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With the haunting ballad “Pray You Catch Me” as its score, she was a stand-in for Trayvon Martin, tragically killed in Florida. She opened on a stage, then in a field while wearing a hoodie.
Then Beyoncé’s most personal album arrived as an offering to her audience and her ancestors, an otherworldly gift that crossed histories, geographies and genres to help us all heal. I know exactly where I was when “Lemonade” dropped: at home mourning Prince’s death by listening to the obscure and familiar that is his oeuvre. She hurled raspy imprecations in “Hurt Yourself” and let her voice break with tearful desperation and then find its own resolve in the hymnlike “Sandcastles.” She claimed Texas country with “Daddy Lessons,” electronica with “Sorry” and marching-band unity in “Freedom.” Beyoncé both collaborated widely and drew samples from across genres and eras: Kendrick Lamar, the Weeknd, James Blake, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Led Zeppelin, Animal Collective. The songs easily stood up on their own, slipping sonic experimentation and an eerie sense of space into sturdy pop structures. The second of Beyoncé’s visual albums, “Lemonade” mustered lavish musical and filmic resources to expand an individual story - the fury of a betrayed wife - toward a recognition of how many kinds of injustice, personal and historical, that women have endured, particularly Black women. On “Lemonade,” Beyoncé merged a message of solidarity with a cry from the heart. Mostly, though, the story adds up to Beyoncé’s majesty, with music just one jewel in the crown. Songs like “Flawless” and “Pretty Hurts” (“We shine the light on whatever’s worst”) position her as a paradox, both perfect and imperfect, a deity who is kinda-sorta relatable. It’s all about containing multitudes, and looking fabulous doing so. But in retrospect, “Beyoncé” comes across as a broader manifesto about Beyoncé as a performer and a human being. The stealth release - back then, partly a defensive strategy against leaks - is what mostly captured public imagination. 13, 2013, Beyoncé posted “ Surprise!” on Instagram, and the album’s 14 songs and 17 videos appeared for sale on iTunes.
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But “Beyoncé” marked her full transformation into the star we have known ever since: an artist whose true medium is fame, who cannot be limited to any format, who bends the world to her will.Īt midnight on Dec. When a musician’s fifth album is self-titled, it can be a sign of empty gimmickry or a lack of ideas. (Even the album’s lead single, “Run the World (Girls),” which doesn’t quite fit and was originally tacked onto the end of the track list, provides the best peek at the self-titled moment to come.) Pure Beyoncé, tight at just 12 official tracks but with plenty of all of the things she does best, “4” is an amuse bouche and a palate cleanser that ends up being better than most meals.
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Yet “4” also contains some of the most enduringly crowd-pleasing Beyoncé singles (“Love on Top,” “Countdown,” “Party”), plus her best bonus track ( “Schoolin’ Life”), with the production and writing duo The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, consistent collaborators throughout the singer’s various eras, operating at the height of their powers. I mean, she went and called the thing “B’Day,” like a star who knows she was born. I remember hearing these songs for the first time and feeling as slinky and swaggering as this music. She all but resorts to violence and makes funnies (“pat-pat-pat your weave, ladies”). Beyoncé angles for the synths and drum machines to frolic with all the horns, Latin percussion and credited use of a ney.
What’s essential about it, though, is its author’s determination to have it be more than some pop singer’s next album.
And do I know why she’s been photographed for the cover to evoke Brigitte Bardot if Bardot missed the last train out of Stepford? I really don’t. And yes, Jay-Z’s two appearances still sound like a formula replicated rather than a partnership forged. Her singing hadn’t yet gone through the puberty of playing Etta James.
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It’s a parade of bangers about lust and its discontents, about how to take a nightspot over with Naomi Campbell’s walk. “B’Day” doesn’t have the split-persona nerve of “Sasha Fierce” or that damn-the-charts idiosyncrasy of “4,” the first of her masterwork trio. This album’s the one that culminates with the ninth track (of an efficient 12): That would be “Irreplaceable,” the “ Wanted Dead or Alive” of “better call Tyrone” balladry. “Déjà Vu” spreads into “Get Me Bodied,” which hops to “Suga Mama” then “Upgrade U” and “Ring the Alarm,” which leads to “Kitty Kat,” “Freakum Dress” and “Green Light.” Different rooms on Single Ladies Night at the biggest club in Stankonia.
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