Beyonce - I Am... [November 18th]

Queen B is back bitches! Two new singles:

http://www.beyoncenow.net/fotos/albums/If%20I%20Were%20a%20Boy%2C%20single%20cover/01.jpg

http://photos.ultimate-bee.com/albums/atwork/IIsl/normal_beyonce2.jpg

Album out November 18th.

Yes!

When singles out?

They're out now, search around for them

"Single Ladies":

http://www.zshare.net/audio/2020973561835f57/

"If I Were A Boy":

http://www.zshare.net/audio/202015566d3f3f85

http://www.sinternet.com/beyonce.html

god, you think too much about these songs, just listen to them

what are you talking about

uh, is "if i were a boy" based on a sample from "what if god was one of us"?

interesting title (if i were a boy). easy to make jokes about too. shouldnt have used that sample though.

Call Her Miss Beyonce: "If I Were a Boy"/"Single Ladies"

Ciara's Like A Boy >>>>> Beyonce's If I Were A Boy.

right on. I just put ciara on because I was thinking the same thing!

more excited for the new ciara, really. not liking these new beyonce songs much at all. "single ladies" seems a little generic and unmemorable. "if I were a boy" just kind of sucks. oh well.

Thanks "Brainwasher"!

She really missed an opportunity with the cover for "If I were a boy"

so

if i was a boy= a fake carrie underwood leak

single ladies= a pretty good amerie song (did rich harrison do this?)

no, dream & tricky did it

daaaaamn :D :D

"Fox News" commented on the release of "If I Were a Boy" by saying: "And the news is: It’s Beyonce’s best record ever in her career, a total smash, an unexpected coup. You can hear it!" [21]

smh @ that fucking Buzz Lightyear bridge on "Single Ladies." Big Tigger played these on his radio show today and kept reading all these e-mails and texts from people that were straight up shitting on both songs, it was hysterical.

as usual, i'm going to trust the opinion of fox news

you were on point, though, the words "Carrie Underwood" actually entered my mind the first time I heard that song.

yeah me too, and then immediately after entered the joke from scrubs where the sleazy surgeon says "i'm carrying under wood"

Both Ciara's "Like a Boy" and Fefe Dobson's "If I Was a Guy" trump Beyonce's attempt at weird gender play pop. Just sayin'.

hmm i will hold off any final judgments (remember how everyone was shitting on 'deja vu' when that first emerged? and how everyone was wrong) but this isn't promising :(

remember how everyone was shitting on 'deja vu' when that first emerged?

yes!

and how everyone was wrong

er, not really.

btw you might've meant in general and not just on this board but this thread was generally pretty positive at first: Beyonce - "Deja Vu"

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YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

well that didn't come out right... but anyway both videos are excellent, I need to learn the "Single Ladies" dance routine ASAP lol

she better fucking have called the Freemasons to save the day because Single Ladies is in desperate need of remix treatment and you KNOW the Freemasons will turn that into a jam and perhaps give it a melody or something crazy like that

no no no not the freemasons anyone but them

i kind of feel like j-hud and beyonce got some songs mixed up in the post...j-hud's 'pocketbook' is pretty good but she's not agile enough to make it really great, but she'd've torn up 'if i were a boy'

maybe it's the video effect (not that it's that amazing or anything) but lovin' 'Single Ladies'

fuck a melody, the rhythm track to single ladies is INSANE, that song is such an anthem.. it doesn't need to be remixed.

Anyway, this was confimed by Beyonce to be a double-album. Beyonce vs. Sasha I'm thinking....

http://www.whoissashafierce.com/

http://i38.tinypic.com/5urdp1.jpg

wow, an R&B double album with a split personality concept...squeeze some form of the word "evolution" into the title and i think i might roll my eyes so hard they fall right out of my head.

http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/88/69/74/17/0088697417352_500X500.jpg

http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/88/69/74/17/0088697417342_500X500.jpg

Disc 1( of 2)
1. If I Were A Boy
2. Halo
3. Disappear
4. Broken-Hearted Girl
5. Ave Maria
6. Smash Into You
7. Satellites
8. That's Why You're Beautiful

Disc 2( of 2)

1. Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)
2. Radio
3. Diva
4. Sweet Dreams
5. Video Phone
6. Hello
7. Ego
8. Scared Of Lonely

OMGGGGGG I LOVE "Scared of Lonely"

Beyonce is gonna kill this one.

Beyoncé Disc
1. “If I Were a Boy” (Toby Gad and Beyoncé Knowles)
2. “Halo” (Ryan Tedder and Beyoncé Knowles)
3. “Disappear” (Amanda Ghost, Dave McCracken, Ian Dench, and Beyoncé Knowles)
4. “Broken-Hearted Girl” (Stargate and Beyoncé Knowles)
5. “Ave Maria” (Stargate and Beyoncé Knowles)
6. “Smash Into You” (C. “Tricky” Stewart, Terius “The-Dream” Nash, and Beyoncé Knowles)
7. “Satellites” (Amanda Ghost, Dave McCracken, Ian Dench, and Beyoncé Knowles)
8. “That’s Why You’re Beautiful” (Andrew Hey and Beyoncé Knowles)

Sasha Disc
1. “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” (C. “Tricky” Stewart, Terius “The-Dream” Nash, and Beyoncé Knowles)
2. “Radio” (Jim Jonsin, D-Town, Rico Love, and Beyoncé Knowles)
3. “Diva” (Shondrae “Mr. Bangladesh” Crawford, Sean Garrett, and Beyoncé Knowles)
4. “Sweet Dreams” (Jim Jonsin, Wayne Wilkins, Rico Love, and Beyoncé Knowles)
5. “Video Phone” (Shondrae “Mr. Bangladesh” Crawford, Sean Garrett, and Beyoncé Knowles)
6. “Hello” (REO and Beyoncé Knowles)
7. “Ego” (Elvis “BlacElvis” Williams, Harold Lilly, and Beyoncé Knowles)
8. “Scared of Lonely” (Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins)
9. “Why Don’t You Love Me?” (Beyoncé Knowles, Solange Knowles, and Bama Boyz)

I'm glad she's working with Bangladesh, the stuff he did on Kelis Was Here is classic.

TS: Chris Gaines v Sasha Fierce

production credits look serious but really what the fuck is this

Sasha isn't new, she's been talking about her since the DIL era. It's her sexy, crazy alter-ego.

5. “Ave Maria” (Stargate and Beyoncé Knowles)

haha what

anyway both singles have totally grown on me! though only when i realised that 'single ladies' is a less good version of 'get me bodied', sigh.

single ladies : get me bodied :: womanizer : ooh ooh baby

8. “Scared of Lonely” (Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins)

^^This is surprising, no? I thought Beyonce insisted on a songwriting credit on all her songs? Like even "Resentment," which, iirc, was a song posh spice sang first?

http://i38.tinypic.com/5urdp1.jpg

hypno gif

err

http://i38.tinypic.com/5urdp1.jpg

^^This is surprising, no? I thought Beyonce insisted on a songwriting credit on all her songs? Like even "Resentment," which, iirc, was a song posh spice sang first?

Those are production credits I think. And Jazmine Sullivan sang "Resentment" first iirc.

Single Ladies = Orphans video by Beck

i love single ladies, and the video is so great

quickly becoming kind of obsessed. the synth that pops up in the chorus is awesome.

like, really awesome.

do the naomi campbell walk the naomi campbell walk

OK beyonce you win, i am head over heels in love with 'if i were a boy' now! "but you're just a boy..."

also i'm not sure whether people heard 'if', off the bidet reissue, which i'm also in love with cuz it's next to 'if i were a boy' in itunes. similar themes to 'if i were a boy' - feeling neglected and taken for granted in a relationship - but w/a more interesting twist. its narrative is really rather audacious, in that beyonce contemplates eloping w/her bf's best friend, and places the blame for this squarely on the bf - "let this happen and it proves that your love was never true, if you let him take me from you" - it's a quite remarkable abdication of responsibility. these decadently weepy strings totally back her up, it's definitely a "could have been in dreamgirls, if dreamgirls was a different film" kind of song.

If "If I Were A Boy" doesn't go straight to number one the charts should be abolished.

I think it's arguably the best vocal performance she's ever done but I haven't heard the rest of the new album yet.

Thanks for the "If" link Lex; I'll check that out later.

why arent the real videos posted?

here is if i were a boy - nice acting!

single ladies - kind of a throw away but hey, maybe "Sasha " isn't a visual artist

throwaway??? grrl your crazy.

i need to listen to if i was a boy soon.

WERE

still unable to watch Single Ladies video in UK

i hope all her videos in this double album bonanza are in black & white. she seems to have gone high-concept, and good for her

yeah i love the robot arm concept

I'm a big fan of B'Day but there really isn't a single thing I like about this project so far, from the songs to the 'concept' on down.

lolling at bidet

topping B'Day is gonna be tough :/
i'm rooting for her though

I'm glad Beyonce did "Halo" instead of Leona Lewis. I do expect the line to go "halo, halo, halo, hey, hey, hey" though.

so is this actually going to be a 2CD job? for 11 songs? i sort of hope not b/c i really like that it kicks off with 5 ballads - listening for the first time and i think i'm feeling them all. 'halo' is immense.

six ballads!! beyonce keepin' it real

16 tracks, eight on each CD; the first one's all ballad, the second's all dancefloor.

oh i guess that's the deluxe edition - it's the standard version which leaked.

and there is a DIVA VERSION OF 'A MILLI' <3 <3

A DIVA IS A FEMALE VERSION OF A HUSTLA
OF A HUSTLA
OF A HUSTLA

I'MMA-I'MMA-A DIVA I'MMA-I'MMA-A DIVA I'MMA-I'MMA-A DIVA

As much as I love B'Day, I'm having a v. easy time not giving a shit about the prospect of this album.

