was one of the singles).

Exclude the few pieces of hokum, and B'Day is simply one unstoppable groove after another — tenaciously catchy chorus mantras fired over impeccably glued samples of whatever it is that awakens and powers up one's internal epicycles. There is enough diversity in these grooves to please just about everybody: for instance, the classic funk fan will be quickly drawn to ʽSugar Mamaʼ with its guitar samples from an obscure song by Jake Wade & The Soul Searchers, over which Ms. Knowles plasters her "come sit on mama lap hey" in a tone that is all but impossible to disobey (except it's fairly hard to keep still while the groove is on). ʽBeautiful Liarʼ is a duet with Shakira, and thus expectedly combining elements of R&B and Latin styles. ʽFreakum Dressʼ is influenced by go-go, but also adds almost Queen-style vocal crescendos in the middle. ʽGreen Lightʼ moves through like three or four different sections (funk, ska, ballad, jazz?..), and so on.

Behind all these grooves lies a big, grinning nothing — curled up and ready to be materialized into some Big Feminist / Materialist / Modernist / Humanist Statement by mainstream criticism, although, frankly speaking, Beyoncé herself gives very little opportunity to overestimate or over­analyze her lyrics and attitudes. Her singing, as usual, is always adequate: she neither rejects her own sexuality and body drive, nor over-emphasizes it, so that even a straightforward dancefloor anthem like ʽGet Me Bodiedʼ is just a song about dancing, not some sort of religious epiphany about how you only come to properly know your inner self through the dancefloor. At least Be­yoncé is smart enough to know that trying to seem smarter than she is will only lead to confusion, and there is nothing as cretinous here as, say, Alicia Keys' ʽSuperwomanʼ. (But don't worry, it will get worse — multiplatinum superstars always end up the same way).

In the meantime, «hollow hooks» abound. ʽIrreplaceableʼ is a half-groove, half-ballad that gene­rally sucks, but has an unbeatable chorus of "you must not know 'bout me" that should have re­ceived more songwriting polish. ʽUpgrade Uʼ is the record's best propped-up hip-hop arrange­ment (although, as usual, I could easily do without the Jay-Z part). The four-song stretch of ʽFreakum Dressʼ, ʽSuga Mamaʼ, ʽDéjà Vuʼ, and the siren-driven ʽRing The Alarmʼ is possibly the best four-song stretch ever on a Beyoncé record — on their own, each of these songs is only so-so, but when placed together on the «deluxe» edition, they generate the impression of almost un­bridled creativity. (Besides playing off each other like four distinct, but connected parts of the same musical soap opera where the lady begins by wooing the gentleman, goes on to be hung up on the gentleman, and ends by worrying about the chinchilla coats and houses off the coast that she's going to get if the gentleman happens to dumps her. Uh, okay — we all know Beyoncé is a lady of relatively simple tastes and needs).

Eventually, you come to your senses and realize that it's all plastic (ʽDéjà Vuʼ almost takes pride in its featuring real instrumentation, but this is really laughable — who could really be ex­pecting a natural band to be playing on a Beyoncé album, and who could believe that band to be worthy of competition with «old school» R&B outfits?), but it's pretty damn high quality plastic. Wi­thin the framework of a social experiment, I give it a thumbs up, being only human and, sometimes, unable to resist a pretty bit of packaging if it is not too schlocky. B'Day is perfectly safe and saniti­zed, a high-quality product of The Human Robotics Corporation, yet I do recommend it for fans of human robotics worldwide.

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Beyoncé: Dangerously In Love

BEYONCE: DANGEROUSLY IN LOVE (2003)

1) Crazy In Love; 2) Naughty Girl; 3) Baby Boy; 4) Hip Hop Star; 5) Be With You; 6) Me, Myself And I; 7) Yes; 8) Signs; 9) Speechless; 10) That's How You Like It; 11) The Closer I Get To You; 12) Dangerously In Love 2; 13) Beyoncé Interlude; 14) Gift From Virgo; 15) Work It Out; 16) Bonnie & Clyde '03; 17) I Can't Take No More.

