Beyonce in 2016 - 'Formation' and Lemonade

A mod can switch up the title when we get there but it's time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrCHz1gwzTo

Conversation on last thread starts here: New Beyonce album in 2014?

maybe check a calendar dude

okay, lol at my instatypo

lol

A mod can switch the year if they get here but B's late.

Not sure what to think about that video tbh; song's great though.

is there something very nasal to the "I got hot sauce in my bag swag" line?

maybe a reference I'm not getting, maybe I just have a cold and I'm projecting

this is obviously just me but the way beyoncé delivers some of the lines in this song reminds me of jt's verse in "shades"

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/02/anti-beyonc-protest-becomes-pro-beyonc-protest.html

lol, lol forever

Whoops. Forgot that I drunkenly comedy-modded this thread title over the weekend. Fixed now.

Dear ILX mods, please stop changing thread titles. It's hard enough to keep track of all these threads.

Beyonce in 2016 - 'Formation' and Album title Please Stop Changing Thread Titles

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/18/the-beyonce-backlash-continues-sheriff-cites-super-bowl-show-after-shooting-near-home/?tid=pm_national_pop_b

media keeps finding knucklehead sheriffs who will complain about Beyonce

http://pitchfork.com/news/63642-miami-police-union-plans-protest-of-beyonce-concert/

these idiots

My 11-yr-old son has been hounding me ever since the Super Bowl about going to see B on tour. "I've never even been to a concert!," he pleads. So guess who's going to Atlanta on May 1? (I love that a Beyonce show will be a big father-son bonding moment.)

Cool

aw that's lovely!

bey as his first ever concert will def be something he can be proud of

<3

just saw more police boycott bullshit on CNN in the kitchen at work, fuckin idiots

i'm taken aback by all of this, i honestly thought people were more professional in doing their jobs, but this boycott thing is ridiculous, dangerous, and anti-free speech.

the people making the calls on these boycotts, do they think these actions will improve relations between the police and the community?

boycotting a popular singer for political reasons is bullshit. serve and protect motherfuckers.

the people making the calls on these boycotts, do they think these actions will improve relations between the police and the community?

i suspect they don't care

also part of this is CNN needs bullshit to talk about 24/7 and even our man trump can only do so much in a day

i love how on the red lobster line the "cuz i slay" chant turns into "we gon slay". sudden image of bey and her boy about to slay a pile of delicious seafood

A plate of seafood at least

So this is happening. Maybe I should start getting ready for a new 'anxious' attack when the album drops in the middle of the night or something

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/7272524/beyonce-vevo-itunes-new-album-rumors

the rumors hit a fever pitch a day or two and then died down, i think everyone's realized that it was a false alarm

why is billboard, a supposedly respected publication, citing the "shady music facts" twitter account even for rumormill material? that account is probably run by a 17-year-old stan twitter denizen

yeah there've been a couple times when people took rumors posted by that account or similar accounts really seriously and i'm not sure why

billboard is pageview crazy

ahaha shady music facts, jesus christ

lemonade

how tho

rly hope she drops this new album soon bcz I have tickets to sell and the prices have been plummeting since it sold out in 10 seconds :(

theres uh a lot of diff sounds on this

this song w weeknd sounds incred

HOW DO I HEAR?

it's on HBO right now. i'm sure the movie will start getting bootlegged online soon enough too. i hope the album is dropping in the next few days because it'd be silly to preview every song in the movie without giving people a chance to buy the audio ASAP.

http://tidal.com/album/59727856

f'in tidal

omg so wait it is a whole album??????

Okay, those of you who care enough to go for a temporary Tidal subscription can fill the rest of us in

it is a whole album, I'm sure it'll be steal-able shortly so its (likely brief) tidal exclusivity won't mean much

you can rewatch the movie as an on demand thing if you have either HBO go or now too, I believe

(I mean, if this were on iTunes I'd seriously buy it now - just like I did as soon as the s/t dropped.)

https://twitter.com/ErnestWilkins/status/724053313407356928

first good internet lol since Prince died

From SPIN

http://www.spin.com/2016/04/beyonce-new-album-lemonade-download-free-stream-tidal/

Ugh. "Update: Per an industry insider, Lemonade will be a TIDAL exclusive in perpetuity, as in yes, it will be exclusively a TIDAL release forever."

Nice knowing you, Bey.

heh to hell with tidal i'm torrenting this

GOOD LUCK BROS im on tidal now u know theres a free trial right

Hold Up written by Ezra Koenig!!! YES!

How much Terius is on this?

BTW this album is brilliant if you havent heard it, like the jack white song goes hard thats how good it is

HBO thing has bey doing malick narration

it will be exclusively a TIDAL release forever

Just like The Life of Pablo?

liking this a lot so far.

v lil terius mentioned so far but apparently one thing is a co-write on the weeknd song ...

any caroline polachek tracks?

no

xpost I don't think so

i am pleased to see upon browsing the credits that the common denominator to the songs that caught me most off-guard is that they were co-written with wynter gordon!

(they are also my favorite songs from the album as of my first couple of listens)

daddy lessons is spectacular yeah

also how can we make a full beyoncé +kendrick album happen?

All Night with the Jon Brion strings playing Spottieottiedopaliscious. Might be my favorite track.

not strings, lol my bad. lots happening at the same time.

glad to see wynter gordon in the credits here

Has anyone checked on Jay Z lately? I fear for his health.

love drought is a cloud

the visual is quite dense, image- rather than narrative-driven, captivating. the poetic narration is hit-and-miss but, in tandem with the imagery, does regularly make coherent and striking connections between the album's personal-relationship-centered lyrical themes and broader social phenomena. in many instances the glimpses of the music are distractingly abbreviated or disjointed; as a result, unlike the last album, which was very arguably best experienced with the visual, this one might simply be better to listen through on its own.

the songs themselves are really good, not surprisingly. for me the most emotionally stirring moments come when bey's voice slides, even for the briefest moments, into unexpected and jarring textures, as it does on e.g. "don't hurt yourself" and "sandcastles". (now that i'm thinking about it, the way her voice and the guitar are seamlessly combined when she drops the f-bomb in the opening line [yes, even on the explicit/uncensored version] of the former track is super super brilliant.) i did not experience any devastating lyrical gut-punches the way i did when i first listened to her self-titled, but that's kind of a high standard to hold and artist to since that so rarely happens anyway. in general i am trying to resist the urge to label this 'better than' or 'lesser than' her previous work esp that album. there are beautiful moments throughout. my favorite track so far, bizarrely, might be "daddy lessons" while my least favorite is the one with the weeknd, lol.

i'm not sure what to make of the decision not to release it for purchase. i find it very difficult to part with the idea that i need to *own* music i want to listen to often, if only digitally. tidal seems fine for a streaming service, and even better than fine if indeed it compensates creators more adequately than competitors, but in general i find streaming platforms not to be particularly good ways to listen.

there is some wildly casual percussion on this record

loooooool i think "6 inches" lists "my girls" by anco as an interpolated song b/c it uses the phrase 'material things'??? good lord

*6 inch smh

Have to admit, I expected the song with Jack White to be a whole lot worse than it actually is.

I love the New Orleans horns on Daddy Lessons, but the acoustic guitar stomp of the rest of it is so goddamn bad.

All Night is so beautiful.

The song w an Ezra Koenig credit also has a Josh Tillman (aka Father John Misty) credit acc. to wikipedia. Just...fyi

MNEK co-wrote "Hold Up"!

The first point of comparison that occurred to me was relational: this feels like the To Venus & Back to Beyonce's From The Choirgirl Hotel: a more casually executed, "smaller"effort that leans harder into its predecessor's eccentricities and points of difference.

When I wrote about Beyonce following its release it seemed obvious to me that the most interesting aspect of the album was what Beyonce was doing with her vocals, exploring the way she could use her voice to push into different emotional states and terrains. With this album, it's like the songs only really matter insofar as they provide vehicles for exploring new states, new terrains.

I love the New Orleans horns on Daddy Lessons, but the acoustic guitar stomp of the rest of it is so goddamn bad.

really glad i listened to the audio before watching the film

wow @ "daddy lessons", "don't hurt yourself", "freedom" especially

I'm, uh, not much for Jack White but his vocal over those drums is a holy-shit moment.

Is the sound on this kind of muted or is it just my dodgy MP3s? Please don't make me subscribe to Tidal to find out...

Probably the dodgy mp3s.

Yeah it definitely is - Formation just started and boomed out about twice as loudly as everything else.

First impressions are that this is excellent but the one with James Blake is probably the worst Beyonce song since the Sasha Fierce at the very least.

the jack white song is soooooooo good

i have so many favourite parts but b and Serena jamming together in the hallway was so fkn great

This is a good album ain't it.

Atlanta next Sunday!

great post, Tim

after i listened to it for the first time it has a bittersweet taste...
'all night' is an obvious highlight, probably the best song. 'don't hurt yourself' and 'forward' are bad jokes.
i still don't know what to think of it, but i'm not as excited as i wanted do be.

The moment when 6 Inch goes from minimalist trap to widescreen orchestration is wonderful.

damn, i didn't mean 'dont hurt yourself', which is surprisingly good, but '6 inch'. i can't deal with weeknd's voice.

sandcastles seems so out of place for me, no matter how genuine it may be w/in the spectrum of feelings she's exploring. like the song itself was a corporate addition "well, bloomingdales won't play 6 inch in the stores so we need something for 40-something rich wives." the whole album is so dynamic vocally like dyl was saying and it's so... SAFE

Huh? The way I hear it Sandcastles is the one where she is most vulnerable vocally. There is one moment especially where she seems to lose it completely.

The moment when 6 Inch goes from minimalist trap to widescreen orchestration is wonderful.

― Matt DC, Sunday, April 24, 2016 12:24 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol you mean the part where it goes from the 2nd minute of the Isaac Hayes version of "Walk On By" to the 1st miniute of the Isaac Hayes version of "Walk On By"

Huh? The way I hear it Sandcastles is the one where she is most vulnerable vocally. There is one moment especially where she seems to lose it completely.

― Frederik B, Sunday, April 24, 2016 12:48 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess the barn-burning speaks to me more. SC is very trad to me

Yeah it's the one very trad song in there (perhaps the same can be said of Freedom?) but it's still very moving.

just watched the visual..

not malick, julie dash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_the_Dust

watching this w my 86 y/o grandmother rn

Huh? The way I hear it Sandcastles is the one where she is most vulnerable vocally. There is one moment especially where she seems to lose it completely.

― Frederik B, Sunday, April 24, 2016 12:48 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess the barn-burning speaks to me more. SC is very trad to me

― How Butch, I mean (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), 24. april 2016 19:00 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh, I agree with this fully. Yeah, not my favorite track. But the vocals from 1:15-1:50 are quite extreme. Actually, the way she screams 'what is it about you' 1:40 in might be my favorite vocal moment on the album so far. She sounds so scary and ugly right there, as if she completely loses her cool for a moment. I also quite like the James Blake coda, lol.

I should have put this off a bit, because I don't think I'm really in the mood to engage with non-Prince music right now, but this sounded generally fine but rarely spectacular for the most part. I like "Sorry" a lot. "Daddy Lessons" is dreadful, though; essentially her version of Lady Gaga's "You & I."

"Daddy Lessons" is my favorite. I love the horn chart part seguing into the acoustic part.

Well, Gaga's track was divisive as well. The problem may be me: I don't like contempo country enough on its own, so hearing pop superstars do their camp riffs on the genre is really gonna make me itch.

Would it sound backhanded for me to say that I'm happy that its a 40-something minute album? Cause I don't mean it that way.

I don't hear country in this track at all! Sounds like Beyonce over an acoustic riff.

and, no, I'm grateful it's 45 minutes long. I want more 45-minute albums.

6 inch loses its way the moment that sample comes in, imo.

And I'm getting the feeling that the relaxed vocals signify that none of this means v much to her. She has a great voice though.

The "yee-haw" that opens it and the whole fetishization of daddy's gun scan as (intentionally) broadly Country.

I'm grateful when albums are 45 minutes long these days, just like I'm grateful when movies are under 2 hours.

Actually, 6 Inch is a mess from start to finish and this album feels very unnecessary.

sandcastles seems so out of place for me, no matter how genuine it may be w/in the spectrum of feelings she's exploring. like the song itself was a corporate addition "well, bloomingdales won't play 6 inch in the stores so we need something for 40-something rich wives." the whole album is so dynamic vocally like dyl was saying and it's so... SAFE

― How Butch, I mean (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Sunday, 24 April 2016 16:32 (5 hours ago) Permalink

Yeah Beyonce groaning "bitch I scratched out your name and your face" is a very 40-something rich wives moment.

If we're talking about Real Housewives of Atlanta maybe.

And I'm getting the feeling that the relaxed vocals signify that none of this means v much to her. She has a great voice though.

can someone find me a gif to respond to this post with

And I'm getting the feeling that the relaxed vocals signify that none of this means v much to her. She has a great voice though.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Sunday, April 24, 2016 9:21 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't agree with this even if I know what you're getting at.