TELL ME SOMETHIN' (TELL ME SOMETHIN')
WHERE YO BOSS AT (WHERE YO BOSS AT)
WHERE MY LADIES UP IN THERE THAT LIKE TO TALK BACK (THAT LIKE TO TALK BACK)

i've had feelings of trepidation about this project too but i'm not going to pretend, it has totally gatecrashed my top 5 of the year

disc 1 is basically unapologetically dogshit

i'm digging disc 2 and if this was a one CD i'd probably listen to it just for the disc 2 songs and end up liking the disc 1 songs a bit more than i do now but w/ the way it is now what's the point?

sean garrett and bangladesh should work together more often

"radio" is awesome

weird for a jim jonsin production

So the Deluxe tracks are out there. I can't believe she's using "You had me at hello" as a hook.

Beyonce version of "A Milli" = Dereon Jeans are a subsidiary of Bad Idea Jeans

it's totally fierce. i knew you'd h8 though

downloading it now
looks like reactions are mixed? i loved B'Day so I'm sure she's got a great record in her

weirdly - given that until 'irreplaceable', ballads were...not B's forte, let's say - i'm enjoying the beyonce tracks a lot more, some of her vocal performances are revelatory - her low notes and creeping restraint on 'disappear' in particular.

I like the ballads on the Standard Version a bit more too, but I'm still kinda wishing the Deluxe Version didn't throw off the Disc 1=Ballad/Disc 2=Party thing with a song that keeps making me think of Renee Zellweger.

Also, apparently "Why Don't You Love Me", the Solange-written one, is relegated to a bonus track in Japan maybe?

it's totally fierce. i knew you'd h8 though

― lex pretend, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 10:10 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

lol

im through a song and a half. digging it so far...production on the first part of halo is pretty rad

k really digging this. my first thought on "broken hearted girl" was "this is nice, but ive heard this song before," but i really got into it by the midway point. am i in the minority here?

new screen name

win!

the real sasha fierce

http://www.bet.com/Assets/BET/Published/image/jpeg/15d12f02-032b-72c6-4aa5-f1f109baedf1-news_fb_sasha_obama.JPG

okay, i don't know about video phone as a closer, it's probably the song I like least on the record. overall, i like it a lot though on first listen!

After a first listen I think it's slightly weaker than B'Day but a much more interesting record, and one i'll ultimately enjoy and listen to more. By which I mean that it was often easy to ignore how strong a lot of B'Day was owing to the (at times) stifling air of familiar competence that hung over it.

I endorse Lex's spizzazzzian use of "keeping it real" here. It'd be interesting to work out exactly how/why Beyonce's balladry has improved in such leaps and bounds since the Destiny's Child days. I'm tempted to paraphrase an argument I made w/r/t the new Luomo album: these ballads feel much more tightly structured than her previous efforts, such that instead of just drooping outwards in slothful expanses of histrionics, Beyonce's love of melodrama flashes through the cracks.

Conversely the Sasha Fierce tracks are Beyonce at her hardest, like a string of "Upgrade U"-style tracks. I particularly like "Radio" at the moment. "Diva" is great as an idea but the jury's out on whether she pulls it off.

i agree that side A sounds stronger at this point. "Single Ladies" and "Radio" are great though, and I think "Diva" is a bunch of fun too.

No I haven't decided which side I think is stronger! I'm glad that she's going in both directions at once.

"Halo" is going to be massive! Haven't heard any songs besides the two singles and Halo, but Beyonce albums for me are always very hit and miss so as long as there are some solid singles I will be appeased.

haha oh sorry didnt mean to put words in your mouth, tim!
I've listened to the deluxe, but I'm just going by the standard...I don't think there's really a skipper on the album, but like I said my least favorite would be "video phone", so just by that I'm going side 1. then again, i'm only one and a half listens through, so it could very well grow on me. actually, each side closer seems to me to be the weakest of its respective side.

also: no guest appearances (I think), which i think is important for her

alright, "if i were a boy" is fucking killing me right now

mad boring album

Yeah "If I Were A Boy" is massive, her singing is amazing.

the album's really got considerable range, both vocally and emotionally.

8. That's Why You're Beautiful

Beyonce does slowcore

If I Were A Boy is weak sauce for me. I mean, the chorus is the same as the verse, just in a different key. The catchy, dramatic part of the song (It's a little too late for you to come back...) only happens once. I guess the label was saving the stronger songs for the 2nd/3rd single, to preserve momentum?

mad boring album

― mr. mayan end times guy (The Reverend), Thursday, November 13, 2008 1:54 AM (13 hours ago)

Seriously, Lex ought to have been given the review, not this Paleolithic tosspot.

I mean, the chorus is the same as the verse, just in a different key.

Nah, same key. She's just singing an octave higher.

theres two songs on this where she sounds like rihanna (but not nearly as good.)

If I Were A Boy is weak sauce for me. I mean, the chorus is the same as the verse, just in a different key. The catchy, dramatic part of the song (It's a little too late for you to come back...) only happens once. I guess the label was saving the stronger songs for the 2nd/3rd single, to preserve momentum?

― ILX MOD (musically), Thursday, November 13, 2008 4:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ this. shit is more monotonous than "Love Lockdown".

I mean, the chorus is the same as the verse, just in a different key.

Nah, same key. She's just singing an octave higher.

― Manchego Bay (G00blar)

yeah, i'm an idiot...that's what i meant

yeah, If I were a boy has something nice about it but the songwriting is a bit lazy with only the one melody.

theres two songs on this where she sounds like rihanna (but not nearly as good.)

― titchyschneiderMk2, Friday, November 14, 2008 5:46 AM (7 hours ago)

i thought this about "Brokenhearted Girl" at first, but then it worked for me. The wordy bit near the middle is great

as for if i were a boy, she should have just covered one of us if she liked it that much. ;)

haha I totally think of Joan Osbourne when I hear it too

i do approve of the proper use of the subjunctive tense...so rare these days

I thought the use of the same melody was deliberate: the sarcasm/truth split between the verses and the choruses is signified only by the jump in register.

exactly. i'm pretty sure knowles realized the melodies were the same...calling it lazy is pretty, well, lazy.

yeah i'm sure when the song was handed to Beyonce, she truly appreciated the symbolic nature of the song's structure

The question is whether the song works as a song (including whether Beyonce's performance works), not what she does or does not appreciate.

whoops, I guess my glib aside didn't address the central question.

please don't fail me, i need this class to graduate.

Sorry ILX MOD, I thought you thought you were delivering a K.O.

I've seen the "yeah but I bet [insert pop singer here] doesn't actually know that's what the song's about" argument and variations on it made in earnest on ILX threads too many times to just assume the point is a glib aside.

If I Were a Boy was first featured in media press on August 4, 2008, on music industry site Crazed Hits, as a feature for BC Jean. When the song was released by Beyonce in October, Fox News ran a story stating that Beyonce stole the song from Jean, who co-wrote the song with producer Toby Gad. Even though Gad did not play a major role in its composition, he sold the song to Knowles without Jean's permission. Jean was unaware that Knowles recorded the track. Neither Jean nor Gad have released statements concerning this matter.

i dont think keeping it the same was done conceptually at all (not by beyonce or the writers). more just a case of sticking to the pop/R&B template. but then i dont think the song is anywhere near as interesting as other ppl seem to.

what a lunatic

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7f95y_beyonce-single-ladies-live-snl-hq_music

white girl can't dance though

Yeah, that girl was distractingly stiff and awkward.

"Put a Ring On It" is growing on me

theres two songs on this where she sounds like rihanna (but not nearly as good.)

― titchyschneiderMk2, Friday, November 14, 2008 10:46 AM (3 days ago

Yeah, "Video Phone" and "Radio" really sound like Rihanna.. especially "Radio".

I dunno, this album is alright I guess.. there are some great moments ("Halo" is genius, it's gonna be huge and I'm going to end up hating it just like "Irreplaceable," but for now it's one of Beyonce's best songs ever), but it's not AMAZING. Is Beyonce ever really amazing? I feel like I'm always excited about her and then I end up disappointed in some way.

None of her albums are amazing. She's not really an albums artist. These songs will sound much better released one-by-one as singles.

the best songs would be:

Halo
Ave Maria
Radio
Smash Into You
Video Phone
Put A Ring On It
Sweet Dreams
If I Were A Boy

Diva is dumb... but predictably it's my ringtone at the moment lol.

B'Day IS a great album.

I feel like I'm in crazyworld when I click on this thread sometimes.

Get Me Bodied was pretty amazing. It wasn't given "amazing song" treatment though, I think it was near the end of the B-Day promo cycle and she was rushing out singles and videos like they were presidential pardons.

B'Day is a pretty great album yeah, but I wouldn't consider it a classic.

Get Me Bodied was pretty amazing.

esp. the extended version. She fuckin' SANGS her ass off on that one.

Sangin is a town in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, with population of approximately 14,000 people. It is located on 32°4′24″N 64°50′2″E in the valley of the Helmand River at 888 m altitude,95 km to the North of Lashkar Gah. Sangin is notorious as one of the central locations of the opium trade in the south of the country, and is also a town that has traditionally supported the Taliban.[1] Sangin also houses the main bazaar for Sangin District.

"Resentment" is the best song on B'Day IMO.

