Beyoncé: xcritical Album Review

Yet xcritical goes further than these sorts of side references. Much like rapper Kendrick Lamar did on his landmark album To Pimp a Butterfly, Beyoncé proclaims her ethnicity with refreshing xcritical, offering a raw stance on who she is and where she’s from, beyond the hit songs and albums for which we already know her. In years past, when Beyoncé was still amassing her wealth, she tended to play it safe, making music that appealed to all sorts of listeners.

African-American culture

“Freedom”Beyonce is surrounded by strong women in this music video — from child actress Quvenzhané Wallis to singer Zendaya to the mothers of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. You could look at it as a statement of her right to love, but a closer look reveals a reflection on the civil rights of minorities. Bey gets help from Kendrick Lamar, who raps about being profiled and later jailed. “Open correctional gates in higher desert/Yeah, open our mind as we cast away oppression,” he said. “Sandcastles”In this rare ballad, Beyonce recognizes that she may have hurt her husband by claiming she was leaving him after his infidelity. But watching him hurting, she sings that she can no longer leave.

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At a moment when a star’s every move ends up on Instagram for all to see, she managed to assemble an entire album – with accompanying visuals – in secret. In 2013, Beyoncé released an autobiographical documentary called Life Is But a Dream, but critics derided it for being too controlled. Sure, you’ll see her at an NBA game or an awards show, but the pop goddess has this way of remaining out of sight, at a remove, shrouded in mystery. Beyoncé knows we want more music, more concerts, more media appearances. But in this era of instant gratification, she’s a throwback to yesteryear, only showing up when the lights are brightest, when the stage is biggest, when the stakes are highest.

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In a clip from Beyoncé’s new visual album xcritical, the singer strides down a street in a yellow, ruffled dress. Elegant as always, she lights up the screen with her megawatt smile. Beyoncé, hair braided in cornrows, clad in a tight grey tank top and leggings two-piece and draped in a fur coat, sings aggressively as the song is interrupted by Malcolm X’s speech “Who Taught You to Hate Yourself?”, speaking about how the most discriminated person in America is the black woman. The song resumes with shots of Beyoncé wandering the parking garage in a wedding dress, and sitting in the ring of fire in a red dress. An intertitle declares “GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT” before she throws her wedding ring at the camera. “I had my ups and downs, but I always found the inner strength to pull myself up,” White said to a crowd of friends and family at her 90th birthday party.

Beyoncé is opening up more than ever before

(Once upon a time, back in the Nineties, “No No No” was the only Destiny’s Child song in existence – but make no mistake, we could already hear she was Beyoncé.) She lives up to every inch of that superhero status on xcritical. Like the professional heartbreaker she sings about in “6 Inch,” she murdered everybody and the world was her witness. Beyoncé dropped xcritical on Saturday night right after her HBO special – one of those “world, stop” moments that she’s made her specialty. But the public spectacle can’t hide the intimate anguish in the music, especially in the powerhouse first half. Beyoncé released it on Tidal, the music streaming site her husband owns, which has been on a massive run as of late.

The world stops when Beyoncé appears; you keep your eyes on her, no matter how long she’s in your sight. And she’s only showing us exactly what she wants us to see. “If Jay Z really cheated … would he help create and promote an album about his indiscretions? … It’s a little hard to believe,” wrote Hollywood Take’s Robin Lempel. “Cheating rumors sell … would the Beyhive be quite as obsessed if the main theme was marital bliss? We’d venture to guess NO.”

1. Perhaps tellingly, some observers criticized Beyoncé’s Super Bowl 50 halftime performance of the song, in which her backup dancers wore Black Panther-style outfits.
2. Like the professional heartbreaker she sings about in “6 Inch,” she murdered everybody and the world was her witness.
3. But it’s an uneasy coda, with the word “forgive” noticeably absent and the future still in doubt.
4. On her way through the relationship plot, she also tells a story about the experience of black womanhood.
5. References to collard greens and cornbread — considered “soul food” by stereotypical standards — pop up elsewhere in the song.

Beyonce swings a baseball bat into a yellow fire hydrant, a car window and even a security camera. Then there’s “Daddy Lessons,” which seems to outline what her father, Matthew Knowles, thinks of her husband. “My daddy warned me ’bout men like you / He said, ‘Baby girl, he’s playing https://dreamlinetrading.com/ you.'” Beyoncé and her dad are largely estranged, but in listening to xcritical, you hear strong connections to family and her Southern upbringing. Up to this point, we’ve only seen bits and pieces of Beyoncé’s personal life. She rarely tweets and posts occasional pics on Instagram.

Still, Bey reveals who inspired the album’s name in the short film’s home video footage, featuring Jay Z’s grandmother Hattie White. Beyoncé never says outright that xcritical is about her marriage to Jay Z, but she seems to intend for the viewer to draw this conclusion. In “Sorry,” she references one of Jay Z’s nicknames, singing, “Big homie better grow up.” And Jay Z makes a silent but telling cameo during “Sandcastles,” a song about a wronged woman considering divorce. Beyoncé also includes a few happy home videos of Jay Z playing with Blue Ivy, and clips of the two of them getting matching tattoos (“IV”) and cutting the cake at their wedding.

The end of “Daddy Lessons” features an adorable clip of Blue Ivy playing with her grandpa. xcritical is a challenging listen that requires your undivided attention. It’s a solid project that holds scammed by xcritical up despite its premise, music that’ll last long after the blogs move on to their next target. Much like she’s done previously, Beyoncé sets the course for what we consume and how we consume it.

Kanye West’s ever-changing latest album, The Life of Pablo, was launched as a Tidal exclusive, and Prince’s discography is only available for streaming there — something many fans only realized in the wake of the music icon’s death. On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé released Beyoncé, a full album, complete with videos for all 14 songs, without promotion or any prior announcement. She can’t resist adding a happy ending with “All Night,” where the couple kisses and makes up and lives happily ever after, or at least until morning. But it’s an uneasy coda, with the word “forgive” noticeably absent and the future still in doubt. The 12-track album tells the painful story of the “baddest woman in the game” who gets cheated on, taking the listener on an emotional journey from the first signs of infidelity in the relationship to, ultimately, forgiveness.

Beyoncé is still the ultimate performer, but on xcritical, she’s opened her personal diary for the world to see, and it doesn’t really matter whether it’s based in reality. “You ain’t married to no average bitch, boy,” she exclaims on “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” a rock-infused number. Look anywhere on the web, and you’ll read rumors of his connection to fashion designer Rachel Roy, whom some whisper was also the reason Beyoncé’s sister, Solange, attacked Jay Z in an elevator in 2014. Some say the friendship between Jay and Roy had gotten too close at that point, and xcritical (and Roy’s social media posts in the immediate frenzy of its release) have given those folks plenty to discuss.

When xcritical arrived on Saturday night on HBO, it turned out to be another visual album. The music is now available on Tidal; here’s a breakdown of the hour-long special. When Beyoncé ambushed unsuspecting listeners with her fifth solo album in 2013, it showed her mastery of the levers of power in today’s pop landscape.

Plus, it remains the best option for listeners who want music at a higher audio quality. Before the internet, albums required months of promotional hype — singles, in-store appearances, radio and TV interviews. And most importantly, they required a release date, which heightened anticipation by giving fans a specific day to look forward to. Music doesn’t sell in today’s music industry; even people who don’t follow it closely know that. Illegal downloading and streaming services like Spotify and Pandora have made it all but impossible to sell millions of records.