The film is intense - and utterly pretentious in a way that almost threatens to topple it but ultimately is also its precondition - and in a roundabout way suggests that the album is both cathartic reaction (to Jay-Z's adultery obv) and a very deliberate statement about where Beyonce sees herself as an artist and about the kind of "art" she wants to make (as an aside, it's interesting to observe that while Jay-Z's response to moving in arty circles is just to hamfistedly reference it in lyrics, Beyonce goes away and makes what is essentially a video installation for a gallery of digital media).

In that regard you might say that the songs as songs are no longer shouldering the burden of all of Beyonce's emotional/artistic focus. These songs certainly don't feel laboured over, and I'd not be surprised if a lot more time and effort went into perfecting the visuals that accompany them. But I think that's less because Beyonce doesn't care about the songs and more that she doesn't really view them in isolation from the "project' as a whole.

But even then, it's not the "relaxed vocals" that give this away - the vocals are clearly the aspect of the music she's thought about most! - but the lived-in messiness of the lyrics and production. A lot of it almost feels like Beyonce is writing the song on the spot - a quality one could never have ascribed to the material on her first four albums.

i would call much of the album 'trad' sonically but that's not a value judgment

was pleasantly surprised to hear that the urban station here is playing scattered tracks from the album today. i honestly don't think there'll be much in the way of long-term radio candy from this album, not that that's a bad thing.

Thanks, Tim. This album just doesn't *sound* too personal to me. The whole infidelity narrative just raises so many questions about what sort of statement this is supposed to be, exactly. Why address these issues in this very particular way - after years of silence?

I *like* the relaxed vocals - it's something she's been getting closer and closer to nailing, and here she finally does it. But the songs just aren't that strong. They need the Narrative and perhaps also the film (which I haven't seen yet) to work. Her last album managed to intertwine art and life in new ways and felt like a fresh start. This feels like a lot of loose threads atm - not really cathartic at all. It doesn't even feel like an ending. Just a bunch of okay songs sung very well.

Hold up, is this Apathy track not on the actual album, just in the film?

Or are people talking about Sorry? That must be it, I guess.

Thanks, Tim. This album just doesn't *sound* too personal to me. The whole infidelity narrative just raises so many questions about what sort of statement this is supposed to be,

I wouldn't worry about this at all. She's a star, so what's "personal" anyway?

yeah none of the 'chapter titles' in the film are the same as the song titles, it was pretty confusing in that hour before the album hit Tidal what to call any of them

Well, what her last album managed to do was to tie together a sense of who Beyoncé was as a person, an artist and a... uh... force in the world. It felt very post-knausgaardian, in a way. She moved decisively away from the "hit songs mingled with a bunch of non-hit songs" paradigm that even Rihanna is now trying to move away from - through recourse to the personal. With this album, however, I get the feeling that it needs the "personal" - in this case the b'trayal narrative - as an excuse to even exist. So yeah, it's all about the "personal" - but it still doesn't feel very personal.

xpost to Alfred.

haven't listened to the album yet because tidal, but i thought the film was really good and memorable. i guess it seems really apparent to me that it's a very personal album but maybe i'm taking it too literally. also,

Any wife who outs her husband on an album and in an hourlong video as a cheater, then makes him release that album on his streaming platform — exclusively — is having her cake and making him eat it, too.

That feels only partially triumphant since we’re left in a moral murk. He might be paying for his sins. But we’re still paying him.

Interesting to hear that people found this impersonal; I felt the exact opposite.

I thought she really nailed what it feels like to be in what's going to be either the middle or the end of your marriage -- when you don't necessarily know which one it's going to be, but both options seem both irresistible and soul-crushing. And the vacillation between superhuman confidence and heartbreaking insecurity...

Projecting my own shit on Beyoncé right now but I liked this a lot.

xpost to longneck: I dunno it all feels very personal to me. Maybe the issue is more whether these songs are ones which the listener can make their own.

It's interesting to cast back to 4 and in particular when "1 + 1" emerged. I remember thinking "this is an excellent execution of a transition to artistic "maturity"", with Beyonce investing what sounded like "classic" songs with a performative largesse that rendered them entirely hers (if only by consummately outperforming the competition).

And since then she has almost entirely abandoned that model - the performative largesse is still there but these songs (even "Sandcastles") defiantly reject the mould of "standards". To twist your words, longneck, they need Beyonce's performance of them to exist as songs in the first place.

What Beyonce (which was halfway through this transition and hence didn't necessarily have to nail its colours to the mast) obscured is the question of precisely what (if anything) is lost alongside what is gained by the shift: I suppose for some listeners this transition would seem like a journey from Beyonce showing us how we feel to showing us how she feels.

I guess then the next question (assuming she's gotten away with this so far) is how far Beyonce can drift from writing "great songs" before either (a) the spell is broken or (b) she snaps back.

lol @ everyone calling Daddy Lessons a Beyonce country song. That's some sub-Mumford shit.

The rest of the album is fucking unbelievable, though.

on first watch/listen, daddy lessons was also my least favorite, but i didn't think it was bad

xxxpost

I agree - they definitely need Beyoncé's performance of them to exist as songs in the first place. And it's quite a performance. I do sometimes miss the cold edge of need and ambition that characterized the "old" Beyoncé - somehow Bootylicious strikes me as intensely personal because the agenda was so grand and obviously so important to her. It's so fierce - in a way this album is not, even when she's simulating being angry with her husband. But of course, as her position and status shifted she couldn't keep singing the same songs in the same way.

The movement toward Beyoncé is very much, as you say, a movement away from the grand statement songs toward a more intimate art - because intimacy was pretty much beyond her reach back before 4. On that album, to me, she struck the right balance between intimacy and "great songs" but what was missing was the self-awareness of Beyoncé, which confronted the space between the public perception of Beyoncé and her own perception of who Beyoncé was (a person with a history and a family) and what she wanted to be. And it did so very successfully. So now we get a bid for more intimacy,
- at the cost of great songs.

But part of me - the married part, I guess - wants to know why these feelings, genuine though they may be, ended up taking this form. I don't get the feeling that this particular couple - who are still married - had a difficult conversation and then B sat down to write about her difficult feelings concerning her relationship and then decided to whack him in the head with them through releasing them on his streaming platform. I get the feeling that thease songs are responding to media chatter rather than to strong emotions and difficult conversations. I guess maybe I just need better songs if I'm going to project my shit onto them.

*these etc. etc.

So now we get a bid for more intimacy,- at the cost of great songs.

Too early for me to have an opinion about whether it has great songs -- it's a good album, but I don't know yet which songs will be my favorites a week or month from now. But I don't discount the possibility of great songs here. The opening trio is really strong, and the closing quartet too. (I like Sandcastles a lot.) But I have the same curiosity about the process behind the album. It's on the one hand so apparently revealing, but on the other kind of still behind a bit of a curtain, or at least a window sheer. It doesn't matter to its artistic integrity whether xyz "really happened," but it does create a sort of dissonance -- can something that suggests reckless candor really go hand in hand with a skillfully plotted multimedia marketing campaign?

Or, you know, you could just let Beyonce have these feelings. A whole bunch of women seem to get where she coming from.

so the "Maps" and "My Girls" samples are just her copping lyrics from those songs? wtf

Any time I've ever been in a therapy like situation, I feel like I've simultaneously been very sincere and very calculating. So the opposition between those two states which most people seem to accept always seems very foreign to me.

xpost

I had actually been hoping for a real sample when I heard about that one, not just her singing the chorus of "Maps" to fill in gaps in the song (a common contemporary practice that I admittedly just don't get).

What is "My Girls?"

an animal collective song. she does the same thing in 6 Inch, uses the hook from My Girls about "material things"

could replace "therapy" with "marriage" here, but yeah, I agree.

and ultimately I don't care if something's calculated if it makes me feel shit.

uh xxpost

i feel like this album's very similar to the last one (mostly aesthetically/production-wise, and mostly in a good way) but 20 minutes shorter, and specifically with 20 minutes of the more upbeat clubby/pop radio-friendly stuffed removed. and honestly that's kind of what i want since the last 2 years of constant "drunk in love"/"partition"/"flawless" remix"/"7/11" on the radio kinda wore thin with me relative to how i feel about the rest of that record.

xpost

Oh, right. I guess I had been successful enough in blocking that song from my memory that the quote went right passed me.

so the "Maps" and "My Girls" samples are just her copping lyrics from those songs? wtf

― flappy bird, Sunday, April 24, 2016 8:46 PM

the "Blurred Lines" influence, like Miguel ceding a writing credit to Billy Corgan last year.

it's kinda funny to have a divorce album w/o the divorce like the venom
of 'idiot wind' yielding toward the therapeutic attempt at understanding how this shit happened to you of parts of like a prayer and then extrapolating that understanding to a larger scale insight of the culture, the personal is political. on one listen i don't like it as much as the last two and i doubt that will change but holy shit am i impressed. kinda think she doesn't give af about radio but i hear three maybe four tracks w/ potential there.

I listened to it three times last night and then once more today. Now I've just watched the visual counterpart on HBO and holy shit. No words, really, so I'm not even going to try.

doing the HBO premiere was kind of brilliant because it made so many people experience it together in real time so that there was this whole tense reaction to the angry 1st half of the album before the kind of soft forgiving resolution of the 2nd half. like people were totally sure at 9:30 last night that the divorce papers had already been filed but at 10:00 it was a whole different vibe.

Yeah one thing that seems incontravertible is that this album feels like Beyoncé going all in on measuring her success almost solely in terms of cultural impact ("you know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation") rather than, like, hit songs.

What does a hit song even get you anymore?

Macklemore, that's what.

there are like four outright classics immediately i think. totally agreed on the thrill of watching the twitterwave going from the first to the second half of the convo.

er, by convo i mean movie.

I'm feeling the straightforward stuff like "All Nite."

That's the secret story here: the way that Beyonce has transformed into an artist who can sing a "straightforward" love song like "All Night" and have it sound like nobody else.

There's a quality to that song that reminds me of Teedra Moses' debut: openly part of a tradition and continuum yet still sounding completely, arrestingly singular.

otm!

(Which is connected to but different again from the powerhouse performances on "1+1" and "Love On Top")

One thing that's very clear from watching the film is how completely and resolutely it does not give a fuck about the tastes and wants of a straight white male audience. So yeah, you can get over that she's not thrown you a couple of club bangers as part of your adjustment to this not being for you. And then you can adjust to it being wildly popular regardless. But to flip that into saying that there's not good songs on this just seems deranged.

"love drought" is incredible

Straight white dudes love club bangers?

yes

s3.amazonaws.com/s3.roosterteeth.com/images/interest27872.jpg

i think sonically this album is really cool and unique. more all over the place than it really seems as you're listening to it. some of it ("don't hurt yourself, "6 inch", "daddy issues") sound sort of noirsh to me, but there are also some crystalline r&b songs and the little island influences. it's an interesting combo that works. i like how "pray you catch me," "sorry" & "love drought" sorta take their cues from the "jealous"/"no angel" sector of the last album. that said the songwriting isn't always there for me... i want "hold up" and "sorry" to do a little more than they do. they're nice songs but feel a bit underworked & not sure how often i'll come back to ones like the jack white collab or "freedom." as a piece of popular art it's pretty insanely compelling tho, and she really sells the shit out of it (i.e. that little dip into rap on "hold up", her vocals across the album in general)

Definitely curious to see how this works in concert, arrangement-wise.

Tim F. otm:
As an aside, it's interesting to observe that while Jay-Z's response to moving in arty circles is just to hamfistedly reference it in lyrics, Beyonce goes away and makes what is essentially a video installation for a gallery of digital media).

Can't wait to hear a live version of Sandcastles.

and ultimately I don't care if something's calculated if it makes me feel shit.

Sure, otm, and all art is calculated to the degree that someone makes the conscious decision to produce it and present it. Taylor has obviously made a specialty of intimate confessions with massive corporate packaging. The trick with this album is its sense of immediacy, like she just caught him and this is her processing it in real time. Which of course it's not, it's art, with elaborate trappings.

I just watched this. It was incredible. There's no direct sonic connection but throughout the whole thing the name that kept popping into my head was Tina Turner.

As an artistic statement, I think this is tremendous. Also on just one watchthrough, I feel like people are conflating forgiveness with reconciliation; the second half felt to me like a goodbye more than anything else.

My mom is visiting and watched part of the beginning with me. She asked me "So what do you think?" and I said "I think Jay-Z better run"

Ha!

I can't stop listening to All Night. Easily 25-30 times since last night.

One thing that's very clear from watching the film is how completely and resolutely it does not give a fuck about the tastes and wants of a straight white male audience.

it is interesting to hear this said when many of the collaborators this go-around are people that the, em, "passionate millennial males" are very into. still not an untrue observation tho!

i am still very confused about the "my girls" '''''''sample''''''', like the only lyrics she lifted were the two words "material things" yes? it's not like anco invented that phrase or even first used it in a song so ... ? what is the point?

http://pitchfork.com/news/65028-beyonce-producer-boots-explains-animal-collective-credit-on-6-inch/

Over on Genius, the track's co-producer Boots explained that the connection between Beyoncé's line ("She too smart to crave material things") and Animal Collective's ("I don't mean to seem like I care about material things") was initially "accidental." He compared the songwriting process to George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord," which was famously the subject of a lawsuit when the Beatle was accused of "subconsciously" lifting the melody from the Chiffons' "He's So Fine."

like Alfred said above, the Blurred Lines effect. no one wants to get sued. i thought Miguel giving a co-write credit to Billy Corgan on Leaves because it sounded like 1979 was hilarious, considering Corgan stole that song from the Frogs.