GMB extended is a great record to dance to, love the video, I don't know if I'd call it amazing.

lol

well how can anything be amazing compared to a posh spice song

it was Jazmine Sullivan's song before Posh Spice:

and it's written by Candice from the Clutch who is one of the best songwriters out.

cute zing tho.

well when an artist like posh spice sings a song she really owns it afterwards

I cannot tell whether you are sarcasming or not.

i'm not really sure either. i probably shouldn't be posting at 1am.

b'day is definitely an amazing album, i know tim's said elsewhere that it suffers from across-the-board competency but i completely disagree, only 'green light' is as standard as that.

and this is also an amazing album, now that i'm listening to the deluxe tracks!! some of the things she's learnt to do with her voice are seriously revelatory. i even love both the singles now (like 'get me bodied', 'single ladies' makes a lot more sense as a dance routine, and every nutty live performance adds to its appeal).

possibly controv: 'halo' is very deliberately immense, and successful, but 'hello' is like a more powerful version of it. those drums!

"i walk like this - cuz i can back it up!"

she should've used a real harpsichord on 'scared of lonely' though

she ruined "scared of lonely", the demo that I posted upthread is much better

no idea why she changed the chorus

yeah this isn't as good as B'Day for me yet, but it's really really good. it bums me out that people don't like "if i were a boy"

Is it me, or does "Halo" make people think Beyonce would do a cracking cover of "Vienna"?

Hahah - OTM, I was thinking the same thing!

(actually I'd really like her to do Scott Walker's "The Electrician"...)

You guys pretty much covered everything.

I was gonna be all "What's up with the slowcore song and the a milli thing" but you all apparently heard this album a month ago :/

her legs in Single Ladies video should be illegal

haha

Single Ladies is growing on me. I still think it's not even 1/10th as great as Get Me Bodied though.

i don't get that at all - "get me bodied" has swizz annoyingly chanting "ay" every second + "single ladies" has a better hook

get me bodied might be my favorite beyonce song, so it's quite a standard to live up to, personally. i love the shit out of "single ladies" though, and really like the album.

it's all about the extended version of 'get me bodied'

"Get Me Bodied" is the most fun song she's ever made and has ridiculous harmonies that contrast with the brittle beat in a really fresh way. "Single Ladies" takes the basic template and applies it to a tune that's no fun at all, has a poorly constructed chorus (if you like her finger you should put a ring on it? if you like a woman you should put a ring on her? wtf) and a batshit Toy Story-quoting bridge.

lex otm

kevlexal otm

'Single Ladies' has grown on me to the point where I think it might be my favourite song of the year

if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it
if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it

the song is completely hypnotic before you've ever seen her legs and robotic arm in the video

'scared of lonely' is so fucking rococo and ridiculous. I LOVE IT.

and a batshit Toy Story-quoting bridge.

this is a great great middle 8

also people need to stop comparing Single Ladies to/with Get Me Bodied ffs - the latter is ONLY 808 and handclaps (enabling heightened vocal work which is great if you care more about that), doesn't have the machine sounds and HUGE dramatic synth that makes Single Ladies a treat (if you think it's not fun then you're insane and horrendously wrong imho).

The "Get Me Bodied (Extended Mix)" rules over all but as a song on the album I think it doesn't work quite as well as it thinks it does. Still a great track.

I like how her vocal really drives the track in a more functional way in "Single Ladies" - in the chorus you're really dancing to the "oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh" rather than the beat. And those synth floods are brilliant.

The first number one about digital-rectal stimulation.

damn, did we get goatsed? good work, B

The "Get Me Bodied (Extended Mix)" rules over all but as a song on the album I think it doesn't work quite as well as it thinks it does. Still a great track.

prob. why the extended mix is appended on to the end as a bonus track

"I'll put a ring around your tongue/But never one around your finger"

yeah those synths!!!!!11

also people need to stop comparing Single Ladies to/with Get Me Bodied ffs - the latter is ONLY 808 and handclaps (enabling heightened vocal work which is great if you care more about that), doesn't have the machine sounds and HUGE dramatic synth that makes Single Ladies a treat (if you think it's not fun then you're insane and horrendously wrong imho).

― Yentl vs Predator (blueski), Wednesday, December 10, 2008 8:03 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the "machine sounds" are pretty annoying, imo, Tricky Stewart's productions are usually much better

At first I thought the album was pretty meh but it really grew on me.
I still find many songs average but really like "halo" (which do resembles "umbrella"), "disappear" (which somehow reminds me of... "no surprises" by radiohead !), single ladies (like many people I didn't see the point at first until the video, dance routine, etc...well, until I discovered the fun of it !), "radio" and the great production on "sweet dreams"...
as I wrote somewhere upthread, I like "if I were a boy" ok but get a little bored by its repetitive structure, which is, of course done on purpose but stil...
and funny thing, I must be the only person on earth to remember them and moreover see anything related to them in Beyonce but "satellites" is really close to a... Suede song !

Tricky Stewart is The-Dream right?
it's as good as anything he's done that i've heard (bearing in mind i only like a couple of tracks on his own album)

Tricky Stewart is one of the two producers that does the beats for most of the songs The-Dream writes and/or performs (the other is Los Da Maestro).

i didn't know 'single ladies' was a tricky stewart beat - that makes it a bit more disappointing, definitely

well it shouldn't because you already made a judgement on it based on how it sounds - nothing else should matter

when artists and producers are constantly making songs that sound like incrementally tiny adjustments and revisions of their old songs, you can't just treat each one as if it exists in a vacuum outside of the context of their other work. i mean, you can, but it'd be pretty dumb.

[the following tedious argument about pop dilettantism has been removed]

are you still talking about Single Ladies and Get Me Bodied? They really don't sound that much like each other. They're made with the same aim but in clearly different ways 'musically'.

when artists and producers are constantly making songs that sound like incrementally tiny adjustments and revisions of their old songs, you can't just treat each one as if it exists in a vacuum outside of the context of their other work

this is v loaded and subjective (in terms of how we hear things as 'similar'). too much to unpack right now but put it this way no way do i want 6 or 7 beyonce ballads on one disc (if ever)...

question: wiki says that beyonce did not write "if i were a boy," is this true?

also whoever that dude was that introduced her at the AMAs was was an ASSHOLE. he basically went on for abt five minutes abt how HE wrote the song ("single ladies"). shut the fuck up, clown.

that was The-Dream

ah, k. i watched it in a rather loud room, and didnt catch the introducer himself being introduced

listened to 'gmb' again - it's still a fine virtuouso album thing but put me firmly in the 'single ladies' camp. ships if you're having trouble fathoming it then maybe take a look at why you've got "fun" and "batshit" in different columns??

hah "virtuouso" - i suppose 'single ladies' is more this

question: wiki says that beyonce did not write "if i were a boy," is this true?

it's a cover of some random female singer's original song, i don't remember her name

Joan Osborne? </weakjoke>

live band version of "single ladies" + insaneo dancing = 8D XD :]

"radio" should've been the next single

i can imagine most of the songs on the album working as singles - kudos, b. i'll be repping vainly for 'scared of lonely'.

Don't get the "Boy"/Joan Osborne thing at all.

What about the relationship between "One Of Us" and Nik Kershaw's "Wouldn't It Be Good?"

Rolling Stone's Top 100 Singles

1. Beyonce, "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"

lol wut

http://www.home.sol.se/plusn/whatdog.gif

least challopsy choice on any list so far

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/WidowOfDestiny/Jiggle_Panda.gif

The first (indie) CD has its moments (Halo, Disappear, That's Why You're Beautiful) but is otherwise slush of the highest order.

The second is astonishing - Single Ladies is probably my least favourite thing on there.

"Disappear" is the best song on either CD imo.

HAPPY XMAS FROM QUEEN B:

'Diva': http://videos.onsmash.com/v/JiuN3n45XRuk57II
'Halo': http://videos.onsmash.com/v/VYkqjr269jbfbQws

The 'Halo' video is boring, the 'Diva' video is AMAZING. WHEN HE PULL UP, WANNA POP MY HOOD UP

is it anywhere near as good as the sl vid?

better, i think.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Jg35FOYDL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

fo real tho this is the first time someone's upped the shades game since kanye so big ups to b

meh vid ain't all that and the song is still an ungodly mess

it makes me think she should automatically do a version of every huge hip-hop hit going

ugh son

the "diva" video is kinda boring in the "same hot/diva (duh) approach as usual" way (maybe also because I don't like this track too much).
the "halo" video is lame and silly and I don't find her as hot as most people say she is usually but B is strikingly beautiful in it. I think I much prefer her "natural" personae (the other moment I find her beautiful is during the "quiet" moment in the "ring the alarm" video...).

I think the "halo" video is cute, michael ealey is gorgeous and they have real chemistry....

"Diva" video is amaaaaazing. The shades! The dollar-bill fan!

the hair, the walk, the posse of oscars, the hypnotising movement of the fins on the mermaid outfit

the diva video is ace, you guys. these are two of my favorites from the album, i'm glad she's making them singles (is that what's happening?)

simultaneous singles in the US, who knows in the UK (have a horrible feeling that we won't get 'diva')

just made a beyonce/dest child mix for my friend's birthday, and omg @ what an amazing 70 mins this is

tracklist plz

so i'm finally listening to this...based on being in the middle of the first disc, If I Were a Boy is the worst ballad, t/f?

huh? 'if i were a boy' is the lead track. also, no, not the worst ballad

i meant that i can now compare if i were a boy to some of the other ballads since i have just heard some of them.

and the ballads got worse as the disc went on but IIWAB is in the bottom half.

Radio is awesome <3<3<3<3<3<3

I assume Sweet Dreams is that "Beautiful Nightmare" demo that was floating around last year...

i really like the whole thing but i think "brokenhearted girl" is the weakest for me. the bridge totally redeems it though imo

All the ballads suck, as do all the uptempo tracks except for "Single Ladies", which is merely alright.

"Disappear" is the best song on either CD imo.

