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.
Check "I Am...Sasha Fierce" (CD) on Amazon
Check "I Am...Sasha Fierce" (MP3) on Amazon
"Cheap cheese like ʽAve Mariaʼ"
ReplyDeleteTo Beyonce's credit, she doesn't sing this worse than Andrea Bocelli or a classical trained soprano with the original piano arrangement. The problem is that Schubert's piece was cheap cheese from the very beginning.
No, it wasn't. And it wasn't written for the likes of Andrea Bocelli, either.
Delete"Halo" remembers me Spice Girls' "Viva Forever" very much. Not plagiarism, but not very creative either, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteThe title is fine, but the header at the top of the post itself is missing the "é" character. Is this a technical issue, or just a goof?
ReplyDeleteFixed, thank you. Blog coding error.
Delete