The key to investigating the music of R&B's biggest star of the 21st century (118 million solo albums sold, not counting Destiny's Child? don't you people have to eat sometimes?) is in trying to forget that this music was actually written /where not sampled/, pilfered /where sampled/, per­formed /where not programmed/, and digitalized /where programmed/ by a live human being. Un­less you are her father, mother, close relative, hairdresser, or Jay-Z, you should not think of «Be­yoncé», the sonic/visual package, as a live human being, and try to ignore any encountered at­tempts on her part to induce you into accepting her as such — any such attempt would be merely a ruse, hindering you from admiring the perfectionist gloss of the package.

Not being even close to an expert on modern R&B, not to mention hip-hop, not to mention their overtly mass-commercial varieties, I have relatively few points of reference, but as far as I can tell, there was nothing particularly groundbreaking or unpredictable about Dangerously In Love, an album that consciously took few chances, as its basic goal was to test the water and find out if it was warm enough for Beyoncé Knowles to be accepted as a major solo performer in her own right. After all, one member of Destiny's Child can only save up one third of the collective sex appeal of Destiny's Child — unless, of course, the fission process would convert a bit of lost mass into a shitload of nuclear energy. Which is what happened officially, as Dangerously In Love out­sold all three Destiny's Child albums put together, for what reason, one can only guess, but something tells me the musical factor was far from the most significant. I mean, golly gee, just look at that album sleeve...

...anyway, where were we? Oh yes, human being issue. Well, it goes without saying, I think, that Beyoncé is rather non-descript in terms of vocal cord operations: her singing is a purely technical process, as she neither has bedazzling technique, nor unbeatable power, nor a unique tone or phrasing (as compared to plenty of other R&B divas), nor the kind of emotional depth that only a tiny handful of these divas possess (most notably, the prematurely departed Aaliyah, who actually did sing like a live human being). But on the other hand, she plays it smart here, almost completely re­jecting the dreaded melisma, mostly staying away from over-emoting, and some­how managing not to get on your nerves even while executing the «soulful ballad» parts (these are usually the worst with that kind of people). In other words, the robot is endowed with some taste, meaning that we have come quite a long way from when people, overwhelmed with hap­piness at the in­vention of the emotion chip, used to stuff three or four in every available slot (poor Mariah Carey was a particularly unfortunate victim of «overchipping»).

Music-wise, somebody once noted somewhere that Beyoncé is «only as good as her samples», and I concur: the sample-heavy tracks, such as the lead-in energy dispenser ʽCrazy In Loveʼ (borrowing a pompous brass riff from a long forgotten Chi-Lites track), are generally more im­pressive than either «original» ballads or such complete dross as the attempt to resuscitate, in a duet with smooth talker Luther Vandross, Roberta Flack's old hit ʽThe Closer I Get To Youʼ (if this is a Beyoncé-approved idea of a tribute to the «retro» vibe, it only shows how seriously out of touch the lady is with the entire old school). But ʽNaughty Girlʼ is an interesting experience of fusing an «Eastern» flavor with a bit of Donna Summer (ʽLove To Love You Babyʼ); and ʽBaby Boyʼ continues the trend with sitars (?) and swirling, quasi-psychedelic vocal overdubs. Even­tually, the album degenerates into a cesspool of sterile ballads that work only under the condition that you do accept the singer as a human being — but, since everything is relative, such a deci­sion could be interpreted as your agreement to join the same robot army.

Actually, in terms of pure robotics (aerobotics?), the best song on the album is the one that did not even make it to the regular US edition — ʽWork It Outʼ was on the Goldmember soundtrack and, fortunately, it works pretty well outside of the annoyingly silly Austin Powers context, a nice clavinet-horns groove that Stevie Wonder might have approved, although Beyoncé does not quite have the vocal power to light that fire high up to heaven (she does come close with her funny "come on child, blow your horn now!" exortations).

In the end, Dangerously In Love is a generic album that nonetheless shows some promise: the problem is that Knowles loves her experiments as much as she loves her clichés, because it is the latter, not the former, that keeps the cash flowing and the fanbase multiplying progressively — and, say what you will, a rational experimenter always needs a bit of financial back-up to ensure the safety of the outcome. In this particular case, the outcome is a thumbs down, but at least half of the record is listenable, and ʽCrazy In Loveʼ, ʽWork It Outʼ, and ʽNaughty Girlʼ may even be salvageable. As it often happens, Dangerously In Love sold more than any subsequent Beyoncé record despite being one of her weakest offerings — but this only seems to confirm the old rule that the more people buy the music, the more they do not listen to the music.

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