― these bitches they hatin cuz i just put my new weave in (The Brainwasher), Friday, December 12, 2008 4:59 PM (3 weeks ago)

i really like the whole thing but i think "brokenhearted girl" is the weakest for me. the bridge totally redeems it though imo

― choke on my mess of a schlaporito (k3vin k.), Wednesday, January 7, 2009 11:23 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

^i was thinking of the bridge to "disappear" here. so so pretty.

single ladies is awesome, what are the other hot tracks?

OMGGGGGG I LOVE "Scared of Lonely"

Beyonce is gonna kill this one.

― Put A Ring On It (The Brainwasher), Thursday, October 16, 2008 5:51 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and there is a DIVA VERSION OF 'A MILLI' <3 <3

― lex pretend, Thursday, November 6, 2008 4:18 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"radio" is awesome

weird for a jim jonsin production

― jordan s (J0rdan S.), Thursday, November 6, 2008 8:00 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

k really digging this. my first thought on "broken hearted girl" was "this is nice, but ive heard this song before," but i really got into it by the midway point. am i in the minority here?

― Kevin Keller, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 3:35 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I particularly like "Radio" at the moment. "Diva" is great as an idea but the jury's out on whether she pulls it off.

― Tim F, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 5:04 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i agree that side A sounds stronger at this point. "Single Ladies" and "Radio" are great though, and I think "Diva" is a bunch of fun too.

― Kevin Keller, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 5:17 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"Halo" is going to be massive! Haven't heard any songs besides the two singles and Halo, but Beyonce albums for me are always very hit and miss so as long as there are some solid singles I will be appeased.

― ILX MOD (musically), Wednesday, November 12, 2008 5:21 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the best songs would be:

Halo
Ave Maria
Radio
Smash Into You
Video Phone
Put A Ring On It
Sweet Dreams
If I Were A Boy

Diva is dumb... but predictably it's my ringtone at the moment lol.

― Hair Weave's Lookin Kinda Purdy (The Brainwasher), Monday, November 17, 2008 3:19 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"radio" should've been the next single

― you brought me home to this funky house (J0rdan S.), Thursday, December 11, 2008 1:15 AM (4 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i can imagine most of the songs on the album working as singles - kudos, b. i'll be repping vainly for 'scared of lonely'.

― lex pretend, Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:09 AM (4 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The first (indie) CD has its moments (Halo, Disappear, That's Why You're Beautiful) but is otherwise slush of the highest order.

― Matt DC, Friday, December 12, 2008 11:55 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"Disappear" is the best song on either CD imo.

― these bitches they hatin cuz i just put my new weave in (The Brainwasher), Friday, December 12, 2008 11:59 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Radio is awesome <3<3<3<3<3<3

― miss precious perfect (musically), Wednesday, January 7, 2009 11:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

single ladies is awesome, what are the other hot tracks?

― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Thursday, January 8, 2009 1:48 PM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"radio" and "diva" are pure fun, "if i were a boy" seems to be love it or hate it (it kills me), and "disappear" has a bridge that i wish was a whole song. "halo" is an incredible ballad, too.

lex is right. the jerry maguire song is the best.

there really isn't a song i dislike on this album though i wouldn't notice if 'satellites' didn't exist. 'single ladies' works so much better as a pop cultural behemoth than as a song.

'single ladies' works so much better as a pop cultural behemoth than as a song

explain

'Sweet Dream' music sounds like M83 to me just apropos

'single ladies' is 10000x better than any of the other songs i've listened to so far

Not sure if this is what Lex is getting at but "Single Ladies" reminds me of "Rock Your Body" insofar as its brilliance is bound up in the social experience of it - it's a total dancefloor uniter not a divider.

I can see why people think "this is just any Beyonce song / this is Get Me Bodied Redux", but to some extent it's got just the right generic quality (although it's less generic than "Deja Vu" actually) that makes it perfect for that sense of dancefloor universalism.

With modern pop it's always tempting to celebrate that in the song which challenges people a bit, like, even when stuff like "Bugaboo" was riding high in the charts there were lots of people who didn't "get" it - and there's something fun about that.

But the appeal of something like "Rock Your Body" or "Single Ladies" is the very fact that everyone gets them - the complaint you hear about these songs is rather "I don't see what the fuss is about."

"Single Ladies" Siik remix

lol Talib Kweli beat

haha. i quite like this one by symbolicOne and caleb. symbolicOne did an album with illmind on BBE back in the day.

Isn't that S1 from Strange Fruit Project? I've been jamming his album from last year a bit.

haha, of course it is

BANGIN

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/19979055.jpg

WHITE BEYONCE

inevitably, there is a lil' wayne remix of 'diva' now (it's not great)

Our (as yet unborn) baby really likes "Single Ladies".

Hello > Scared of Lonely > Halo > Disappear >>>>>>>> everything else. Never would have though all the songs I kept going back to would be ballads.

don't like any of the ballads, perhaps unsurprisingly

i'm still undecided w/r/t halo. it's too something for me -- it sounds like she's taking herself too seriously or something. that's kind of how i feel about If i were a boy too.

too hammed up, i guess.

too obvious maybe? it does have a sort of undeniable force to it but it's probably the least interesting ballad, everything is signposted pretty heavily. i think 'hello' is actually far far more hammy and ridiculous, and i definitely prefer it

all the ballads are pretty hammy, especially smash into you, which is like a rent-style simulacrum of trance n b. i still like them.

actually i think 'halo's problem might be that it's not hammy enough, it's too much of an obvious trend-hopping track

Its bludgeoning obviousness is part of its appeal.

Halo is finally clicking. These singles have a real delayed reaction for me.

can't believe i didn't know about Diva til now

Halo is fucking amazing btw. That one republic guys is really trying to get a reputation for these bonkers lyrics though amirite? Not enough, the bloodletting on that Leona Lewis thing, now this weirdly kabbalistic tearjerker? The dynamics are sort of perfect, the way each line in the climb ends with a two-syllable word that goes down on the final note before the "shut you OUT" where the OUT just soars. Also, that Timbaland jacking echoey drum track and shifting sand pianoscape (v. say it right) are this really vaporous bed to put such a strident power-ballad, each sharp vocal inflection sounds like a tent-pole, giving the whole thing shape. This is the song that finally drove home how far Beyonce has come as a singer. Like, she always had something really unusual, that rhythmic delivery and powerful range, but this seems so effortlessly crafted even as her voice does so much work to pull this together, and even as she makes the whole thing beautiful. I'm glad Leona didn't sing it.

yeah i don't remember if i said this here before but leona's version would have been technically perfect and boring

I don't think we could have counted on it being technically perfect either.

i think i finally 'get' "Halo" now -- it's supposed to sound exactly like "No Air," right?

― blame it on the HOOS got you steenin' loose (some dude), Tuesday, March 10, 2009 1:34 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

halo sounds so much cooler than No Air to me

i like "Ego"

I've been really digging on "Hello" recently. And "Video Phone".

i like every subsequent single less & less

eh, I doubt she's capable of making anything worse than "Diva"

'Sweet Dreams' struck me as quite nice on the first go around - one of the few, tbh, that registered from the second disc outside of Single Ladies and Diva immediately.

It's certainly not totally successful at what it's trying to do, and there's a blatantly obvious reference point that it copies which I am forever unable to pinpoint, but that moment where it jumps into the chorus is one of my favourites on the album. Also, the weird C3PO outfit in the video is totally awesome.

But yeah, as much as I enjoy I Am...Sasha Fierce while listening to it, the lesson I have learned from this era of Beyonce is that I unforgiveably slept on B'Day for waaaaay too long. Because there's nothing on here as high as that album's highs (Single Ladies, excepted, maybe) and it's not nearly as consistent.

i love this album but i'm a bit baffled @ the single selection here too..."disappear" should be one over either "ego" or "sweet dreams"

"radio" and "video phone" should've been singles

i think it's just that i don't really like beyonce's voice all that much and these lilting ballads really annoy me

get ouuuut

i like every subsequent single less & less

― barrymore, murdrewland (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, July 14, 2009 6:20 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

funny, when "Halo" dropped I was like finally, a single off this project that I like, and when "Ego" dropped I was like finally, a single off this project that I love (no real opinion on "Sweet Dreams" yet tho)

"Halo" is very vulnerable and earnest and I suppose quite predictable, which is why it never seems to get the love it might (on the surface appear to) deserve. That said, it's one of my favourite ballads of the year so far, because I'm a corny motherfucker sometimes and it sounds like falling in love the same way, oh I don't know, some of those indie schmindie movies do their thing, you just have to work really hard at suspending the disbelief and go with it completely. Then (i.e. at some point after you let go cynicism and jadedness, perhaps?) it really flourishes.

I get uncomfortable every time "Ego" comes on the radio

what, you don't like Beyonce singing about her penis?

we play this at work and i think i can sing along to every single song on it, i think the other ppl who work there were a bit o_o when i said that i have it anyway so i pretty much knew all the songs anyway

Ego is so good

some amazing songs off this album

i like that one Disappear, but i don't know what any of the songs are called so its kinda hard to talk about a little without u here so i can kinda hum bits of them!

yeah "disappear" is the best ballad imo

well no, halo is

yuck still hate it.

it's all about that bridge

was thinking the last day about how like unattainability or sumthn is like a major theme of this album

"halo" is good. "halo" + its video is great. the video alone sucks. that's the equation, folks !

iiiiii, missed all the signs
one at a time

^best moment on album

actually its about how her voice goes up on "shut you ou-u-ut"

kinda feel like this is like an old-school adult contemporary album more than anything, even the the obvious hits (hello single ladies) are really subtle

yeah that point's been raised a lot and as much as it pains me to admit it, it's probably true. don't follow on "single ladies" being subtle, though

for a big brash lead single it doesn't make a whole lot of noise u hav to admit

i could never think of "single ladies" as subtle. and while i think the "adult contemporary" descriptor works for this to some extent, other parts of it do not agree with that label at all.

surm, it was u that started that thread about "i didn't mean to turn you on," feel like that song is kindof like a secret prehistory of big budget rnb 2k9

well, i don't think of single ladies as brash -- but i do think it made a lot of noise, even if the synths on it were pretty minimal.

wait how does "i didn't mean to turn you on" tie into the adult-contempo/subtle thing?

okay but i mean subtle as a relative term u no, and compared to I dunno work it out or something, it makes do with more of a hint than a growl

xp i dunno i feel like i could only explain what i mean in collage form haha!