Copyright has a striking similarity / substantial part test under which one of the factors they balance is the more distinctive the infringed part is the smaller it has to be to infringe. There's cases before Blurred Lines (Coffey v Warner/ Chappell Music Ltd comes to mind) around a single lyric without regard to melody. So it's not out completely crazy to seek permission for 'they don't love you like i love you' and 'material things'. Also mens rea doesn't exist for copyright, so whether Beyonce knew of the original or sought to copy is irrelevant. It's not a particularly satisfying part of law.

The idea of Animal Collective deciding to take on a full battalion of Beyonce lawyers based on two words is hilarious. Then again stranger things have happened so you can't blame them for being cautious.

Was the collaborator list kept secret before this dropped by the way? I'm assuming so because if it been common knowledge that she was working with Jack White and Ezra Koenig and The Weeknd we would not have heard the end of it. When you consider all that, choosing to precede it with Formation was even more of a masterstroke.

imagining Lex's reaction to that pre-album press release.

Actually, 6 Inch is a mess from start to finish and this album feels very unnecessary.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Sunday, April 24, 2016 4:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...The fuck?

Favorite song is "love drought" which is funny cuz it only had 2 other writers while ever other record is brimming w them

Incredible album and Johnny fever's complaints about "daddy lessons" are going to age like eggs on the radiator

Not sure I like it more than the s/t but I identify w al's take and I don't think it's a remotely static move, feels like a bold step forward and I think a smart one

Who cares about Radio Singles (I mean, I do, sentimentally, but) Lana del Rey sold hella copies of an album w no radio records, this is the way the fractured silo'd viral Internet has destroyed Traditional radio music

A lack of radio singles* is far from the biggest commercial problem when you consider the record is being released exclusively on Tidal.

*Whatever that means, I really don't understand behaviours of US radio, there are four or five songs here that would get heavy UK rotation.

My favourite vocal moment so far is the bit on Love Drought when her voice just whoops upward.

idg the "no radio singles" angle, i know we live in an age when ppl interpret "radio single" as "as formulaic as possible" but "hold up", "6 inch" and "freedom" all seem like big radio singles in terms of hooks, mood etc. already heard "freedom" on radio 1.

watching the film after listening to the album, the spoken word interludes obviously leapt out - some really incredible imagery ("i plugged my menses with pages from the holy bible"!!!!!!!) at the start but i felt like they lost their impact as the film went on. also, having listened to the album first, i'm not sure the film did justice to all the songs...a lot of striking visual moments (posses of women looking like elite covens, i like bey taking #blackgirlmagic to its logical conclusion) but the only one i remember working as a ~music video~ was "hold up" (nb only one watch and i have a bad memory)

strictly autobiographical obsession is v boring in this case. i know she's underlining it for us (must be the influence of hanging out with taylor swift) but every single bit of speculation i've read about her marriage reveals some p depressing things about how ppl seem to think a) relationships b) creating art actually work

who remembers the country version of "grown woman"! https://soundcloud.com/beyoncehd-1/beyonc-grown-woman-country-mi

...The fuck?

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, April 25, 2016 8:11 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Meaning the Walk On By sample is very distracting and the song would have done just fine and much better without it. I'll retract that the album "feels very unnecessary" and rephrase it as "the media/autobiographic points overshadow the actual music, which feels comparatively small and uninteresting."

on first listens it seems like there are some outright mediocre songs/moments on here in a way that there weren't on the previous album. quality control seems looser.

does it seem weird that the NYT and other outlets are referring to this album as "long-awaited"? maybe i'm just getting older and time is moving faster and faster, but it doesn't really seem like all that long ago that the last one just suddenly appeared. i guess to be precise it was two years and five months ago. but that's not an unusually long time to wait for a new album from a major recording artist, is it?

is there any way to watch the film (or whatever it is) w/o having a HBO subscription?

As an aside, it's interesting to observe that while Jay-Z's response to moving in arty circles is just to hamfistedly reference it in lyrics, Beyonce goes away and makes what is essentially a video installation for a gallery of digital media).

this just seems symptomatic of jay-z being totally out of inspiration and ideas, and beyonce... having plenty of inspiration and ideas.

Yeah that was my point.

i'm not hearing where the quality of songcraft supposedly dips..."pray you catch me" is more of a mood intro than a song, "forward" is trash that doesn't even count as a beyoncé song and i've deleted it already but everything else is either super-immediate or if it's not, has really engrossing details/moments that make it a compelling listen even if i'm not belting out the hooks yet

strictly autobiographical obsession is v boring in this case. i know she's underlining it for us (must be the influence of hanging out with taylor swift) but every single bit of speculation i've read about her marriage reveals some p depressing things about how ppl seem to think a) relationships b) creating art actually work

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Monday, April 25, 2016 8:48 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd love to hear you expand on this, lex. Especially the part about "how art works", which, I think, is partly what's bothering me about the reception of this thing.

Anyway, I finally watched the film and feel like it blew the songs up into the dimensions that the album needs in order for it to work, more or less. However, parts of this is down to the film using fragments of the songs instead of full versions - i.e. I prefer Freedom without the Kendrick verse for some reason - and also the spoken word thing which worked better than I had imagined it would.

All Night felt way more of a reconciliation than I had thought it would though, thanks to the loving imagery of Jay and Blue Ivy, and that kind of threw me off. After seeing the film this weirdly feels more like a love letter to Jay (and, even more weirdly, patriarchy in general) than an attempt to break free.

strictly autobiographical obsession is v boring in this case. i know she's underlining it for us (must be the influence of hanging out with taylor swift) but every single bit of speculation i've read about her marriage reveals some p depressing things about how ppl seem to think a) relationships b) creating art actually work

yeah this. Most artists record stuff because it sounds cool, not because it's intrinsically meaningful.

Beyoncé seems to be very into MEANING though.

geez I've already seen a few people on FB call this her Blood on the Tracks or Shoot Out the Lights! Apart from not knowing a thing about Beyonce-Jay (and who cares anyway), Lemonade doesn't work like those two albums; it's a convenient way to elide the politics and concentrate on autobiography.

Not sure if politics and autobiography can be detached from each other in this particular instance but it's an interesting thought and I'd love to hear what you mean by it in more detail.

'Great songs' are overrated. This album sounds broken, confused, searching, everchanging. It's not a grand statement, it's art. It's not MEANING, or even #MEANING, it's meanings.

The lack of "great songs" means the focus is moved from the songs to the person singing them. Hence to "meaning".
That being said, the songs are not bad. I quite like a few of them.

my favorite 'music video' moment in the film is toward the end in "hold up". so replete is the history of the music video with shots of the performer (esp. if they're women) looking right into the camera that it really struck me to actually feel "oh shit, she's actually looking ~at me~" as she approached with the bat ready to strike.

album appears to be available to buy on itunes and other digital retail outlets now btw. the individual tracks can be purchased a la carte, even, which was not the case at first for self-titled. i guess the tidal exclusive is just for streaming?

It's not on Amazon.

digital is now for sale on Amazon---I just checked---and maybe for streaming if you sign up for Prime (unless it's just a vague ruse to get you to sign up, period; didn't read the mention that closely, but not in the way they might prefer me to be careless). Anyway CD/DVD out May 6 (contents of DVD listed as "short film," so not the whole video gallery, or is that short?) Somebody on Sunday All Things Considered suggested that theme of album could be read as referencing marriage and/or fraught relationship with her father and/or institutionalized patriarchy/gender presets (though I inferred last phrase) Haven't listened yet, but trying not to read too much about it first (hard, but I'm trying).

I've got Prime and it's not available for streaming for me

A subtle cool thing about this record imo is the lip-service crediting of so many white indie-mainstays. Took a line here, a word there, then she gives credit to Ezra, YYYs, AnCo, Father John Misty for their barely-there contributions, it's beautiful tokenizing. It's genius. Animal Collective took Frankie Knuckles' masterpiece-track (a soundtrack for safe spaces for the queer and not-white and poor) and turned it into a song glorifying heteronormative privileged life. Beyonce and co. took it back by stealing two words. And giving credit.

handing someone a paycheck for basically no work is a strange form of justice in that case

i would be willing to buy that if she didn't duet with james blake and have two tracks primarily produced by diplo (and if she didn't also throw soulja boy a "don't sue me" writing credit)

not sure an arpeggio counts as a heinous theft of the entire song "your love".

can't believe i connected vastly more with a couple of jack white & diplo collabs than with anything on the pj harvey album.

if only, for every time someone types the words "jack white" into a CMS, they were forced by the spirits of beyonce and tim berners-lee to also embed a wynter gordon video

oh shit, hi spirits of beyonce and tim berners-lee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT-ulCJxNfo

Haven't seen anything yet that clarifies Ezra's producer credit. Song does have a bit of a VW flavor, but could just as easily be Diplo's lite-Caribbean vibe.

"A subtle cool thing about this record imo is the lip-service crediting of so many white indie-mainstays. Took a line here, a word there, then she gives credit to Ezra, YYYs, AnCo, Father John Misty for their barely-there contributions, it's beautiful tokenizing. It's genius. Animal Collective took Frankie Knuckles' masterpiece-track (a soundtrack for safe spaces for the queer and not-white and poor) and turned it into a song glorifying heteronormative privileged life. Beyonce and co. took it back by stealing two words. And giving credit."

it might be reclaiming that particular sample, idk, ive not heard the record yet, but surely a truer form of revenge would simply be NOT using or crediting said white artists and just crediting/using a load of more obscure black artists (or frankie knuckles, rather than AC)? to me it just seems like a bit of a shrewd cred exercise. she knows white/indie critics will get very excited about seeing all those names on there, even if they arent doing too much.

or, less circumspect: it really does grate to see people, presented with an album by a black woman about black womanhood, go on and on and on AND ON AND ON AND ON about the white dudes featured or quasi-featured on it, especially when they aren't even the only people there

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Haven't seen anything yet that clarifies Ezra's producer credit. Song does have a bit of a VW flavor, but could just as easily be Diplo's lite-Caribbean vibe.

― A nationally known air show announcer/personality (tipsy mothra), Monday, April 25, 2016 11:38 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its almost as if guessing at who contributed what on a song w/ eightyleven contributers is a fools game?

A subtle cool thing about this record imo is the lip-service crediting of so many white indie-mainstays. Took a line here, a word there, then she gives credit to Ezra, YYYs, AnCo, Father John Misty for their barely-there contributions, it's beautiful tokenizing. It's genius. Animal Collective took Frankie Knuckles' masterpiece-track (a soundtrack for safe spaces for the queer and not-white and poor) and turned it into a song glorifying heteronormative privileged life. Beyonce and co. took it back by stealing two words. And giving credit.

― fgti, Monday, April 25, 2016 11:01 AM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is like watching social justice become an online video game

definitely, it is still beyonces show, but people cant be totally blamed for taking the bait. father john misty, james blake, etc etc, have all obv been enlisted for a reason. 'its her indie album!'

IMO the cleverness is not stealing back an old chicago house sample or whatever, but getting attention by enlisting unexpected collaborators who arent actually that important in the wider scheme of the album (i think).

anyway, its beyonce. apart from a certain brand of critic, the wider populus are not going to look at it as anything but a beyonce record. beyonce is doing blake, misty, etc etc a huge favour ultimately, her being the megastar, and shes getting a bit of indie cred in return.

xpost

A subtle cool thing about this record imo is the lip-service crediting of so many white indie-mainstays. Took a line here, a word there, then she gives credit to Ezra, YYYs, AnCo, Father John Misty for their barely-there contributions, it's beautiful tokenizing. It's genius. Animal Collective took Frankie Knuckles' masterpiece-track (a soundtrack for safe spaces for the queer and not-white and poor) and turned it into a song glorifying heteronormative privileged life. Beyonce and co. took it back by stealing two words. And giving credit.

― fgti, Monday, April 25, 2016 11:01 AM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is like watching social justice become an online video game

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, April 25, 2016 12:58 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and this post, I guess, would be the person spamming the report-to-admins button

is there such a thing as indie cred in 2016 and who'd want it? If anything, the queue of guests suggests they want her cred.

