Is anyone else getting a little bit bored of Beyonce’s idea of feminism?
I mean, “if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it”??? What the hell? I’m not bashing marriage, but the notion that if you want to keep your woman, you have to buy her a big-ass ring is a bit of a fallacy.
If I Were A Boy is not a song about penis-envy. As an independent woman, apparently Beyoncé doesn’t suffer from that affliction.
Wise-cracks aside, this single will blow you away. It is not what you’d expect from Beyoncé Knowles. Gone (for the moment?) are the tired R&B routines I was complaining about when I reviewed Green Light a year ago. Instead, I would say that If I Were A Boy is the most conventional song she’s ever released.
What’s the song about, I hear you ask. Well, it’s about a girl imagining how she would behave toward women if she ‘were a boy’. Get it? Lyrically, it’s a tad sanctimonious, because Beyoncé clearly doesn’t understand the male psyche, assuming that she’d still behave like a a girl while encumbered with man-parts. She just doesn’t understand our struggle, fellas!
It took a whole weekend to recover from the shock – Jay-Z and Beyonce Knowles? Married? And not a magazine deal or cash-in anywhere in sight?
Isn’t that fresh? Two of the biggest stars on the planet, and they shirked any kind of publicity surrounding their wedding in favour of having an intimate ceremony with close family and friends. The media reports I’m reading mention how private the two are about their relationship – hell, I don’t think they’ve ever officially confirmed a relationship!
Beyonce And Shakira have managed to retain the top spot in the UK singles chart with their track, Beautiful Liar.
They fought off stiff competition from The Manic Street Preachers who took the number two spot with Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, a duet with The Cardigans singer Nina Persson.
The highest new entry in the singles chart came from new US rock band Hellogoodbye at number 10 with Here (In Your Arms).Â
I caught the video for this Shakira/Beyonce collaboration for the first time today. Funnily enough, it’s hard to tell the difference between Shakira and Beyonce. It’s a bit like that sex scene in The Devil’s Advocate where the woman morphs between Keanu’s wife and his co-worker….
Anyhoo, you don’t pair up these particular singers without having one hell of a hot track to play, and Beautiful Liar is red hot! You’ve got a smouldering Eastern-influenced track which opens with one or the other panting some lyrics.
I’m not afraid to admit that I was an early fan of Destiny’s Child. There was always something aluring about their ‘independent woman’ attitude, infectious tunes and skimpy clothes. Beyonce could kick my ass to the curb any day of the week…
That all changed when Beyonce seemed to become a parody of her sexy self and turned into a loathsome clothes horse as displayed on the pages of Heat magazine every week. Then came the gangsta’s moll phase, when she hooked up with Jay-Z. The girlie Beyonce was replaced by a horrible soft porn version. Not nice.
With the release of Irreplacable, Beyonce seems to have gone back to her roots. And a welcome return it is.
The instrumentation is stripped right back: basically just guitar and a simple drumbeat carrying the tune. A very simple verse/chorus arrangement is enhanced by Beyonce’s most honest vocal performance in recent memory. Beautiful melody in the verses and a chorus so catchy it’ll take a lobotomy to stop you singing it.
Subject matter is a return to Independent Women and Bills, Bills, Bills territory – very much woman on top type of thing.
The video for Irreplaceable carries on the ’stripped down’ theme – Beyonce looking her most natural in ages. The storyline reminds me slightly of the Emotion single Destiny’s Child release a couple of years ago. There’s a little bit of posturing by Ms Knowles, enough to keep the lads happy without being as OTT as her other recent singles.
You mus’ not know ’bout a-me, you mus’ not know ’bout a-me….(contributed by Levee)