:D

pretty much the only songs i really dislike on this are "halo" and "if i were a boy." tho i don't love single ladies, i wouldn't throw it in that category. everything else is pretty damn impressive!

like... Scared of Lonely, Hello, Ego, Video phone, sweet dreams, diva = all pretty fucking amazing.

also loove broken hearted girl

oh and DISAPPEAR is soooooooooooo perfect.

yeah i kinda hate if i were a boy but that didn't stop me from being really in the moment with it this morning lol!

http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo305/lejospopo/didntmeanto.jpg

u get the idea sorta maybe?

pretty much the only songs i really dislike on this are "halo" and "if i were a boy." tho i don't love single ladies, i wouldn't throw it in that category. everything else is pretty damn impressive!

― oops i accidentally made it personal (surm), Monday, November 2, 2009 5:16 PM (7 minutes ago)

i...can't fathom this

you are too funny & grebt ikr

i see it a little but.

kev it's no secret you and i disagree when it comes to ballads

*i see it a little bit

you guys and this album

i started to like "halo" once i read that the singer from girls is obsessed with it - both song & band make more sense to me because of it - it's good chorus melody too, just that gloopy piano and those clopping drums, blech

aside from single ladies, video phone & radio are the only other redeemable joints

was this like the blackout i missed :(

yeah i don't "get" girls at all, feel like you need to 1up out of whatever level of pop-contrarianism i'm on atm

I fuck w/ "Single Ladies" and "Sweet Dreams" but that's about it

i actually just can't relate to not liking Halo AT ALL, i remember when it was new listening to it in my friend Amy's room and her getting really carried away by it for just a second and I feel like its hard not to get really carried away by it and i don't wanna be all beyoncevangelist or whatever but there's this primal part of me that feels like u guys are all just faking

obv i see what it's going for, in terms of carrying you away, and i like the production. but i don't like the songwriting. it sounds pious, sugar-coated and confused to me.

ramz otm

Basically, for me "Halo" has the exact same emotional equivalency of a recording of Beyonce farting into a microphone

i started to like "halo" once i read that the singer from girls is obsessed with it - both song & band make more sense to me because of it - it's good chorus melody too, just that gloopy piano and those clopping drums, blech

― a goon boy (J0rdan S.), Monday, November 2, 2009 5:31 PM (16 minutes ago)

and i like the production. but i don't like the songwriting.

― oops i accidentally made it personal (surm), Monday, November 2, 2009 5:42 PM (4 minutes ago

ramz otm

― a goon boy (J0rdan S.), Monday, November 2, 2009 5:46 PM (1 minute ago)

http://images-partners-tbn.google.com/images?q=tbn:ncLvJHkU0lnYqM:mnrn.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/head_scratch.png%3Fw%3D281%26h%3D456

"halo" has a really basic power but not much depth - if i'm in the mood or right circumstance it hits the spot and hits it well, if not it's a headache. it's definitely suffered from ryan tedder's one song being all over the place this year

ha I was about to make a "besides Kelly did it better" post

it is probably the best tedder-penned song by several leagues though

xp no aargh, i hated that kelly song! um i hated how she did the same song, i mean.

i just want kelly to do more stuff like my december :(

yeah its excessive that's kinda the point and its not sugar coated its glistening u no? like i don't think making something that's sort of excessively beautiful is unproblematic but i mean, yeah i can't really divorce the song from the video but i feel like the whole fantasy aspect of the album, part of it is about this kindof construction of this glistening eden which is an i dunno, a respite or a comfort and in that sort of lol self constructed context it feels deep and moving in a way that is explicitly about surfaces or something. I dunno, i can't really get my motor to start on that riff but there is something there that i want to say, u know, one year on.

i have no problem with excess, or abundant beauty. but i do have a problem with bad hooks.

like, Disappear coming after it really feels like part of a diptych so that what's missing from disappear is sort of artificially constructed in halo, but yeah i get this is the sort of wanky handwringing ur not gonna be sympathetic to if u don't already love it so yeah

yeah, i guess it's really about the melody for me. i find it tepid and overbearing at the same time.

i think the melody's really strong, if there's anything i don't like it's the one-word-repeated chorus

i really like the way that guy from one republic writes swells

the pussycat dolls' "halo" is a hundred times better too

i have an insane hatred for the pussycat dlls tho

lol sorry i'm just feeling a bit emotional in a high fidelity way haha

also i just love the way her voice sounds on this, probably more than ever

halo is dope imo, not sure i could ever fuck w/ this album though

"halo" has a really basic power but not much depth

most otm thing here

weird how i have had basically the same conversation about catholicism more than once

it just feels....very hamfisted to me, like beyonce feels that if she reeaaaallly pours on the emotion it'll change this sow's ear into a purse

sooooo otm

and the catholicism thing is fitting

like i really feel she was in catholic school and was told to sing this by one of the nuns, with as much conviction as she could muster

doesn't really sound like you know many nuns XD

it just feels....very hamfisted to me, like beyonce feels that if she reeaaaallly pours on the emotion it'll change this sow's ear into a purse

true but it also works a lot of the time - when i feel "halo" i REALLY feel it. it's one of those belt along, punch the air, at no point stop and think songs.

Yes, because when you stop and think about it you realize she's yelping "Halo HALO HALO" like an overstimulated chihuahua

I think my baseline opinion is very close to that "Beyonce doing ballads can go fuck a hat" camp.

*joins camp*

The arguments against "Halo" here are basically a rejection of power-ballads per se, no?

Or is there a nuance to this that I'm missing?

i think there are equally as formulaic power ballads that are more dynamic

my problem is really with the arrangement - i don't think i would mind the song if i saw her sing it a capella or with an orchestra or something, but the recorded version is very syrupy

i think they're a rejection of ryan tedder-penned power ballads specifically - i like "halo" but i wish it had never been written, basically

for me, it's really more a rejection of Beyonce doing power ballads; I hated "Irreplaceable" (which I know everyone else loved) for very similar reasons.

I think her most effective ballad to date has been "Flaws and All", pretty much because it's just a ballad; in not trying to be a massive wall of emotional bombast, it comes across as much more sincere and powerful than these eyerollable "look at me, my screaming shows my passion" nonsensefests that all end up sounding the exact same emotional note.

and also, personally, in a vacuum, i would say the song is like... a 5/10, but in the context of the ryan tedder "and performing her new single today on the ellen degeneres show!" factory, "halo" is pretty nauseating to me

i think there are equally as formulaic power ballads that are more dynamic

my problem is really with the arrangement - i don't think i would mind the song if i saw her sing it a capella or with an orchestra or something, but the recorded version is very syrupy

― a goon boy (J0rdan S.), Monday, November 2, 2009 11:32 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yea i was thinking this too

my fav beyoncé ballad is "if"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGCZHAzdPA8

i like ryan tedder

ugh

fwiw, battlefield is far, far worse than halo

"battlefield" is horrible

ryan tedder vs redone - the men who have destroyed pop in 09 with their one song and one production style

tedder, all his songs are melted ice cream

fwiw, battlefield is far, far worse than halo

It's a much worse song, yes, but Jordin's lighter voice makes the vocal performance on it much less offensive than Beyonce's laser edge yell is on "Halo".

Don't really want to listen to either song, ever.

all of redone's are leaden boots though, and his pox has spread further. it's got to the point where i'm just pathetically grateful to hear any mainstream r&b/pop uptempo record which doesn't sound like it was produced by him

xp

yea like i was thinking maybe if she wasn't screaming halo in my face, it would be a little better...

"it's hard to believe you love me when you're yelling at me" should be pasted up on the control booth window when she records her next album

not sure how you can hate yelling but like "battlefield" more...

that is out-and-out screaming plus drums that are like cinder blocks being dropped on your head

Did you decide to just not read what I wrote or something

bahhahahahahah jordan

that description

To repeat myself: Jordin's voice is lighter, making her yelling on "Battlefield" more bearable than Beyonce's on "Halo", although she is yelling a much worse song.

Not quite sure how that translates into "I like 'Battlefield' more than 'Halo'" but there you go.

yeah tbqh most of yr criticisms all of u r pretty much just powerballad crits and when u say "o but i like "-"" its cos its um sortof less powerballady

^^^

so you're saying that "halo" is the most powerballady power ballad of all time or

wow there's not one possible way of reframing what i did say so that works

when u say "o but i like "-"" its cos its um sortof less powerballady

― plaks (I know, right?), Monday, November 2, 2009 5:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

so you're saying that "halo" is more or less power ballady than "x" - "its" is confusing the way you use it here

saying "i prefer this song because at least the chick bellowing has a weaker voice so its not as bellowy" is a bit like just criticising something for the parameters of a pre-existing formal convention, like criticising a powerballad for being um too powerballady is a bit O_o to me really, but like yeah i'm pretty sure big stupid bombastic choruses are like 90% of the point of powerballads i don't think that's the same as saying that all powerballads are like shadows of halo on a cave r something which is what ur implying i'm saying and i no u no i no u no that that is just ridic so....