I'd say Rihanna was going for a bit of indie cred with Anti. This... I'm not sure about.

i'm not sure it's necessarily that deep. i assume beyoncé has a gigantic bank of songs at any given time that can undergo huge transformations long after the original writer(s) have left the building and the lengthy credits just reflect this. i'm not sure, taking all the collaborators into account, that there's much of a pattern in terms of who she's chosen to work with, apart from that absolutely no one would have turned her down. it's not even as if the indie witeboys who pop up here have much to do with each other aesthetically let alone wynter gordon, mnek, diplo or whoever inspired her to write a country song etc etc.

and this post, I guess, would be the person spamming the report-to-admins button

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, April 25, 2016 12:05 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

??

are the guest artists/collaborators on this record affiliated with Tidal? (serious question)

xpost id say it (indie cred) is still there, yes. it seems naive to think that there isnt such a thing, almost like a denial of who holds the power at most music media institutions.

it's weird and depressing how lifelong R&B artists drawing any influence or inspiration from different sources supposedly dilutes the R&B element (instead of making R&B a richer and more varied genre) but any artist from outside the R&B world can put any little element of R&B into their music and suddenly they're a bold new style of R&B that's reinvigorating the genre. at least that's how the music media usually paints things.

boots is affiliated with roc nation which obv has tidal ties so...

are the guest artists/collaborators on this record affiliated with Tidal? (serious question)

i presumed that's why jack white popped up, no idea about the others

is there going to be anywhere legit (not tidal) to watch the film?

it seems naive to think that there isnt such a thing, almost like a denial of who holds the power at most music media institution

Pieces on Beyonce, Taylor Swift, etc, hold the power.

i was hoping that she hired a New Orleans brass band for the 'Daddy Lessons' intro, but looks like nope.

she knows white/indie critics will get very excited about seeing all those names on there, even if they arent doing too much.

Releasing albums out of the blue with no advance promos and little advance word don't suggest the actions of someone who gives a hoot about critics.

Actually this feels a bit like the album that a lot of pre-release publicity claimed she was making in 2011. I remember the undisguised disappointment and begrudging three-star reviews among sections of the press when they ended up with 4 and not Beyonce plus Sleigh Bells or whatever terrible idea was mooted.

I have no idea how Jack White cropped up on here, he's the one you'd expect to still have eyerolling contempt for a project like this.

Two degrees of separation:

http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/468162840-jason-aldean-jack-white-daft-punk-beyonce-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=GkZZ8bf5zL1ZiijUmxa7QckPVWQSXnG0AHGrmIlVbgopttk5GDJ7Gl9jmvsvDc%2BEEK%2BbtoTu%2BL1hpcqWbUqXww%3D%3D

??

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, April 25, 2016 1:12 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eagerly piping up to say "look! this guy did something wrong!"

"help social justice is griefing me" etc

I guess it's more effective for Beyoncé to just drop an album without any buildup because it forces people to scramble to hear it immediately. It has to be a big cultural moment that people can't afford to miss out on. I mean, it doesn't have to be, obviously, but it reinforces her brand, gives her fans footing over music critics, encourages people to subscribe to Tidal, etc.

Louis CK said a similar thing on WTF last week (I know this is a quintessential mid-2010s post) -- talking about Horace & Pete, he described really wanting people to just stumble onto this thing, not knowing what it would be, with no billboards, stories, etc., in advance. It's just putting the publicity behind the work instead of ahead of it.

eagerly piping up to say "look! this guy did something wrong!"

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, April 25, 2016 12:34 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"help social justice is griefing me" etc

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, April 25, 2016 12:34 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe i just thought the post was dumb

god forbid we criticize someone who's 'heart is in the right place'

TBF Jack White and Kendrick are probably the first time that a male voice has appeared on a Beyonce track and actually enhanced rather than detracted from the song. Since Sean Paul on Baby Boy over a decade ago anyway. Every time a dude opens his mouth on the last album you're willing for it to stop as soon as possible.

Anyway enough of this bullshit, have you ever heard such a tastefully applied airhorn as on Hold Up? It's almost dainty.

"My Girls" is not copped from Frankie Knuckles. It's a three note arpeggio that was written and performed on a piano before MPP was released. They had trouble recording the original loop so they used a synth instead. It's not a cop at all, it's an accident. It's three notes!

the actual explanation for Koenig's credit is pretty lol

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cg6C9tHUYAEUDoZ.jpg

god forbid I make a stupid joke about video games

actually it's about ethics in video game jokes

is there going to be anywhere legit (not tidal) to watch the film?

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Monday, April 25, 2016 10:15 AM (1 hour ago)

the cd release will contain a dvd of the film as disc 2 according to the amazon listing

https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/she-just-wants-to-cook-brunch#.ynmbeQBZQ

this is kind of the funniest thing ever

The iTunes album package also has the film included. Not sure what software I'd need to watch it with. No doubt there's something already on my MacBook that plays it. iTunes probably!

(*Full disclosure: I've never watched the DVD of videos that came with the s/t CD.)

https://twitter.com/anthonyblsmith/status/724676347050729473

'aj soprano' is a reasonable look.

I am currently playing "Hold Up" and "Sorry" a lot

same

what a time to be alive, part 435234652345

not sure an arpeggio counts as a heinous theft of the entire song "your love". and also It's not a cop at all, it's an accident. It's three notes!

It is the primary music material of that song, it is a specific three-note arpeggio that phases cells of three against a 4/4 beat, it is married to "new lyrics" about turning one's back on "community" and instead building a castle and filling it with wife and offspring; prob the worst song ever recorded

Note that AnCo's "accident" is an exact compositional lift of a very famous and important song, note that AnCo did not give Frankie Knuckles any co-writing credit (whereas Beyonce did for her own team's "accidental" theft of the weighting of "material things"); if we must talk any more about this song let's talk about it in another thread, a thread filled with old garbage

it really does grate to see people, presented with an album by a black woman about black womanhood, go on and on and on AND ON AND ON AND ON about the white dudes featured or quasi-featured on it, especially when they aren't even the only people there

This is why it has been so delicious to discover that it was an Ezra tweet! paraphrasing a YYYs song! and two words from an AnCo song! and whatever FJM is doing there! it feels like a hilarious trap for Beyonce's indie-interested listeners

god damn it don't make me defend animal collective

also since we're giving credit where credit is due, "Your Love" is by Jamie Principle not Frankie Knuckles

True!

Anyway this "visual album" is as perfect a piece of art as I could ever imagine existing and it's on repeat around here

The "visual album" is up there with Hounds of Love and Bitter as a structurally sound concept album with the weight of literature.

so much overlap between beyoncé and indie audience, don't think it's really relevant.

otm

If you don't think it's a big deal that these bear-market indie musicians are credited on a Beyonce record, and then very funny that they're basically credited for next to nothing at all, that's OK! I think it's very funny

I don't think it's a big deal, I just wish people gave a shit about anyone else in the credits

*not a big deal

If you don't think it's a big deal that these bear-market indie musicians are credited on a Beyonce record, and then very funny that they're basically credited for next to nothing at all, that's OK! I think it's very funny

― fgti, Monday, April 25, 2016 5:21 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

how do we know they did next to nothing

animal collective aside but that's far from the first time post-"blurred lines" that an artist has gotten a dubious co-writing credit

"I just wish people gave a shit about anyone else in the credits"

we should talk more about soulja boy.

oh the indies claimed him long ago

wasn't even aware Soulja Boy was credited

Meanwhile, more on Warsan Shire, who wrote the spoken interludes:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160425-theres-more-to-warsan-shire-than-the-beyonc-video

Panda Bear is gonna get a second Grammy for this

If you don't think it's a big deal that these bear-market indie musicians are credited on a Beyonce record, and then very funny that they're basically credited for next to nothing at all, that's OK! I think it's very funny

― fgti, Monday, April 25, 2016 4:21 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...he says he & diplo did the demo that became the song but ok

like, idk if im not doing a good enough job branding myself here or what but i could give 2 fuxx about the indie bands featured on this, nonetheless making this out to be some brilliant narrative to mock white ppl's negligible contributions seems like a really weird & twisted reading of what likely happened

but has Anthony Fantano weighed in yet?

Occam's razor suggests this is not some brilliant secret meta-joke by Beyonce about copyright and race relations that to date only one person appears to have gotten, but I could be wrong.

fgti, I love you, but you're suggesting this record's aesthetic success is in part contingent on the imagined reactions of indie white boys.

a meta narrative i might buy into even if i risk being overly lex-ian is "beyonce makes silk purses out of indie pig ears"

Nothing says taking the power back like having your lawyers offer handfuls of your money to white people that would have never asked for it

Panda B can finally afford a roof for those four walls and and adobe slabs

a meta narrative i might buy into even if i risk being overly lex-ian is "beyonce makes silk purses out of indie pig ears"

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40),

I thought indie guys didn't have ears

yeah, I was talking to someone today about the Blurred Lines effect, and how so far, it's only benefitted indie artists like AC, the YYYs, and artists past their prime like Billy Corgan.

and soulja boy

panda... panda... panda...

in pop music these days anyone who breathes near the track gets a songwriting credit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWqq-CYKs50

father john misty says:

About a year and half ago, my friend Emile Haynie played Beyonce some of my music, along with some tunes I've written for other people, back when she was looking for collaborators for the record...Pretty soon after they sent along the demo for "Hold Up", which was just like a minute of the sample and the hook. I'm pretty sure they were just looking for lyrics, but I went crazy and recorded a verse melody and refrain too that, unbelievably - when you consider how ridiculous my voice sounds on the demo - ended up making the record - right between picking up the baseball bat and decapitating the fire hydrant.

I was mostly kind of in the dark, my involvement with the record kind of ends with me just sending off the demo, it wasn't until she came to my Coachella set in 2015 and told me personally it had made the record that I really had anything concrete with which to convince my friends that I hadn't actually gone insane.

the timeline of this seems weird

i think it speaks to how long she was crafting this album and its themes, probably with Jay-Z's full knowledge, that "Hold Up" is over a year old

note that AnCo did not give Frankie Knuckles any co-writing credit

i love "your love" about as much as any record and it barely even occurred to me that some indie guys shouting over indie music with an arpeggio was in any way similar whatsoever. if they copied it might sound similar. it's always amusing when someone who hates a record also claims it is nothing but a ripoff of a record they like, as if that doesn't imply difference from the get go.

seriously bullshit invoking of "your love" itt anyway. it has nothing to do with this album.

It's fiction, y'all.

how very typical that the original koenig version of "Hold Up" (or at least chorus) was about god.

Occam's razor suggests this is not some brilliant secret meta-joke by Beyonce about copyright and race relations that to date only one person appears to have gotten, but I could be wrong.

― Tim F, Monday, April 25, 2016 6:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if only jay would show up james brooks-style on beyoncé ilx threads to set us straight on these matters

Also worth remembering that songwriting credit could be, liked 1% and not a straight split.

Copyright is also split into economic and moral rights, one of the latter being attribution.

AC didn't give Frankie Knuckles credit because the song was written with a piano loop and changed to a synth in the studio. probably never crossed their minds, maybe they weren't even aware of the song. it's not some under pressure / ice ice baby shit

Look, all this talk about copyright is a bit blergh and ITT it's being pretty euphemistically used as 'contribution'. It gets real thorny when it comes to legality. There's no mens rea for copyright, so intention doesn't matter. It wouldn't matter whether AnCo had ever heard of Frankie Knuckles, or had any intention to copy, if they My Girls was found to infringe. As far as attribution goes, the law is most strict on false attribution. There's a case where a photo of Princess Mary included a painting in the background and the artist of that painting was wrongly identified by a tabloid and that fell foul of copyright provisions. In a way, it can be more strict than attribution as for false attribution there's no reasonableness defence, so it doesn't matter if a person reasonably thought the person wrongly stated held the copyright. Something consider that next time you say that this person did this or that.

i don't really get crediting AnCo for that line, it's barely referential of the AnCo line. Sounds like copyright ass covering to an absurd degree. The only thing that stuck out on that song to me was the Isaac Hayes sample that Portishead also used.

Where is that old garbage thread?

you're in it

Portishead used a different Isaac Hayes sample ("Ike's Rap II"), the trip hop group that used the same Hayes sample as Beyonce ("Walk On By") was...Hooverphonic i think?

yeah that song was good!

the timeline of this seems weird

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, April 25, 2016 6:32 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it speaks to how long she was crafting this album and its themes, probably with Jay-Z's full knowledge, that "Hold Up" is over a year old

― some dude, Monday, April 25, 2016 6:40 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

on instagram diplo said he needed to keep his involvement secret for "like a year" https://www.instagram.com/p/BEkUnorqMqB/?taken-by=diplo

On the uncredited-influences side, maybe I'm just Dawn-centric, but "6 Inch" sounds like somebody was listening to Dawn.

idk the Weeknd sounds like he's been listening to an ATM dispensing cash

Al is consistently on fire in this thread today

(Alf, I mean. Al, you're doing okay too.)

IDG this "debate", isn't it obvious beyonce has catholic (small "c") tastes and draws on all kinds of stuff and there are like a million streams running into what became this album and because she's so high-profile and has good lawyers she was really careful to err on the side of generosity in crediting everyone who contributed to the music?

(also FWIW i guess Eza Koenig is seen as 'indie' b/c of his main band but haven't folks from that band contributed songs/production to a number of capital-P Pop albums in recent years? i mean you could easily view him/them as just songwriters who have one 'indie' band project among other projects.)

also i still can't find a way to see the 'visual album' i guess i am dumb. :(

this record so easily repeatable, the loop goes on and on and it's always fun, no matter how much I focus on the individual tracks I'm enjoying it.

Are there any drawbacks to a big tent approach to collaboration and credit when nobody is going to seriously doubt this is Beyonce's vision?

bey should do a version of pirate jenny

Just to be clear

I said that I noticed that there were a list of white co-writers on this record

(Was delighted to hear that I unconditionally loved the contributions of both James Blake and Jack White)

Noticed that the people with whom I was watching the video were trying to piece together all the credits, hear those white voices

And then very few white voices were heard!

