In a world saturated by rolling news and dominated by the social media hive mind, genuine surprises are hard to come by. Hats off then, to Beyoncé. Her fifth album arrived at the end of December with so little fanfare that Kanye West’s stripped-back unveiling of ‘Yeezus’ seemed gratuitous by comparison.
‘Beyoncé’ went on to crush online sales records, confirming that its creator is a force almost unrivalled in popular music. On Haunted, the album’s second track, she sums up her surprise attack succinctly: “All this shit I do is boring, all these record labels boring. I don’t trust these record labels. I’m torn.”
This record is a telling blow in the war against hype, an anti-’ARTPOP’. While Lady Gaga is still floundering among the wreckage of that bloated build-up and rapid decline, Beyoncé is reaping the rewards of a calculated risk.
This display of power wiped clean the music press’s agenda for 2014; by bypassing the promotional routine, she sucked the life from the ‘will she/won’t she’ stories that were set to dominate.
Musically, ‘Beyoncé’ is a confident, mature statement. It possesses its fair share of misses - too many earnest ballads, the crass and unnecessary use of a sample from the Challenger disaster on XO - but elsewhere it’s a sharp, sophisticated R&B record, one that ditches Beyoncé’s finely-tuned persona and tackles sexuality, gender and feminism in open, engaging fashion. It’s also tremendous, innuendo-laced fun at times.
As is now customary, the record was pieced together by a huge team of producers, songwriters and collaborators, but its cohesiveness is another strength. The beats here are brooding and portentous, while stabs of synth jut across melodies before disappearing in a flash to be replaced by cyclical vocal samples.
Drunk In Love is slick and, beneath the bluster of Jay Z’s rhymes, endearing, while the ‘70s funk inflection of Blow is infectious enough to make its bawdiest lyric (“Can you lick my Skittles?”) wry rather than ridiculous. Elsewhere, Frank Ocean adds doo-wop to the menu on the excellent Superpower and the album’s opener, Pretty Hurts, erupts from a rote beginning into one of the album’s melodic and thematic highlights, dealing with body image and the pressure placed on young women to conform to media-defined types.
A sample from Nigerian author ChimamandaNgoziAdichie’s recent TED Talk on feminism adorns the confrontational ***Flawless, a track that treads a similar sonic path to M.I.A and poses valid questions about the construct of marriage and Beyoncé’s status as half of one of the most-recognisable married couples in popular culture.
‘Beyoncé’ is an album designed to provoke a response - whether as a sweat-soaked dancefloor filler or reappraisal of a public figure - but it rarely dispenses with the nuts and bolts of being a great pop record.
Thu February 20 2014 - GLASGOW The SSE Hydro
Fri February 21 2014 - GLASGOW SSE Hydro
Sun February 23 2014 - BIRMINGHAM LG Arena
Mon February 24 2014 - BIRMINGHAM LG Arena
Tue February 25 2014 - MANCHESTER Phones 4u Arena
Wed February 26 2014 - MANCHESTER Phones 4u Arena
Fri February 28 2014 - LONDON O2 Arena
Sat March 01 2014 - LONDON O2 Arena
Sun March 02 2014 - LONDON O2 Arena
Tue March 04 2014 - LONDON O2 Arena
Wed March 05 2014 - LONDON O2 Arena
Thu March 06 2014 - LONDON O2 Arena
Sat March 08 2014 - DUBLIN The O2
Sun March 09 2014 - DUBLIN The O2
Tue March 11 2014 - DUBLIN The O2
Wed March 12 2014 - DUBLIN The O2
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