Every Celine Dion power ballad is better than "Halo".

see ya

funny to have this big "Halo" argument break out right after i threw it in for the amnesty week thing on Singles Jukebox (which was totally a bad idea and i realized it right away -- thought about throwing in "Ego" instead but can't abide by the Kanye verse). after hating "Single Ladies" and "If I Was A Boy" and "Diva," I've really taken to the smaller later singles off this album.

anyway I like "Halo" basically because it sounds just like "No Air," which I love

when was the last time a producer said he had a legendary/monster/amazing/groundbreaking song/beat before anyone head it and it actually turned out to be just that?

ok i'm assuming that was meant for the rihanna thread

or just a general question

yeah, it was 4 rihanna

ill post it in there

Every Celine Dion power ballad is better than "Halo".

― The Dance at the Crossroads (HI DERE), Tuesday, 3 November 2009 01:43 (1 hour ago) Permalink

otmfm

also, maybe we were arguing wrong or something, but just because someone doesn't like Halo does not mean that person has a fundamental problem with power ballads. this seems like a weak counter argument :/

like, an argument against Halo does not have to be argument against all Power Ballads just because it fits in the arena of other songs. just because one song is over-syrupy and terrible, doesn't mean another song that is over-syrupy is.

^^^

just because one song is over-syrupy and terrible, doesn't mean another song that is over-syrupy is.

Sure surm but doesn't that undercut the force of saying "Halo" is bad because it's over-syrupy? What's the difference between good over-syrupy and bad over-syrupy?

I think power-balladry is one area where - maybe because it's mostly dismissed by critics - people don't tend to really think hard about why songs work or don't work, even if they're open to liking songs in the form.

Similarly the general hatred of Tedder feels critically underdeveloped even if I'm mostly sympathetic - but a lot of pop fans will dismiss Tedder stuff in the same way that rock fans will dismiss Fall Out Boy, like it goes without saying or even really thinking. This doesn't mean the dismissal is wrong (let alone that Tedder is as good as Fall Out Boy*) but I'd love to see more detailed thought go into this. Esp. because, well, Tedder stuff has been really successful, and while that doesn't make it good it makes it interesting to think about why it doesn't work for you/me/"us" most of the time.

*Actually maybe the better comparison point is, like, Matchbox 20 or something.

tim, i made a thread about him ryan tedder is my least favorite songwriter and i wish he would stop writing music

my opening post kind of expounds on my feelings of him:

i reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally dislike this guy. he's a hack with one trick and it's not even a good trick. he's like the staind of american pop. all of his melodies are so obvious and his sentiments & lyrics so elementary, and all his sappy, gloopy, loping ballads make me want to stop listening to the radio. "apologize" was one of the worst songs, or so i thought, but then he released others. they were all the worst, too. i can recall the melodies of his songs like i can recall the melody to "ring around the rosey", and often his songs, like "love like this" - one of the tiresome and irritating songs ever - are just as childish. i used to like jordin sparks as a radio artist but then she released "battlefield", written by tedder. it is loud and boisterous but cripplingly empty, and it asks the singer to not so much sing but yell, except that what is being yelled is such a paper thin view of emotion and feeling that it's patently ridiculous. also it's a direct rip off of a much better and more famous song. as a fan of pop i almost find it offensive. as if he needed to prove that he was even more idealess than we thought, he also sold kelly clarkson and beyonce the same song. it's like he's trying to become the human embodiment of a cookie cutter. neither are good. none of his productions have ever been interesting and in fact they are becoming exponentially more bland. his songs are weighing down pop radio and i wish he would stop working with r&b artists so he can stop so there will be at least some tedder-free stations on the radio.

i like "bleeding love" a lot but in the context of tedder's career i'm willing to chalk up its greatness to uh.... jesse mccartney! \(o_O)/

anyway thx yall. this has been building inside me. i really dislike ryan tedder and i hope i find some sympathizers

― meme-first attitude (J0rdan S.), Monday, July 27, 2009 5:07 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark

well, tim, there are many reasons why i don't like the song. i just think i should be entitled to list its over-saccharine nature as one of the reasons, without having to delve into an analysis of other songs that are overly sweet, and exactly how and why they are better. mainly i think halo is worse because the hook just isn't that good. and in general, even if something is deemed to be true by public opinion, i do try to be as specific as possible when explaining my reaction toward it.

but you're right -- it's not just that it's syrup-y. i guess i just don't like the hook or the lyrics.

i might suggest that powerballadry is one area of music where it can be harder somehow to reconcile its enjoyment with an awareness of its industrial machinations; perhaps people instantly resist the emotional violation that comes with the knowledge that tedder exists at all, and is doing this to us for a dayjob(ie he is the new diane warren).

i'm not saying tedder doesn't have his limitations but suddenly focusing on his "emptyness" seems a bit like a hastily-assembled defence mechanism to me - is depth really a key element in a successful powerballad? isn't the sheer breadth the depth?

tedder's just a functional hack among many, i think he's mainly got a target on his head because he's also the OneRepublic guy

grey's anatomy rock is okay to dislike yeah?

I think part of his lightning rod appeal is that his hackwork is so recognizable, where your average pop hack's work is more anonymous.

xxp: The problem is most of Tedder's work doesn't have the necessary breadth to make power balladry work. He usually takes one piece of melody and rams it into the ground instead of expanding it into hugeness. This work's when you're The-Dream, but he generally works in a more rhythm-oriented millieu. The major exception in his case is "Umbrella", but he had the good sense to use a big melodic hook in addition to, and notably before delving into one-word repitition.

yeah i kinda think umbrella unravels lots of ur arguments wrt the dreams use of rep

feel like i wanna quote that lester bangs thing bout astral weeks too

see i don't get that -- i've yet to really go "oh yeah, that's a Tedder chorus alright" -- heard "Halo" and "Already Gone" a bunch of times before anyone pointed out the supposed uncanny similarity that i still don't totally buy

i only really get the link between halo and bleeding love on a wtf lyrical level

see i don't get that -- i've yet to really go "oh yeah, that's a Tedder chorus alright" -- heard "Halo" and "Already Gone" a bunch of times before anyone pointed out the supposed uncanny similarity that i still don't totally buy

― some dude, Wednesday, November 4, 2009 1:17 PM (19 minutes ago)

the beats are like, identical dude

i suppose if ur not receptive to the idea of top40 rnb copping some tricks from like the fray or the calling then ur gonna be all kneejerk hating this because i think a little predictabliity is maybe part of the appeal

the beats are like, identical dude

you mean the tempos? or the string arrangements? because "Halo"'s drums are a hollow, spacious clomp, and "Already Gone" has more of a stately live snare/hi-hat thing

it's funny how the one thing people really got stuck on is that the first word in both songs is "remember," but it falls on a completely different beat in each song and the overall meter and vocal melody is pretty different too

already gone isn't really vintage tedder imo and i didn't know it was him but i can see how on a really obvious level it has his signature but in a vague could-be-anyone-doing a sort of stock tedderish song way

lol tedder minus auteurist touch

soooo ya quit commas, did ya? :P

yeah i think i'm getting carpal tunnel so i'm tryna minimise my keystrokes haha

i might suggest that powerballadry is one area of music where it can be harder somehow to reconcile its enjoyment with an awareness of its industrial machinations; perhaps people instantly resist the emotional violation that comes with the knowledge that tedder exists at all, and is doing this to us for a dayjob(ie he is the new diane warren).

i'm not saying tedder doesn't have his limitations but suddenly focusing on his "emptyness" seems a bit like a hastily-assembled defence mechanism to me - is depth really a key element in a successful powerballad? isn't the sheer breadth the depth?

Yeah this is basically what I was thinking. "It's different with The-Dream" partly means "The-Dream is much better" but I think also refers a little bit to the fact that we all accept and enjoy hack-ness (esp. lyrically) in R&B, whereas I think it's precisely Tedder's background in Grey's Anatomy Rock and its allusions of emotional-authenticity-for-the-masses (Snow Patrol, The Fray etc.) that makes it so much more fun to point to the man behind the curtain who's pulling all the levers to make the wizard of oz lightshow and say "do you see, he is a fraud!" Like, even if we're not invested in rock we still enjoy pointing out how it doesn't really live up to its own standards.

What I find interesting about Tedder is that he actually keeps his most empty stuff for himself: "Stop & Stare" is almost the perfect Grey's Anatomy anthem (but for the fact of being nowhere as good as, like, "How To Save A Life"), formalist and meaningless with a chorus like a piece of origami. The best stuff he's been involved with - "Halo", "Bleeding Love" - relies on singers who possess a subtlety and range he lacks. Esp. with "Halo" Beyonce's phrasing in the verses is just fantastic, and I think that this is the real value of the balladic approach generally on I Am..., there's so much more dynamism and nuance in Beyonce's ballad work here than there used to be (pre-"Irreplaceable"). The "emptiness" of a tune like "Halo" provides a perfect vehicle for this.

"Already Gone" is lesser (though still good I think) because it basically floats along at the same level throughout; "Battlefield" fails partly because there's no groundwork laid for the fireworks that ensue, as a listener it's like Jordin is at the top of a building saying "come up and join me!" but there's no stairs or lift or anything. Also I don't think it suits Jordin's persona, which up to now has been 100% about approachability.

What I find interesting about Tedder is that he actually keeps his most empty stuff for himself:

By "stuff" do you mean 'songs' or `performances'? I learned to love "Apologize" after several months of overplay on the local top 40 radio, knowing noting about Tedder except the guy sounded like he'd found the best Enrique Iglesias ballad ever written. Someone with better pipes would have clobbered this thing.

IT'S TOOOOO LAAAYYYYTE

yeah, i kind of like that song :/ ...

i think Halo would sound a lot better if the chorus were fleshed out. coming off the heels of that verse, you could do something more interesting than hollering that one word over and over again. it's just kind of... nothing.

and YES i am totally done talking about that song now! i don't even want to say its name ever again! i just felt a serious need to articulate what it was about it, and i think that has been accomplished now. thanks.

coming off the heels of that verse, you could do something more interesting than hollering that one word over and over again. it's just kind of... nothing.