I was delighted in the aftergoogle to see that many of these white co-writers were actually just gestures, words, moments, instead of features

Laughed at the dichotomy between Animal Collective writing a song, (which had the same meat as one of the most famous house songs of all time, and not giving the author of that song credit (Frankie Knuckles Jamie Principle)), and Beyonce’s staff incorporating a single line from that song and giving the band credit

Laughed with my friends that it was kind of a reversal of appropriation (“I’ll pay you for accidentally biting a couple words but fuck if anybody’s gonna hear your garbage music on my track”)

Laughed with my friends that a lot of people with indie-interests might approach those tracks expecting a substantial collaboration, and smirked at their imagined displeasure

Did not theorize that Bey or anybody else did it intentionally
Simply took delight in this small fact

Did not take any delight in the conversation that followed where the lack of featured female black performers who-were-not-Beyonce was brought up as a glaring misstep, "this album tries to subvert the status quo while simultaneously upholding the status quo" said my critical friend, was told also by her that bell hooks had called Bey a terrorist (I had read things she'd said against her but didn't know "terrorist" was used), anyway that conversation was more challenging than pleasant

This needs context:

hooks and the gang were discussing Beyoncé's recent Time magazine cover; hooks said the singer probably didn't have much agency in choosing her outfit or the cover's pose. Mock disagreed and told a story about how the introduction of Beyoncé through Destiny's Child was very influential for her as a girl because, amid MTV's TRL and white pop stars like Britney Spears, these four black girls from Houston were the contemporary Supremes. Here was someone she could identify with, said Mock, adding that she drew strength from Beyoncé's "Partition" as she was finishing her book Redefining Realness about her sexuality and sex work.

But hooks wasn't impressed. She responded to Mock saying, "Then you are saying, from my deconstructive point of view, that she is colluding in the construction of herself as a slave." hooks said that she sees a "part" of Beyoncé as "a terrorist especially in terms of the impact on young girls." She went onto explain that "the major assault on feminism in our society has come from visual media and from television and videos." To continue her point, and by Beyoncé ascribing to the dominant standard of beauty in photos like the one of her on Time, she is part of the problem of women being encouraged to uphold impossible beauty standards.

Because others are throwing around the whole terrorist thing for different reasons

Anyway, sandcastles is such a grower.

I have never heard anything from Beyonce since "Crazy in Love." Should I start with this or 4 or the self-titled or something else?

I bet Jay Z calls her a terrorist too.

how very typical that the original koenig version of "Hold Up" (or at least chorus) was about god.

― Tim F, Monday, April 25, 2016 4:05 PM (7 hours ago)

even with the lyric as "man above you" in bey's version i at first assumed it was reference to god/deities and found it rather shocking to hear from her, but then the more literal interpretation came to mind on subsequent listens

Anyway, sandcastles is such a grower.

― ive seen enough Good Wife episodes (s.clover), Tuesday, 26 April 2016 05:36 (1 hour ago) Permalink

literally cannot deal with people dissing this as some kind of adult contemporary ballad. The bit where she breaks down in the second verse is just O_O

it's sort of like what rihanna was aiming for, and fell so short of, on "higher"

the GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT black screen flashing up in the film was the funniest moment

There are some really gloopy cadences on Sandcastles, it doesn't do it for me at all, which considering its the centrepiece of the album is a bit of a problem. A ballad on the level of the last album would have worked incredibly there but that song and the Blake coda just feel so out of place,musically if not thematically.

i think bey's takes on traditional balladry (even the dreaded 'adult contemporary' kind, i.e. when she sang diane warren on 4) are quite beautiful and "sandcastles" is no exception. "pray you catch me" is a gorgeous, haunting intro too.

It's probably wrongheaded, but perversely I do think that starring in Dreamgirls was something of a turning point for Beyonce in terms of her thinking about balladry, and how to really perform ballads.

Especially the final stretch of the film when Beyonce's character morphs from a hit machine to a singer with agency (whose agency as a singer has been dismissed or ignored). This is the subject matter of "Listen" obv, but "Irreplaceable" (albeit only vaguely related to balladry) is the real evidence of the shift in Beyonce's own music: the first song, I think, in Beyonce's catalogue that feels elevated out of the realm of the generic by Beyonce's sense of character and the sheer investment of her delivery (before then, it seems to me that Beyonce could only fashion greatness out of songs that still would have been pretty ace in someone else's hands).

(Similarly I Am..., for all that it's a bit glutinous, on a performance level is actually a lot better than it has any right to be)

Since 4 certainly, it's been clear that Beyonce is increasingly focused on delivery, and thinking about how to create maximum identification and emotional effect without necessarily just going for big notes (though she does that too). It makes her ballads so much more fascinating, because there's an increasing sense of risk and also presence in her performances.

sandcastles is like _just_ the really good bridge of a song, with nothing else, in terms of how like the topline works.

When a video starts with the pop star in front of a red velvet curtain (as this one does), I always assume that signifies "oh this is a play and what's happening isn't real" (cf. "Like A Prayer").

it's weird, the initial shock of this record really captivated me but now I think about 30 percent of it doesn't work for me? i really love "love drought" and "all night," especially the latter, for some reason the "spottieottiedopalicious" horns make me cry; something about its texture and structure seem really connected to the s/t as well, it sounds so open and generous. i'm not really wild about "6 inch" because it seems in search of something it never actually finds, and "freedom" feels kinda inflexible in a bad way. every time I try to remember what "sandcastles" sounds like I remember the dawn richard song instead

the film is really awesome though

I love how the Hold Up chorus is like stageblocking an altercation

Sorry is not a song I remember offhand yet but the plethora of vocal moments on it make it such a delight to listen to

"all night," especially the latter, for some reason the "spottieottiedopalicious" horns make me cry; something about its texture and structure seem really connected to the s/t as well, it sounds so open and generous.

with you on this. Not just the alubm's best hook, but it melds so well with the rest of the track.

Reporting from the trenches, on first run-through my 11-yr-old son's favorites (besides "Formation," which he already loved) are "Freedom" and "All Night." (Though he would say anything with Kendrick on it was his favorite.)

Also he says everyone in 5th grade is talking about the album and the videos, so even if she's not getting airplay she's getting through.

Freedom and 6 Inch are the only ones I flat out dislike on this. All Night is the best and then I also love Sorry and Hold Up.

yeah idk about the rest of this yet but "all night" is pretty amazing.

not really getting the "all night" love at all, it's probably my least favourite song here that i actually like. (the album's narrative arc ends at "sandcastles" for me)

in general i feel like the first half of this is unquestionably better than the second half

see I don't get the "Sandcastles" love at all.

i like it and think it's a great vocal performance but it is also not top-tier for me. the top tier is the "hold up" through "daddy lessons" run; every moment in every song is like whoa

i've no idea why ppl don't seem into "6 inch", it's high-end trip-hop like they used to make and her LOWER RANGE >>>>>>

also slightly amazed that no one else seems to react to "forward" like BURN IT WITH FIRE

eh it's too short to be a bother. I actually thought it was just the coda to Sandcastles until I looked at the track listing.

yeah i don't think i've picked it out as a distinct track in my 2-3 listens so far

6 Inch is a bore. Not sure what exactly it does on the album outside of Weeknd maybe getting her a pass at radio?

Bad album, good movie

i think all night is my favorite here

i like the way her voice slides into the upper register in the chorus.

everyone in 5th grade is talking about the album and the videos

<3

oh my god "All Night" is transcendent <3

yeah i'm with brad, "all night" is the one that has made me cry

if i were to make any edits to this album i'd put "formation" just in front of "freedom" and behind "forward" ("forward" could probably be excised i guess but i don't find it overly objectionable) because "all night" has this beautiful starry-eyed air of finality to it. but i'm corny so

Daddy Lessons is amazing and highlights that if contemporary country artists want to attract my attention, they should co-opt some gospel and Nee Orleans jazz rather than boring 80s rock

Logged in for the first time in ages, because this is the only place I could think of to ask this question. Hey everyone.

How on earth is this being billed as a "feminist" work? Like, really? She spends the hour defining herself in terms of her husband.

It seems that everyone is saying that she put Jay on blast, but from what I can see the story is that he got to cheat on her and she kicked and screamed a bit and then took him back. He must be laughing all the way to the bank.

I'm about as far removed from black american culture as can be, so I can't speak to the racial aspects of the work, but purely from a feminist angle I don't see how this work is in any way empowering to women. Do other people not see this? Is the visual of Beyonce smashing things with a bat so potent that the fundamental message of the album goes ignored??

oh great

Prepared to be totally shot down. Just confused, and probably stupid.

She spends the hour defining herself in terms of her husband.

Well, that's a way of interpreting it I suppose.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81QCTJzws4L._SY606_.jpg

Is the visual of Beyonce smashing things with a bat so potent that the fundamental message of the album goes ignored??

you don't seem to have a solid idea of what you think the "fundamental message" of the album is. i assume that's why you've come in here to ask these questions?

trying to evaluate the work, or anything, from a 'purely' feminist lens that entirely does away with considering racial politics is nonsensical. that doesn't mean it's not commonly attempted: google the words "beyonce not feminist" and you'll find pieces upon pieces upon pieces from the last maybe 5 years all grappling with the same clumsy questions that have sprung to your mind, resolved with answers that are sloppy that you might nevertheless find satisfying

https://twitter.com/gillespeterson/status/725200711483543552

lol

you don't seem to have a solid idea of what you think the "fundamental message" of the album is.

That's true, I've only listened through a couple of times.

trying to evaluate the work, or anything, from a 'purely' feminist lens that entirely does away with considering racial politics is nonsensical.

Yes, this is a good point. I readily admit my ignorance here.

google the words "beyonce not feminist" and you'll find pieces upon pieces upon pieces from the last maybe 5 years all grappling with the same clumsy questions that have sprung to your mind, resolved with answers that are sloppy that you might nevertheless find satisfying

Do you mean that you regard the general argument that Beyonce is not a feminist (not one with which I'm familiar) unconvincing? Or just that nobody has done a good job of making the argument? I don't see much value in reading flawed arguments, and certainly not to convince myself of something. Are there any pieces on this topic that you rate?

Not trying to pick a fight, or trash Beyonce or the album (I like a lot of it). I am sincerely confused. The video is full of messages and images about empowering black women, but—to me, at least—the lyrics seem overly concerned with men; their feelings, thoughts, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses.

Well, even from a non-black perspective like mine the big issue - and this has always been a big issue with Beyoncé - is simply who gets to tell the story, who gets to define what happened, who you are, how it was/is experienced, what the consequences are not only for her but for them as a couple, and these issues very readily tie in with the whole #BLM movement's insistence on, well, the basic humanity of the people that all this shit happens to, you know? As for power relations between the sexes... just try to imagine what Jay's next album will sound like (if it ever happens) and how his persona and narrative will be changed by this album and you'll hopefully catch my drift. What can he rap about now? Hardly his trophy wife!

At the very least performing 99 Problems should be very awkward for him from now on.

I feel like the album's narrative, if there is one, is about the way in which the fact of a partner's adultery throws into sharp relief the fact (the challenge, the opportunity, the obstacle) of needing to actively choose to invest in and continue with it each day. The decision to take Jay-Z back by the end of the album is lent drama because it is presented as a very deliberate decision that, for long stretches of the album, was close to being decided the other way. The album becomes a dramatisation and celebration of that choice, the fact of choosing, the fact of being able to choose.

Whether you agree with it or not, Beyonce frames her decision to stay with her partner as a decision coming from a place of strength i.e. having beaten him to the ground ("Hold Up" through "Sorry") she stands over him with her sword, wavering ("Six Inch" through "Sandcastles") but instead of running him through she decides to stretch out her hand and help him stand up again ("All Night").

The film, at least, appears to posit that narrative within a broader thematic context: Beyonce's struggle to maintain her relationship and family as metonymic of the black woman's struggles within US society. But those struggles are still routed through the maintenance of family, albeit at a more serious level than Beyonce's own struggle: e.g. the stills in the film of grieving mothers holding photos of their dead sons are obviously political, but they're also clearly not some narrow assertion of female emancipation from patriarchy.

One of the messages I take from the film in particular is that public displays of grief and anger can be a political act, and one of the ways in which that women, black people, and black women most of all (see Malcolm X quote) are marginalised is that their grief and anger are dismissed, silenced, explained away etc. This can be true vis a vis husbands, employers, "society at large" and hence the reversal of this marginalisation doesn't always or necessarily pull in the same direction.

You may feel that Beyonce connecting her struggle with the struggle of the mothers of African American boys killed by police is a wildly self-aggrandising bridge too far, though I tend to think one of the messages of the film (albeit more implicit than some of the other messages) is that the story of self-empowerment the album describes is a small thing compared to the challenges it exists in relation to and with.

whoa andrew nf came up with the *exact same argument* as azealia banks

Thanks, Tim! That's exactly the kind of thoughtful, enlightening comment I came here for.

At the very least performing 99 Problems should be very awkward for him from now on.