― oops i accidentally made it personal (surm), Wednesday, 4 November 2009 22:35 (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha sry to pull you back in, but ^this^ is just kind of... everything! the key to the song! i couldnt imagine enjoying it nearly as much if the chorus were just more virtuosity heaped on top, although i could see maybe how a mariah devotee might. (no shots just sayin.)

i don't mean more virtuosity, though. actually, at first, i was thinking if she were singing it quieter, with some different effects, i might like it more -- or if it were just a different chorus altogether, tbh.

plodding, i think, is the best word to describe how i feel about the chorus.

i think Halo would sound a lot better if the chorus were fleshed out. coming off the heels of that verse, you could do something more interesting than hollering that one word over and over again. it's just kind of... nothing.

― oops i accidentally made it personal (surm), Wednesday, November 4, 2009 5:35 PM (1 hour ago)

i don't begrudge you for hatin on the song in particular, whatever i'm burned out now too, but sometimes verbose, great verses gotta be followed by exasperated, cathartic, dumb choruses. so yeah dislike the song but as an umbrella criticism it's not really vaild

i don't think i was making an umbrella criticism, though. i just think that in this particular instance, the chorus sounds plodding and uninspired. there are ways to create a minimal, cathartic chorus that doesn't sound boring. that's kind of how i felt about the chorus of "knock you down." kind of stupid, simple, but cathartic and ultimately OK.

i thought i pretty explicitly excused your crits as specific and non-umbrella!

ok cool, wasn't sure :)

i do very much agree with you, though, regarding cathartic choruses. there are a lot of songs i love for the verses -- songs in which the chorus serves mainly as a kind of breather.

"plodding", i mean, yeah - it kinda is! it is practically exhausted with almost defeated-seeming admiration for annoying wrinkly puppy face man. i like this song's whole counterintuitive thing of a love song that sounds as if it should be a post-traumatic resolve anthem, it's weirdly rewarding.

surm maybe put up an example of a "minimal, cathartic chorus" if you've got one in mind? we could go round the houses forever on this otherwise.

i really do think "knock you down" is a decent example, tho certainly not perfect. when i first heard it, i thought the chorus was really dumb. but after a while, it hit me that it was like a big, over-simplified, feel-good release.

halo doesn't sound like it's going for a release in its chorus -- it sounds more like it's going for a huge climax with an oversimplified hook, and you're right, it is exhausting.

you're also right that it sounds defeated, which is very strange.

xxp: The problem is most of Tedder's work doesn't have the necessary breadth to make power balladry work. He usually takes one piece of melody and rams it into the ground instead of expanding it into hugeness.

― swagless price (The Reverend), Wednesday, 4 November 2009 18:14 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i really don't see how repetition per se is supposed to invalidate emotional breadth - i can sympathise with taking this position on listening to say 'battlefield', but as tim points out there are plenty other reasons for that song's flaws which aren't tedder-centric by default. (unless of course you want them to be, cf unjustly using that argument on 'halo'.)

haha, now i'm listening to it again can i give a shout out to "hit me like a ray of SUUAAaAAaAaAARGGGHN" as she goes in on the second verse, it is just the mount olympus of nuts.

the defence now calls forth the good people of jamaica, whose judgement never errs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEypFdvbUA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ez2TpFuQk

you mean the tempos? or the string arrangements? because "Halo"'s drums are a hollow, spacious clomp, and "Already Gone" has more of a stately live snare/hi-hat thing

― some dude, Wednesday, November 4, 2009 10:57 AM Bookmark

dude, it's the chord progression

halo's is a bit more advanced, though

i dunno someone says "beat" i don't think "chord progression"

i tend to use "beat" and "production" interchangeably but i get you

tim and rtc's defenses of tedder seem more like defenses of "halo" specifically, and i kinda agree, but a lot of the tedder hate is retrospective - it's more to do with seeing his name on credits and your heart sinking, or listening to the new leona lewis single or alexandra burke and hearing his one song OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and it gets worse each time.

surm maybe put up an example of a "minimal, cathartic chorus" if you've got one in mind?

i think a better counterexample to tedder's bludgeoning repetition is the new alicia keys joint - it's just as grand and mountainous

as for "bleeding love" it's distinct enough from tedder's other material that i kinda credit jesse mccartney more for it :/

again, doesn't that all boil down to kneejerk rejection of the loss of powerballad innocence? i should have said earlier, i totally agree with some dude above on the overstated obviousness of the tedderography - it's there if you wanna or are disposed to hearing it but no way does it scream itself out any more than a hundred other popular moves that don't get met with the same rabid opprobrium whatsoever. if i scroll up (lol i genuinely can't remember, ROLL THE DICE) am i gonna see a lotta eyerolling about beyonce doing 'diva'? this is why i'm postulating it's a powerballad-specific (not even just ballad) pathology.

also that leona lewis seems aight to me? i can happily listen to that without foaming at the mouth or anything. the burke less so, but then she is boring - nice drum tho!

Esp. with "Halo" Beyonce's phrasing in the verses is just fantastic

The only thing I dislike more than Beyonce's yelping on the chorus of "Halo" is the strangulated growling she does trying to push out the lower notes in the verses. I don't really want my love songs to sound like the person who is singing them is massively constipated.

am i gonna see a lotta eyerolling about beyonce doing 'diva'?

ha yeah, but not from me.

powerballads tread quite a fine line between formula and individuality - the gear-change key shift, the battering ram vocal moment, they're all gloriously inevitable, but i think most people demand something distinct within this - the narrative or subject matter or imagery, whatever. tedder doesn't provide this, his take on that formula is too basic (which is fine, it works once) and too ubiquitous.

"diva" is so obviously just meant to be a version of "a milli", it's barely different to people rapping over the original beat on a mixtape. i guess powerballads can't get away with that sort of cross-track referentialism so much. unless you're mariah.

remind me why perry isnt as universally reviled as geir again?

I am, to some people.

btw fuck you

i mean you do realise you're doing the same thing all the time right? just not so racisty obv.

every single fucking person on this thread is doing the same thing all the time, I don't think that the fact that you disagree with me makes me particularly special

especially since I have posted less to this conversation than most of the other people people participating

oh riiiight so i'm picking on you now. fine look: i'm a dick, you're a dick, we are incompatible dicks, how about we just keep it moving and not fuck the thread up.

but i think most people demand something distinct within this - the narrative or subject matter or imagery, whatever. tedder doesn't provide this, his take on that formula is too basic (which is fine, it works once) and too ubiquitous.

again this seems overstated to me - i mean you got the cardiovascular system one, the historical war reenactment one, the ouranophobic one... haha that sounds dumb obv but i maintain that if in a parallel universe tedder hadn't wrote those same songs the lines of apathy being drawn would not be so easily determined. on a side-note i suppose the question of how people go about reacting to a faulty scenius could be mildly interesting.

actually reading that again reminds me of when i was sure the clutch (despite being like 7 of them) had a really discernable songwriting pattern. to this day i can't logically back it up but i still feel it to be true. what happened to that lot anyway?

or rather not feel it to be true but just have that mad creeping distortive SUSPICION of being gamed or something that makes me feel the cold edge of the cookiecutter on my soft braindough. and to some extent this is what i feel the anti-tedder anumus to be driven by.

*animus

In terms of lyrics, Tedder's repetitiveness is structural rather than content-based - he clusters a whole bunch of images around a single thematic unit (love-as-wounding in "Bleeding Love", light in "Halo", war in "Battlefield", immobility in "Stop & Stare") and then cycles through them with a certain air of ruthlessness.

"Umbrella" aside, this is not typical in R&B, which tends to be more conversational, with only a loose relationship to a theme which it orbits elliptically.

Lyrically, my criticism of Tedder would be that this perfectionism and focus drains his songs of humanism or realism; they exist in a world of concepts rather than relationships or actions.

(and it's interesting to think of how unusual "Umbrella" is for The-Dream in this regard: part of my love for Electrik Red is how human their songs feel, the way that they establush a theme and then chip away at it with all these asides and ambiguities)

I think this then feeds into people's sense that Tedder is somehow trying to trick them; the overwhelming sense is one of craft, esp. given the use of crashing drums and repeated words in the chorus becomes something of a trade signature.

for me he is like the rnb jodorowsky

beyonce startin some shit in 2009

lol "establush" actually kinda works.

One of the consequences of these songs existing in a "world of concepts" is that they sound very knowing: there's no room for uncertainty or contradiction in Tedder's workj because the entire purpose of the song is to hypostasize a relationship into a single motif. The difference-of-degree between "Love is a Battlefield" (the song) and "Why does love always feel like a battlefield?" (Jordin's question) is that Tedder/Jordin, their use of "feel like" notwithstanding, are actually much more insistent on the verisimilitude of their analogy, there's an implied threat "I can keep extending this metaphor ad infinitum and it will still work, do you see??"

I think this then feeds into people's sense that Tedder is somehow trying to trick them

i don't think the fear of being tricked is what people dislike about tedder, everyone knows that when you head into a powerballad you'll be suspending some sense of reality - what people dislike is that tedder is so obvious and heavy-handed with it that he doesn't even let you do this satisfactorily.

as i said upthread re: "halo" when the album was released, before i had any opinion on tedder -

too obvious maybe? it does have a sort of undeniable force to it but it's probably the least interesting ballad, everything is signposted pretty heavily. i think 'hello' is actually far far more hammy and ridiculous, and i definitely prefer it

"hammy" was the wrong word there but i find i can't be swept up in tedder's powerballads because the signposts are all so huge and it ends up being a weary plod from one to the next. insofar as "halo" specifically works it's because the idea of craft and work are so central to beyoncé's businesslike persona, so her singing this huge, shamelessly obvious song makes sense.

i mean do the teddefenders here actually rep for his work outside of "bleeding love" and "halo"?

uh apologise is the best one!

also battlefield, but yeah its not like i track his stuff down either

lol pls

battlefield i really felt like i needed a valium the first time i heard it

shit is pretty ubiquitous which is prolly why ur all bein so dogged in ur vitriol

yeah that's why. it couldn't be because she is screaming THE BIGGEST CLICHE ON THE PLANET OVER AND OVER IN YOUR HEAD

ok but if u only had to hear it once it would be hilarious ADMIT IT

i think the "get ur armour" bit is a good hook too, like its kinda flip amidst the bellowing

"I think this then feeds into people's sense that Tedder is somehow trying to trick them

i don't think the fear of being tricked is what people dislike about tedder, everyone knows that when you head into a powerballad you'll be suspending some sense of reality - what people dislike is that tedder is so obvious and heavy-handed with it that he doesn't even let you do this satisfactorily.

Yes but obviously this won't-get-fooled-again resentment only exists when you can see the trap and won't get tricked.

Pop that actually works is always about tricking the listener.

To be absolutely clear I obviously don't really like Tedder's approach very much, I just think the antipathy people have is interesting and mildly pathological (not a criticism: pretty much any passionately felt hatred is pathological) - that sinking feeling you get when you see his name on the credits means more than just "he is not a good songwriter."

i.e. Tedder's crime (or one of them anyway) is to make you sensitive to the fact that you're being asked to suspend reality; "successful" power-balladry seduces you into doing so without realising that that is what is required of you.

ah come on pathological is a bit much

also what about his non-powerballad stuff. i like he said she said and i thought it got some love at the time here

its like get naked (i got a plan) as performed by rachel mcadams creepy little sister in mean girls

i.e. Tedder's crime (or one of them anyway) is to make you sensitive to the fact that you're being asked to suspend reality; "successful" power-balladry seduces you into doing so without realising that that is what is required of you.

yes, this is what i said! i don't think it makes him a "bad" songwriter, though he's not a great one; he's just horribly limited and i really, really hope he doesn't get any more high-profile work.

hackish, is the word i'm looking for.

haha still can't believe ramzi doesn't like halo!!!

like actually in shock, lex u r a loose canon though so tbh i'm not surprised u don't

i do! but only sometimes and i hate tedder more

haha so confused

look, if anyone gets me started on that song again, they'll be sorry :P

now i'm gonna listen to it with r|t|c's obvservations in mind and i better not start liking it

so uh, disappear

i like that one

also, hella subtle

Lex's attempts to reconcile his sometimes-enjoyment of "halo" with his hatred of tedder is precisely what I meant by "pathological" - and it's something I totally understand and regularly feel myself. This is what listening to pop is about.

"Disappear" is great.

i'm not "attempting" to reconcile it, i have reconciled it! and it wasn't hard to reconcile. tedder's songwriting works well once if performed by a particular kind of singer, and even then it's towards the bottom rung of the beyoncé album. every time since, headaches and irritation ensue.

Okay sure, I wasn't saying you were doomed to fail or anything.

Anyway I'm pretty sympathetic to the position: I think whenever I'm really passionately into an area of music, I tend to care a lot about what a particular trend or tendency of whatever "means" for that area of music, and become vexed about it even if I quite like individual instances of it.

yeah in that sense i have far more active antipathy towards redone than tedder (i think sarge'n'surm hate him far more than i do). with redone, it's like...when dance music and house beats started to infiltrate chart/urban stuff, it felt so promising, like the perfect synthesis of my tastes, and now i wish it had never happened because fucking everything sounds like fucking redone and it does my fucking head in.

What has redone, um, done, anyway?

r|t|c's obvservations

pwned :(

totally didn't intend that!

What has redone, um, done, anyway?

Oh god. You want to talk someone with one trick repeated ad nauseum. I can guess if a song is by Tedder and be right a decent amount of the time. With RedOne it takes about 30 seconds to know for certain. He started off doing a lot of Swedish, and Kat DeLuna's whole album. Broke America properly via Takin' Back My Love (Enrique/Ciara), and the really obnoxious synthy tracks on GaGa's album (Just Dance, Poker Face, LoveGame, Money Honey, Boys Boys Boys). Cassie's latest single, Let's Get Crazy. Fire Burning by Sean Kingston. Um...that one track on Little Boots' album that sounds like everything else (Remedy?). I'm sure that there's other stuff I'm missing. Perhaps not but he FEEELS like he's been more ubiquitous than that - maybe it's other people grabbing his bag of tricks sometimes.

N.B.: I don't hate him as much as Lex does, but the 2009 trend of brain-bludgeoning electro&b with no subtlety whatsoever is slowly turning even decent clubbing (read: clubs that play r&b, dancehall, rap, and not just house) into eurotrash central.

I pretty much agree with the above. I basically prefer any kind of r&b/rap-house fusion than this kind right now. Wish it was all "Please Don't Stop The Music" and "I Know You Want Me"...

I don't know if anyone's posted this yet but I just can't resist. Effing Hilaious

http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=604/mylink.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsalLteD6Pc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEINvi_9UB8

both are hot imo

and the songs are great too

RedOne as done the new Sugababes single too - as if losing Keisha wasn't already a hammer blow to the 'character' of their tunes! That said I really like 'Remedy' and Poker Face

sooo, halo is much better as a dance trak, it turns out

(last.fm)

uh

http://vimeo.com/11465235

new video. watch it.

uhhh wow. that was pretty much the biggest turnaround on a song that a video has elicited from me. so weird to release a random and unremarkable bonus track as the 948578334th single from an album and then put so much effort into the video that it turns out amazing. raddled, middle-aged darkside sequel to ashanti's "good good", 10 years on.

kinda love the song!

yeah i love what i was hearing there but i also know i've had the mp3 for over a year and it's never inspired me to give it a second thought, much less second listen!

tell me more abt this dance vers. of halo tho

lololol at her dusting her grammys in the vid:

http://i40.tinypic.com/n2ocbr.jpg

typical beyoncé.

it's just fuckin good. it's like, it lifts all the heaviness out of the song

(xp)

lol grammys

While I'm glad I can buy these bonus tracks individually, I'm still so sick of these "deluxe editions" that feature new singles and punish the fans that bought the original album.

Love this video so much, I want to thank Lady Gaga, Jay-z and Solange for all inspiring a crazier, thuggier Beyonce

can we please quit crediting Lady Gaga with shit without doing our due diligence? Beyonce has been done the "crazy & thug" thing for a while, not that I get much of either from the video.

remember when the videos for "Deja Vu" and "Ring the Alarm" came out and everyone thought she'd lost her damn mind?

yeah for real -- the internet's long had gifs of crazy beyonce

Not with that pinup girl weave she's sporting though, mmm. Song does kind of remind me of Solange's Sandcastles, no surprise she co-wrote it.

not to say she should be credited for it, but i think what you're picking up on is that this look did kind of originate in the fusion with gaga, in the videophone video (which is definitely the better 'phone video, imo)

The new Beyonce video. I don't understand how anyone can be so damn infinitely sexy. She is truly one of the mysteries of the universe.

^^^

i love when she's on the phone in the beginning, her voice

Now, now, honey
You better sit down and look around
Cause you must've bumped yo head

check my credentials

yes, she is amazing

While I'm glad I can buy these bonus tracks individually, I'm still so sick of these "deluxe editions" that feature new singles and punish the fans that bought the original album.

― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, May 4, 2010 5:26 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, the deluxe edition that this song is on was released at the same time as the 'standard' album a year and a half ago, that's the big thing now. which is in a way even more fucked up.

I'm pretty sure that deluxe edition didn't come out at the exact same time, did it? Otherwise I think I would have bought that one. Maybe it was just at select retailers at the time? I don't know, either way, the trend annoys me. Its why I still haven't bought the latest Rihanna, just waiting for the inevitable expanded edition at this point.

exact same release date

the videophone video (which is definitely the better 'phone video, imo)

― i fake it so real, i am beyonce (surm), Monday, May 10, 2010 4:38 AM (13 hours ag

otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm otm

I don't think there's any doubt about that

well i did use a lot of otms

no pussy wagon, no credibility. you guys ARE all dudes afaik, i feel like i am watching a porno w/video phone (not saying I don't like it..)

uh, I am pretty sure I'm the only straight dude agreeing with that position

it's just directed better

the bettie page bit looks better in videophone

Telephone is a jumbled mess, it should be a lot more fun than it is. At least with Video Phone it's fun to watch Beyonce do her thing.

xp to Dan - sexual preference doesn't really matter (though maybe I would enjoy the 'I am watching porn' aspect more if I were into ladies)

imo the Videophone vid is boner city and Telephone is mostly a longass ironic buzzkill

LOL that sums up what I was trying to say sorta, but obv I am a buzzkill too :)

i <3 u

<3 u too baby, ILX (in no small part thanks to you) has made me start listening to Gaga, more Beyonce than I ever did, Ke$ha and Roisin Murphy all in the last week. I am a bouncing ball of catchy pop music.

Videophone rant inspired by my best friend & I watching it together in uncomfortable silence (same best friend who participated in threesome for former boyfriend's birthday! that's how raunchy video seemed. Heh.)

so Beyonce says her new album is inspired by Fela Kuti...

Possibly price-signalling that she intends to outdo Kanye in the track length stakes. Hopefully means lots of stuff along the lines of the extended mix of "Get Me Bodied"?

I hope she just means choreography-wise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqnQC3RODl0&feature=related

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/02/beyonce_sports_black_face_to_honor_fela_kuti.html

no one said she was particularly smart

RIP white beyonce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6X0PqIWfzQ&feature=player_embedded