Indeed... I'm very curious to see how the Jay-Z persona is affected by this.

whoa andrew nf came up with the *exact same argument* as azealia banks

Not sure how to take this! haha

One thing that occurred to me was that each of the songs on this album could conceivably be a response to the question "what does singing the blues sound like in 2016?"

something Dori@n wrote on FB otm:

I used to think Kanye was the master of marshalling a diverse team of collaborators into a cohesive album where everyone brought their A game but with Lemonade that honour passes to Beyonce. Every story leaking out from contributors reveals how cleverly she pieced it all together and made every song her own. It's a masterclass in a style of songwriting that too often creates bloodless mishmashes. She's the centre of a whirlpool of talent. I don't think there any bad songs here and there are a fistful of phenomenal ones. This is how to do it right.

How on earth is this being billed as a "feminist" work? Like, really? She spends the hour defining herself in terms of her husband.

everything beyonce does is feminist. there is no point in arguing about this.

when jay-z says 'thats my bitch' about beyonce, this also does not diminish beyonce's feminist credentials.

RELATED, this article about why endlessly debating whether individual choices are "feminist" or not is pointless

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/25/can-you-be-a-feminist-empowering-dicourse-debate

whether beyoncé leaves, or does not leave, a cheating partner who may be jay-z or a fictional character or a blend of both, isn't a decision that should be assessed in reductive "is this feminist y/n" terms. but if you can't see how the album as a whole pushes back against the structural misogyny and racism that black women specifically face, in part by telling a story that strikes a chord with them but also in terms of the visual and lyrical imagery she employs, you're really wilfully blind

and yeah if TLOP was impressive on collagist terms how much more so is lemonade, which brings together so many disparate things and melds them together so seamlessly.

im not a beyonce stan but from following lots of other contradictory artists (and what can be more contradictory/conflicted than trying to be a feminist and uphold the contract of a marriage), contradiction is always good fodder for any musician. the TLOP comparison makes me increasingly interested to hear this album.

purely from a feminist angle I don't see how this work is in any way empowering to women

said the man who decided that this work written and performed by a woman is not empowering to women lol.

trying to imagine a feminism that just ignores men i dunno it sounds like missing the point? completely? yeah there are some forms of that i'm sure but from what i have read and seen feminism is a look at, you know, the reality that we actually live in, including men, marriage, etc., looking at that through a woman's perspective rather than the traditional male's.

like if feminists are not suppose to concern themselves w the male realm then..... what? that doesn't make any sense, it's an unrealistic demand.

I haven't heard a lovelier piece of music all year than Beyoncé's falsetto complementing those Outkast horns on "All Night."

i rolled my eyes @ the "all night" praise upthread, ofc a bunch of dudes gravitate towards the song that forgives him/them

Are you really arguing over whether Beyonce is a feminist? Didn't I say upthread how resolutely this doesn't care about your opinions? Don't you feel it? Your slide into irrelevance. The biggest pop moment of whenever and it doesn't include you. It must be clear to you by now. You're not a factor here. If you want to be a factor at all then it will be on merit. Adjust.

1. formation
2. daddy lessons
3. hold up
4. 6 inch
5. sorry
6. don't hurt yourself
7. love drought
8. freedom
9. sandcastles
10. pray you catch me
11. all night
12. forward

All Night SOUNDS amazing though. That bassline!

Are you really arguing over whether Beyonce is a feminist? Didn't I say upthread how resolutely this doesn't care about your opinions? Don't you feel it? Your slide into irrelevance. The biggest pop moment of whenever and it doesn't include you. It must be clear to you by now. You're not a factor here. If you want to be a factor at all then it will be on merit. Adjust.

― Popture, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 7:05 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is this a joke post?

i can't tell what's going on on ILX half the time. is that addressed to azealia banks? to a poster? is it sarcastic? sincere? i just don't know any more.

i rolled my eyes @ the "all night" praise upthread, ofc a bunch of dudes gravitate towards the song that forgives him/them

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Wednesday, April 27, 2016 12:03 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This strikes me as unfair both to the song and to the relevant posters ITT.

maybe, it's not like i dislike it, but there's something odd about having an album dominated by anger, sadness, humour, shit-talking, and then to go oh the biggest highlight is the corny happy one at the end. it'd be like saying "coming home" is your favourite off LTTP.

love drought not being in your top 3 makes list irrelevant

i rolled my eyes @ the "all night" praise upthread, ofc a bunch of dudes gravitate towards the song that forgives him/them

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Wednesday, April 27, 2016 8:03 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or her voice sounds gorgeous and it uses the spottie horns to perfection. i literally have no idea what any of the lyrics are.

Ehhhh... not liking All night because she forgives Jay in it is a bit like not getting how this album could possibly be feminist, no? C'mon, Lex, you're better than this. The song is gorgeous.

i don't dislike "all night" but it's so far from the most striking or gorgeous sonically or melodically that i assumed it was either the lyric or the pavlovian reaction to the sample elevating it for others

or her voice sounds gorgeous and it uses the spottie horns to perfection. i literally have no idea what any of the lyrics are.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 8:57 AM

I have not been following the lyrics that closely (except on "Don't Hurt Yourself," where the pronoun shifts and misdirections are part of its appeal), hence my side eye at the autobiographical overtones.

i rolled my eyes @ the "all night" praise upthread, ofc a bunch of dudes gravitate towards the song that forgives him/them

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Wednesday, April 27, 2016 8:03 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or her voice sounds gorgeous and it uses the spottie horns to perfection. i literally have no idea what any of the lyrics are.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 8:57 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What cad said.

Well, the sample is mighty good. But it's the first half of the album that's really unique, it seems to me as well.

I'm basically into every song on this album except for Daddy Lessons, which I even started to ease my contempt of when seeing it in the film.

i can't really imagine hearing this album or watching the film and not being struck with the idea that i was witnessing an extremely empowered woman at the zenith of her artistry. expressing that power in a way that is specifically and particularly Black is in itself a feminist statement IMO

newsflash, feminists have relationships w/ men too

I'm wondering if Formation is meant to be taken as an epilogue, or a bonus track? Otherwise the narrative goes: Sandcastles (breakdown), Forward (which, of course, breaks down and doesn't go forward), Freedom (a real way forward: Politics) and then the sample about making Lemons from Lemonade? So Beyoncé realizes Jay-Z can't break her, nobody what he throws at her, she will only come out stronger. Hell, she just made a brilliant album out of his betrayal. So let's take him back. And make another master-song about that.

the dark horse of this album for me is "love drought". some of the things she does with her voice !!!!!!! and:

Nine times out of ten, I'm in my feelings
But ten times out of nine, I'm only human

and the barely concealed contempt when she sings:

Tell me, what did I do wrong?
Oh, already asked that, my bad

Formation is easily one of the best three tracks if not the best, but it feels sort of tacked on at the end, when it would have made a really incredible centrepiece. One of those examples of the narrative getting in the way of the musical flow.

the film ends with "all night," right? formation feels like a bonus track. i'm prob not well-versed enough yet to talk about where it could conceivably fit in.

the film does end with "all night" and the instrumental to "formation" is played over the credits. it definitely does feel like a victory lap in the way that "grown woman" did on the last album. still, though, it's a strange way to close it all out since the song sounds so much like it's going to introduce something else. like, okay, we're in formation now. now what?

...now you're ready to take on the world?

it just struck me that in "don't hurt yourself" there...is no guitar apart from a bass guitar? is this right? all the spaces you'd expect a guitar riff are taken up by that amazing vocal backing

The only place where Formatuon woul make narrative sense is at the beginning. More to the point though, the album doesn't need it; as good as it is, it's literally an appendix to the rest of the album, which INO is outstanding as a collective work and a stronger artistic statement than Beyoncé (even though I like isolated songs on Beyoncé more)

A friend wrote that Formation at the end of this makes it sounds like she's out partying looking for fresh men to have sex with. As much as I sympathize with his interpretation I don't really hear it myself though.

Still haven't gotten around to experiencing the movie/album, but aspects of this thread helped to inspire this anti-review: http://www.splicetoday.com/music/lemonade-a-recording-exists

Also - and it's been a long time since I've felt this way about anything in the pop culture realm - I almost don't want to experience "Lemonade" now, on general principle. (Not pointing a finger at this thread specifically, FB is a bigger culprit.)

I'm not completely sold on Daddy Lessons, but I read a rumour that it's getting airplay on country stations and pissing off racists, which is pretty great.

So i've listened to the album like 10 times and each time I get antsier and antsier about the 'visual' version. Does it really add to the experience? I don't know, I like my albums to be albums and my films to be films.

i think this is, next to the last album, my favourite beyonce album. her vocals on this are maybe the best ive ever heard her. ive never heard her sing with such versatility. and i dont mean the genres shes working in, just purely her vocals. tremendous. daddy lessons might be my favourite song so far. it seems the most 'complete' song so far, though ive not heard anything i didnt like. even the jack white collabo was much better than i expected it to be.

I like to imagine (and it's entirely plausible) that, notwithstanding its earlier release, Beyonce wrote "Formation" after the rest of the album, and it's placed at the end of the record as a signpost for where she wants to go next.

sure, but formation sounds like where she has already been, musically, if not lyrically. all the songs leading up to it sound like the future for her.

The album is pointing in like eight different directions at once so pinpointing "the future" feels largely futile.

and imo as a beyoncé song "formation" feels like an austere otherworld

the music is austere but shes weirdly buoyant and supple on it

her arsenal of voices has never been better highlighted than on this album IMO

the whole album sounds like a possibly brilliant future for her

its not an album i ever expected actually

The album is very much in line with formation, I'd say. It's all about bringing the past to light, getting information and then acting rationally and decisively (getting in formation) accordingly. That pretty much describes the arc of this album as well.

"All Night" feels connected to "XO" to me (and I have at least one friend apart from Lex who doesn't feel either). Both are love songs that feel exhausted and happy: a happiness that knows precisely the price at which it was bought, has that price etched into the skin of its lyrics, into the grain of Beyonce's vocals. Both subtly (albeit differently) call back to Caribbean music, I like to think because lover's rock remains the preeminent expression of workaday romance for lovers on the grind.

They're as close to the centre of the "message" of each album as are "Flawless" and "Sorry", IMO.

otm

the film and the album taken without the film feel pretty wholely different to me. and the film is one of the best things i've seen in a long time, full stop. if i try to ignore the film in the album it feels different and i think is much harder to read any of the big "thinkpiecey" stuff into, and i actually tend to agree in terms of the lyrics and themes it isn't vastly new (even if those themes, when well done, never get old), even though its really well executed and sonically is very wide-ranging and interesting.

Btw I'd say that this album is way closer to TPAB than it is to TLOP - the whole idea of a narrative arc that is also an existential crisis that ties in with her public persona runs pretty close to TPAB, whereas her last album was more like a series of sketches connected through her private and public personae.

killer post tim.

trollin trollin trollin...
http://www.factmag.com/2016/04/27/jay-z-beyonce-lemonade-rumors/

i already kind of figured that?

xp Re: the factmag article. I've been thinking about this angle (as I guess have most people). Does it matter whether the story is based in reality or a wholly constructed fiction? If so, why?

that feels like a retrofitted narrative to me. we saw the elevator video.

anyway she was working on this album over a year ago so you could (if you wanted to) buy that she wrote it in real time with there still being enough of a lag for a reconciliation that allowed jay to be active in the making of the video

xpost to Andrew: you don't feel like that "solution" will hollow out a bit of the empathy and passion her fans have been embracing this project with? It was all a ploy to get your attention and sell some more records har dee har har?

"jay z and beyonce are master entertainers! they planned the entire thing! a modern day opera! move over lin manuel miranda!" say insiders close to the pair

"the elevator incident was staged! Solange was in on it!"

it's not that but i do get the vibe that people want to take this album as autobiographical and true to a pretty strong extent

I'd say authenticity is just about the only thing Beyoncé can't afford to lose at this point. There are some weird details in the lyrics though, like the reference to her "dead" dad.

i also hear people arguing that its all a charade

neither side knows wtf they are talking about xp

otm

xpxpxp, longneck,

I generally assume that entertainers working at this level do things very deliberately, and that almost everything they do is an attempt to get attention and sell records. For huge celebrities, it is hard (impossible?) to disentangle the narrative that is created for them, that which they create for themselves, and the reality of their personal lives. To some extent, I don't think the "truth" matters at all, inasmuch as we can never really know it.

Assuming that Bey and Jay conceived of this project together, entirely as a fiction, would it somehow resonate less with the audience? The message is still the same. It still (apparently) talks about real issues that affect real people.

the idea that beyonce needs to manufacture drama to sell records seems... off to me

xp I guess the fans that went nuts on that poor woman (thinking she was Jay's side chick) would feel pretty foolish. But they should anyway.

i remember some old r|t|c post talking about someone as ILX's premier water torture arguer or something, anyone recall this?

anyway that's how i feel reading longneck

oh sod off.
The "it was all a dream" solution would simply make Beyoncé an old fashioned post-modernist, playing with semiotics. Her project since the self-titled album has been to claim some sort of truth, even when that truth resides somewhere between public perception and singular vision. She's more knausgaardian than anything. It's all about bringing what's hidden, repressed and forgotten to light.

that feels like a retrofitted narrative to me. we saw the elevator video.

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, April 27, 2016 11:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes and now we know all about the details of their relationship!!!!!!

the creative process necessarily involving fiction and fantasy as well as fact is not "manufacturing drama"

songs do not narrate events exactly as they happened, lemonade was a film not a documentary. beyoncé has been writing about being cheated on for her whole career and made an album with a narrative arc about marriage from struggle to joy half a decade ago. this is an album partly about cheating but whether jay-z cheated or who becky with the good hair is are things we don't actually know and nor do they matter

I'd say authenticity is just about the only thing Beyoncé can't afford to lose at this point. There are some weird details in the lyrics though, like the reference to her "dead" dad.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Wednesday, 27 April 2016 23:23 (Yesterday) Permalink

I'll be so angry if it turns out that Beyonce's father never actually handed her a gun and gave her free licence to shoot any man that crossed her.

Deej:

real heads will know that it's titchyschneider that is actually ilx's premier subliminal chinese water-torturer - geir is but childs play in comparison

Well the point is that there's always art and fiction involved. This is no confession, and even if was there's no direct recourse to reality. What we get is lemonade, a cultural and commercial product. These are basics. But if you try to sell me lemonade and it turns out there are no lemons in it, I'm not buying.

ahaha that's it!

is longneck titchyschneider? serious q

No. Are you an idiot? Serious question.

very different posting styles IMO.

I thought it was p obvious who titchy is now

I don't even know who titchy is. Deej, I'm fine with annoying you. You can be pretty annoying yourself. But at least try to formulate an argument instead of just lumping me in with some poster who happens to be an ilx laughingstock, okay? My posting style is definitely different from yours. I get the impression that you enjoy being the guy who is always right, who knows the best and that you post accordingly. I often use this board to test the thoughts I'm the least certain about because something is bothering me and formulating it - even bluntly - makes my responses to whatever it is we're considering clearer to myself. Opposition is fine - I often learn from it. My impression of this album has changed from day to day and I partly thank this thread for that. But what you're doing now is pretty unhelpful.

tuomaschneider. but not even

I thought it was p obvious who titchy is now

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Thursday, 28 April 2016 07:41 Bookmark

i don't think this is correct btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gd06ukX-rU

I thought StillAdvance was Titchy actually.

had hoped we could sync menses without naming names

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2dXNnv1rmk

Anyway it strikes me that Beyonce is possibly the only globally successful pop singer who truly appreciates the awesome power of MYSTIQUE, like 17 years or whatever into her career and we still know relatively little about her, which is not something you could fling at Kanye or Taylor Swift or Drake or whoever and expect it to stick. So doing a straight confessional soul-baring record would be a very un-Beyonce thing to do, and the need to preserve that mystique is why I can believe either story here. It's as likely to be a Jay & Beyonce narrative conceit as it is to be a PR-exercise-meets-face saving-retcon.

possibly the only globally successful pop singer who truly appreciates the awesome power of MYSTIQUE

uh

let the people say the hyperbole about the bey

hybeybole

hyperbeyle

beyperbole

hyperbobey

i thought the last album was very soul-baring, like offering us a glimpse at her own process of self-discovery.

some folks like their lemonade with a garnish of bey leaf

oops thought this was the other thread where everyone is talking about beverages sorry

Obviously all the lurking eyerolling lamers come out of the woodwork when you make a claim like that without actually making an argument in response. Also I mean actual A-Listers so don't say 'FKA Twigs' or 'Jute Gyte' or anything.

How quickly we forget Lady Gaga -_-

Lady Gaga doesn't strike me as particularly interested in mystique, not in the way of someone like Beyonce whose public pronouncements seem extremely tightly controlled.

Obviously in the current era of endless trite social media beefs and Twitter arse-fingering then Gaga is positively sphinxlike.

heard a track from Lemonade on v103 it was "sorry, not sorry" and it was kind of cool her voice had this delay pedal sound to it that was very lofi

Just got kinda stonedly blown away by some song on radio and it turned out to be 6 Inch :)

Anyway it strikes me that Beyonce is possibly the only globally successful pop singer who truly appreciates the awesome power of MYSTIQUE, like 17 years or whatever into her career and we still know relatively little about her, which is not something you could fling at Kanye or Taylor Swift or Drake or whoever and expect it to stick. So doing a straight confessional soul-baring record would be a very un-Beyonce thing to do, and the need to preserve that mystique is why I can believe either story here. It's as likely to be a Jay & Beyonce narrative conceit as it is to be a PR-exercise-meets-face saving-retcon.

― Matt DC, Friday, April 29, 2016 8:18 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like the achievement of this album might be that she gets personal without sacrificing any mystique.

i think the mystique is part of why so many people feel so invested in beyonce. the actual content of the "message" in this album is less important than the fact that she controls it... and not in some wafflish way, but like, she is only going to speak on this affair stuff once and it is going to be in the form of an expensive, elaborate, precisely choreographed visual album.

i kind of like the conclusion, where she takes him back. i don't like jay-z but i think our culture is too saturated with un-nuanced views of infidelity that are like, burn all the cheaters

Obviously all the lurking eyerolling lamers come out of the woodwork when you make a claim like that without actually making an argument in response.

Sorry, I was just astounded that someone could forget about Prince so quickly.

I meant of the current generation, obviously Prince had more mystique in his little finger than most popular stars have in their entire bodies. I think mystique is in general an undervalued currency in *current* pop but his generation really got it.

Actually Prince is pretty much a perfect lesson in how to construct an edifice. No one really knew who he was because the persona he created was so compelling no one really cared. Whereas you know exactly what Kanye West thinks about absolutely everything.

I thought the self-tilted album was the personal album? Sounded pretty personal to me, which is one reason I liked it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tunoFXAZCc4

lol @ everyone calling Daddy Lessons a Beyonce country song. That's some sub-Mumford shit.

is it just me or is 'hold up' just a slowed down pitch shifted 'orinoco flow' sample?

"'love drought' is too rainbow pony princess" is as bad as "'daddy lessons' is some sub-mumford shit"

It is *very* Orinoco Flow but definitely not a sample (different chords for one thing).

http://youtu.be/kO_vKrVxGJM

Also covered by The English Beat and Renegade Soundwave

RE: love drought; it's just a lot of frosting.

"Sorry" has been stuck in my head for days, so that's something.

when I listen to "Sandcastles" this is all I hear

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JI1kq6CA_38

Great show last night. The sound was your typical stadium mishmash -- her vocals were pretty clear, but a lot of the music was just a rumbly mass. Heck of a spectacle, though, and she was fierce throughout. I started imagining that the real beyonce was the 50-foot-tall one on her magic light cube, and the little person onstage just the manifestation of her that our dimension can handle. The setlist was career-spanning. I missed "Single Ladies," but I respect that she's at a point where she doesn't have to play it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/9fb57f55-f18b-41dc-8d1c-aa356c1638ad_zpsybw3kvgo.jpg

My son was suitably astounded, even though he faded toward the end (well past his normal bedtime). He was also jazzed about the opening DJ Khaled set, which brought a ton of people up for single-song cameos: Ludacris, T.I., 2 Chainz, Yo Gotti, Rick Ross, etc.

i'm at the stage of thinking this might possibly be better than the s/t

i'm definitely at the stage of thinking that not only might it not refer directly to beyoncé's marriage, but the point is actually, for the first time in her career, not necessarily her own story

also "all night" works so much better with the visuals!!! i totally got it when i watched the film closely. still think that picking it over anything in the "hold up" thru "daddy lessons" stretch as the highlight is insanity though

also the "formation" instrumental over the credits really drives home what a nutso beat it is, like how did she get hooks and catchiness out of those sounds

i made relatives among multiple generations listen to this last weekend at family dinner. as i was talking about the album, my brother said, "you're just making this record about what you want it to be about." which, yeah: exactly.

fwiw "all night" was the cross-generational fave.

yeah that's precisely why it wasn't my favourite! fuck a cross-generational fave

lol

mine are "hold up" and "freedom." but i'm kinda happy for ppl to like any of these songs.

i'm gonna renege on my earlier negativity toward love drought, it won me over.
this is a good album. still haven't seen the video.

I apparently understated when I said her light cube is 50 feet -- I just read something that said it's 10 stories tall. Big Beyonce.

i like freedom but it sounds like idk a blue jeans ad song to me

also it doesnt touch the self-titled imo

yep

i can confirm that i've probably never felt more powerful ever than when running to "freedom" over the weekend

'love drought' is my fave on this atm, love its ethereal spacy optimism

clearly what i meant by "rainbow pony princess"

'love drought' is my fave on this atm, love its ethereal spacy optimism

I totally agree, it's so gorgeous. Also musically it reminds me of Suzanne Ciani's Seven Waves.

only one i am consistently >:C on is 'daddy lessons,' it sounds like it was written for a tarantino film montage

"Daddy Lessons" is pure magic IMO

so weird to me that anyone is down on "daddy lessons". so much fun to sing along to

i like "freedom" a lot but it's the kind of deliberate attempt to write A Protest Song that precludes much organic life of its own - "formation", despite being far less politically explicit lyrically, feels more politically meaningful. (similar to how kendrick's "alright" was never intended to be a protest song)

the urban ac station here played "sandcastles" tonight :)

(i know half of you don't like that song >:( )

At least 'Sandcastles' is in the middle of record whereas the ST put fucking 'Pretty Hurts' right at the beginning.

pretty hurts needed to be at the beginning for its video :D

"Pretty Hurts" would be a lot better if Beyoncé admitted "bitch I scratched out your name and your face!" halfway through.

xxxpost, i wouldnt disagree that beyonce is still something of an unnknown quantity. she def is. but im not sure shes 'unknowable' in that old showbiz sort of way that prince, and michael jackson, were. i doubt we really know beyonce, shes been shrewd in controlling her image, but ive never really thought of her as having 'mystique' or something all that fascinating behind the public profile. she seems like someone whos relatively normal, albeit someone whose been groomed for fame from a young age. i couldnt imagine her having a britney style meltdown for example, nor generating the kind of weird stories you hear from people who met prince. then again, it might be that shes totally crazy, and has just shaped her image for the current age, which doesnt really seem to be all that cool with weirdness or mystique. her work ethic seems quite james brown-ian. id be interested to know more how hard she works people, or those around her, if such stories exist.

bell hooks went in on it http://www.bellhooksinstitute.com/blog/2016/5/9/moving-beyond-pain

i'm at the stage of thinking this might possibly be better than the s/t

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Tuesday, May 3, 2016 1:39 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like it a lot but for me it's not even close to s/t

my favorites on 4 comprise my favorite Beyonce sequence.

i've decided that the 2013 reordered re-release of 4 is better than the original album

I prefer the s/t to lemonade however the run from "sorry" thru "love drought" is kind of incredible

struggle hooks

i've decided that the 2013 reordered re-release of 4 is better than the original album

One of the best things about the original tracklisting is the way it sweeps up and up towards the end. The new version (which I've only just seen) front loads the bangers but kills that momentum. Also Kanye now appears way too early.

The re-release gets points for including "Dance For You" and (especially) "Schoolin' Life" but "Love On Top" does not make sense as an opener at all.

I could work with "Schoolin' Life" as an uptempo opener, but not "Love On Top". And I've always sort of admired how the album started with a sequence of ballads which is kind of an unfashionable move.

relegating those to bonus track status was always insane but idk if it counts as excluding them per se - the original sequencing of 4 was perfect imo, including listening to "schoolin' life" as a kind of closing-credits song that wouldn't really have fit anywhere on the main album (in fact i wonder whether that's the reason it was a bonus track - it's been a prominent song in her live sets since so it's not like she's paying it dust).

i am...sasha fierce wasn't ever an album i disliked but it's the one that seems worse and worse with everything she does now

4 had almost exactly the same narrative arc as lemonade

B'Day is another one with wack sequencing - "Green Light" seguing into "Irreplaceable" is very ungainly

Very Final Fantasy-esque synth figure on "Love Drought"

So I finally listened to this yesterday. The early songs were pretty good, and the songs at the end are pretty good. Some interesting decisions made, etc.

The earth didn't move for me or anything, but we're all different. On one listen vastly prefer the s/t.

fwiw both this and s/t are massively enhanced by the accompanying video

Completely agree that this a great album but not in the same league as the s/t. The last two Miguel albums would be a good comparison for me. I loved Wild Heart and thought it was a worthy follow up but it didn't take over my listening the same way that Kaleidoscope Dream did. That's how I feel about Lemonade at this stage (I know it's still early days). Beyonce and Kaleidoscope Dream were both perfect records in my opinion.

yeah i would put this comfortably below 4 & the s/t on the same level as b'day

Her vocals, her songwriting, the songwriting she commissions, her choice of collaborators has reached such a zenith that the crap ballads on this thing still put it past B'Day, i.e. I can forgive "Love Drought" and "Sandcastles" and the Blake crap. I guess Lemondade for me is like 4 in that even the album tracks sparkle such that "Party" I can pretend doesn't exist.

wait but...... "love drought" is fucking amazing

Yeah, Love Drought is one of the highlights. I like Sandcastles a lot too.

https://imgflip.com/readImage?iid=23188056

struggle hooks

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Tuesday, May 10, 2016 1:19 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/camby.png

fwiw both this and s/t are massively enhanced by the accompanying video

― i like to trump and i am crazy (DJP), Thursday, May 12, 2016 2:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the lemonade film is really rich and beautiful and def adds layers to the music but i'd argue that both albums would be masterpieces with no visuals (which is 90% how i've consumed them). this has taken over my listening in much the same way that the s/t did

anyone annoyed by the accent on/rhythm of sandCASTles?

The "jarring" nature of the subject matter actually seems pretty crucial to me. I think if Beyonce did a straight political protest song it would seem... not insincere, but at least gestural. On "Formation" the politics feels like a natural consequence of the extent to which she's feeling herself. The protest is something she is, not something she occasionally decides to do.

This intersects with the points above about this being a political irruption into mainstream culture. "Formation" makes confronting black politics a necessary and indivisible part of America's enjoyment of black culture, rather than a medicinal counterpoint to it.

― Tim F, Tuesday, February 9, 2016 9:10 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this tim f post sums up for me why "formation" is a more successful political song than "freedom"

Most Tim F posts sum up *everything* tbf.

hey this seems like a good place to ask this: anyone have an idea when a chloe x halle album might come out?

my show on Sunday is gonna get canceled bcz of a thunderstorm, i just know it

finally watching the music video/movie thing this is pretty awesome

yeah, IMO the thematic throughline elevates the video above the self-titled

love that she's doing something so arty and out-there on scale that very few artists could afford to do just because she can and wants to

the show was v excellent and all, but i gotta say the collective batshit thrill of the crowd between the 4-5 minute intro > lights dropping > the opening of "Formation" starting is prob one of the best concert experiences I've ever had

i am so not used to shows (or p much anything else in life tbh) having that much palpable suspense + the subsequent release

chloe x halle have an EP out; suspect this opening stint on b's european leg will determine a release date for the full-length

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaFH1vwLAP2yAaS9bTg-Le8QHT2DsDBZR

in a weird way they remind me of vistoso bosses, but like, the gothy siblings of vistoso bosses

rip vistoso bosses, you were too beautiful for this world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdJcmvQ0DFc

mmmmm, been a minute since i thought of delirious; such a lovely song.

aww man "Delirious" is such an under-rated jam, I was literally falling down the Youtube hole of VB demos just this weekend there

Curious how everybody heard this album: did you buy it, or do more people have a Tidal subscription than I thought?

I keep waiting for it to come to Apple Music, but it's looking like that might not happen.

still havent heard it

sometimes I forget how dope formation is

stole it from the internet

unlikely to ever pull the trigger on tidal. picked up the cd once the price came down a bit.

How cheap did you get it for? A CD copy of this seems unappealing to me, b/c I buy so few CDs these days, but $18 for MP3s on Amazon is a huge ripoff. And since there's no LP version available (yet?) there isn't a good way for me to hear this one

i think it was like 8 bucks (double what i spend on most cds, but a lot more favorable than that ridiculous mp3 price).

I bought it because I wanted the video.

I've been listening to it during my commute and it's pretty much my favorite album of the year, which startles me a little.

I own a physical copy.

kept hearing "Sorry, Not Sorry" on v103

it's a top ten album for me but i should go back to it more often
still haven't seen the video!

The cultural impact has been wide. Watching four teenaged girls do a choreographed routine to "Sorry" around the condo pool in May remains one of my favorite memories of 2016.

So we can all expect lemonade to pretty much dominate year end list season right?

mods please close ilm til february

frank ocean, kanye, solange, sturgill simpson will probably be up there. whether they'll be higher or not remains a mystery.

oh and chance.

I'd bet on Bowie.

yeah definitely

sturgill simpson

Wasn't everybody disappointed by this, or was it just people with ears?

i forgot he released an album this year. also his voice/schtick grates on me. for the sturgill simpson experience with 100x better results just get high & listen to brand new man

I don't know how Kendrick's surprise album will fare in EOY polls but that's the one I recently went back to and fell back in love with

I imagine it will be a Knowles-off on most year end lists. I like both of these albums a lot.

This is cool but the Solange is way better.

Radiohead will probably show up on a lot of EOY lists.

the album have nothing in common though post

xpost

imagine a world where we could approach two distinct musicians as two distinct musicians instead of sisters who must be compared/contrasted at all times

nope, there can be only one

a) the albums have quite a lot in common.
b) most albums can be contrasted and compared.
c) lol

I ain't sorry

man, this shit is draining

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/11/03/cmas-deny-erasing-beyonce-and-the-dixie-chicks-from-social-media-after-backlash/?hpid=hp_rhp-moretopstories2_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

gonna post it again here (as well as in the country thread) because it is one of the best songs of the year performed with verve and ecstasy and is fucking awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OabYYlhuxxE

it's a pro-gun, feminist anthem performed by an (in-context only) left-wing country trio, the biggest star in the world, a knockout backing band and one of the best bari sax solos ever performed by an artist in shitkickers

and holy fuck, there's a studio recording and it's spectacular
https://soundcloud.com/beyonce/daddy-lessons-featuring-the-dixie-chicks

this is kind of making me lose my mind right now, it's really really fucking good

https://oneofthosefaces.com/2017/02/01/how-beyonce-invented-mediocrity/

a provocative title for a very smart article

yeah. this is really good

yeah. this is really good

yeah. this is really good

whoops sorry!!

i also think beyoncé being pretty much exiled from pop radio in the us is a huge factor here. top 40'playlists are extremely white, which started to get super noticeable/egregious around the time of gaga's ascent and the introduction of the edm sound to the pop palette

This is great.

I don't buy any of this at all. Aside from the usual issues -- the early 2000s were just as full of Matchbox Twentys and The Calling and Vanessa Carlton and fucking Lifehouse, but everyone elides those in their memory -- the argument is full of holes. Being a singer/songwriter has a negligible effect on one's success (these days it's more likely to make you the uncredited singer on a chainsmokers single than a star) and doesn't account for the existence of Ariana Grande, Rihanna (whose virtual absence from this piece is pretty glaring, considering she's been around and successful for about a decade now), Selena Gomez, etc, none of whom are "songwriters." the x factor and youtube are easy targets invoked with zero thought (you know who else was on a talent show? Beyonce) and undercuts the singer-songwriter thesis totally. there are perhaps other factors in the music industry that accounted for "the end of R&B" more than "Crazy in Love," particularly around 2003 -- the only way that "'Crazy in Love' made an entire genre pack up and go home!" is more compelling than "the music industry crashed, the money ran out, and labels stopped supporting artists" is if you're so deep into standom that there's perhaps no way out.

the bit about the "tools it takes to become even passably decent at being a bedroom studio artist" being inaccessible ignores... pretty much all of rap right now. or if you want to stick to pop, reality; the nature of YouTube means the gatekeepers are a pre-existing pageant/talent circuit fanbase (there's your inaccessible part), a PR apparatus (or maybe it's this), or a huge fandom.

(the latter being the key -- there's unquestionably a whitewashing of top 40 radio going on, but it's a feedback loop between the industry and the listeners, who are just as if not more racist. it's not the industry that complains about snoop being on "california gurls.")

agreed with katherine. like they're interesting thoughts but there are so many facts ignored in service of the thesis that it's hard to see what exactly about the conclusions is valid (esp. as broadly as the author seems to believe). i hope whoever this thoughtful stan is will keep pacing in front of the chalkboard but i also hope some new bits of information will be added on.

Katherine otm here.

I'm with Katherine -- this article's thesis is specious at best.

Let me show my workings, here. Back in the 80s, MTV made generational icons of Madonna and Michael Jackson, forming an archetypal view of what a modern POPSTAR was: provocative, boundary-pushing innovators who were crucially visual in their approach to artistry. They didn’t just sing, they danced. They didn’t just dance, they performed. And they didn’t just perform, they entertained. They were unstoppable forces, larger than life, chart dominating juggernauts of the genre. The way popstars should always be.

I Ctrl-F'ed Lemonade and got no hits.

Releasing ‘Crazy In Love’ switched up the game and tore the rug out from under everyone’s feet. This bold step into the pop arena, previously annexed territory, was a turning point. Anyone heard from Mya, lately? Ashanti? Amerie? Any of those R&B girls? ‘Crazy In Love’ ended careers and an entire genre. RIP R&B.

I mean, on what does the author base these conclusions besides "These women sucked anyway" twaddle?

R&B was regularly crossing over into pop before "Crazy In Love" and for like 5 years afterward.

Amerie had her biggest hit after "Crazy in Love".

Yep.

Article aside, she is pregnant with twins. So that's nice.

Yeah the egregiously incorrect sweeping historical claims are difficult to look past even if I am sympathetic to the attempt to reduce everything to a holy war (it's the kind of approach I would have taken when I first started blogging).

e.g. I Am... Sasha Fierce was certainly not Beyonce's critical highpoint.

Let’s just be real about things. Some pop music is okay, but it could be a lot better if white artists were trying harder. And white artists would be trying harder if we’d told them they had to be as good as Beyoncé instead of lowering our standards to accommodate them. If my favourite movie of all time, Bring It On, taught me anything it’s that white people only get better at stuff if there’s black people to compete against.

Reading this now and it feels really weird to posit Destiny's Child as the Black Spice Girls, when they were simply in the lineage of any number of Black r&b groups. Like what???

TLC actually make much more sense as the Black Spice Girls on a variety of levels. But even then it's always gonna be a flawed analogy.

I always thought of Destiny's Child as Wyclef Jean's late 90's answer to En Vogue.

Yep.

I think this is one of the rare instances where saying "the author is British" explains some of the choices/connections made

xps Well no... Their only association with Wyclef was he was brought in to revamp their lead single. And TLC were around several years before the Spice Girls.

like, I agree that there are currently no "provocative, boundary-pushing innovators" in mainstream pop (which rules out FKA Twigs), but the market just does not reward that anymore. it's still possible to launch a pop star -- the Weeknd managed it, although his pre-existing fanbase probably helped there -- but that support is not there. the four most commercially "successful" new pop stars at the moment are probably Halsey, Daya, Alessia Cara and Dua Lipa, all of whom make very different music, but are treated as interchangeable -- from reading the press I probably know more about the Chainsmokers' overestimate of their respective dick sizes than any of them. the only exceptions are legacy acts (Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Rihanna at this point, etc.) or those who've already built up that personality via TV or other channels (Ariana and the rest of the Nickelodeon/Disney alumni).

(A comparison might be Kesha -- I don't want to discount the massive, raging shittiness of her career management at all, but the pop market at the moment would probably have left her as the uncredited "Right Round" singer.)

or zara larsson, I guess, but again: treated as interchangeable, and given interchangeable material.

This article is some bullshit.

xps Well no... Their only association with Wyclef was he was brought in to revamp their lead single. And TLC were around several years before the Spice Girls.

― Get Me Bodied (Extended Mix), Wednesday, February 1, 2017 11:12 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right, if anything Spice Girls were stealing (some of their) ideas from TLC.

But that just underscores why DC as the Black Spice Girls is an odd idea.

totally

Listening to "Lemonade" for the first time, it's pretty good!

does "Don't Hurt Yourself" sample Battles, because I'm like 80% sure it does

it samples 'when the levee breaks.'

imagine how pissed Battles must be that AC are getting royalties and they aren't

still fantastic

lol who's got Tidal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMqWXnpXcA

:)

As I remarked on FB: "This is one wild Westworld episode, a day early"

fuck this sounds pretty good

Thanks Tidal, another Beyonce album j won't hear

Well, there's this: https://tidal.com/ca/store/album/90521280

It'll be everywhere in a week or so - that's how this always works.

Lemonade still isn't on Spotify.

4:44 isn't either.

(or anything else besides a handful of singles)

Man, "Heard About Us" is great.

Yep, it took the self-titled album a year to show up on spotify, which is when I heard it. Still haven't heard Lemonade.

just get tidal it’s like 10$

(My bad, folks. I subscribe to Apple Music, and just assumed Spotify users were getting everything we were.)

Annnnnd realizing Apple Music doesn't have "Lemonade," but since I wasn't into that I never looked for it there. We do have all of 4:44, though.

Pharrell produced "Apeshit" ^^ with them

lol at all the trap flow from jay

best thing about NICE is bey quoting half baked tho

Man, "Heard About Us" is great.

― self-clowning oven (Murgatroid), 17. juni 2018 01:11 (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Otm. But this is disappointingly more like a Jay-Z album than a Beyoncé. Perhaps not surprising when they're calling themselves 'The Carters'

i've only listened once and would like to spend more time with it but so far i would agree w/ that assessment

i didn't notice this yesterday but there's an additional single separate from the album, "salud!"

The Carters deserves its own thread so we can shit all over the ignorant class politics and antiquated cool-in-2016 production flourishes, plus how stupid Tidal is

Nah, I'm fine with skipping all that.

tidal hasn't paid royalties to anyone for over a year and has been lying about the plays Jay Z gets, is having this exclusively on there an attempt to bolster subscriptions?

i mean, yeah?

tidal hasn't paid royalties to anyone for over a year

Wait, what?

The lovey-dovey quotes I'm seeing from this are nauseating enough to keep me away in any case.

The lying was about Kanye and Beyoncé, not that that makes it any better, of course.

i heard their payments were delayed by a few months not a full year, correct me if i'm wrong tho

(still not a good thing obv)

Beyoncė is amazing on this but I can't wait for someone to upload an edit of this album without Jay-Z

On Spotify now