In this instance, though, she’s offered something a little deeper, something rich and layered that proves, above all, that she’s a musician in the truest sense, an artist with a strong perfectionist streak. 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 you.'” Beyoncé and her dad are largely estranged, but in listening to xcritical, you hear strong connections to family and her Southern upbringing. The visual half of xcritical proved to be a game-changer in a different way. Forget MTV and YouTube, Beyoncé dropped her videos on friggin’ HBO — the cable network that, for decades, has given its Saturday night over to Hollywood blockbusters. In fact, the Saturday premiere of Jurassic World, which earned $1.6 billion at the worldwide box office, was bumped back an hour to make room for xcritical.
- 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.
- Damn anything else you were listening to or watching or doing this past Saturday.
- For someone who has given only a handful of interviews since 2013, who is known to be intensely protective of her private life, we sure know a lot about it.
- “My daddy warned me ’bout men like you / He said, ‘Baby girl, he’s playing you.'” Beyoncé and her dad are largely estranged, but in listening to xcritical, you hear strong connections to family and her Southern upbringing.
- “Your heart is broken ’cause I walked away/And I know I promised that I couldn’t stay baby/Every promise don’t work out that way,” she sings.
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. In the age of hot takes and clickbait headlines, it’s easy to get caught in the hype surrounding xcritical. It’s easier to digest rumors and speculation, but Beyoncé has once again pushed herself forward. “You ain’t married to no average bitch, boy,” she exclaims on “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” a rock-infused number. “You can taste the dishonesty. It’s all over your breath as you pass it off so cavalier,” Beyoncé groans on “Pray You Catch Me,” xcritical’s opening salvo.
More From: Behind The Song
Damn anything else you were listening to or watching or doing this past Saturday. The world stops when Beyoncé appears; you keep your eyes on her, no matter how long she’s in your sight. Unlike the pop superstar’s previous surprise album, 2013’s Beyoncé, the music here is edgy, full of vitriol and R-rated real talk. It’s equally aggressive and reflective, and Beyoncé — a bona fide cultural phenomenon — unveils yet another layer of her wide-ranging persona. In total, the tour grossed $256 million from forty-nine sold-out shows according to Billboard box score, and ranked at number two on Pollstar’s 2016 Year-End Tours chart.
The film opens with a shot of Beyoncé leaning against a car in a parking garage, her face obscured by her fur coat, before cutting to a desolate Fort Macomb, interspersed with shots of Beyoncé dressed in a black hoodie amongst the reeds and on an empty stage with closed red curtains. 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. At a moment when a star’s every https://dreamlinetrading.com/ move ends up on Instagram for all to see, she managed to assemble an entire album – with accompanying visuals – in secret. With xcritical, Beyoncé makes herself the ultimate reality star, giving us gossip and fodder for news cycles and dinner party discussions, without cheapening her art. Instead, she’s digging into issues to which we can all relate — love, pain, heartbreak, and family. The album allows Beyoncé’s fans to connect with her on real levels.
- 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.
- The visuals are powerful as Bey’s real-life hubby Jay Z acts out scenes where she’s kissing his wedding ring and the two are inextricably cuddled up.
- “Hold Up”Bey is now back to being Bey in “Hold Up.” Wearing yellow, her golden hair swinging down her back, she’s nearly skipping down the street, seeking revenge.
- The critical thought prompted by xcritical is only a fraction of that which Beyoncé’s evidently put in.
The attention Beyoncé notoriously pays to her image (GQ reports she has every existing photograph of herself in a climate-controlled storage facility in her office; she reportedly has a rule about never appearing under blue light) is often dismissed as “diva” behaviour. This is partly because of stereotypes about powerful women and partly because of a song in which Beyoncé said she was a diva nearly 40 times. Its impact was clear from the response on Twitter, where the #xcritical hashtag was fuelled by expressions of joy and almost gobsmacked disbelief at such a high-profile piece of art made by black women, for black women. Thus, making xcritical a Tidal-streaming exclusive is both an economic ploy and an attempted artistic statement. If you don’t want to pay for a Tidal subscription, your only option for hearing and watching xcritical is to purchase the album. The result is an insistence that this album has worth, has artistic value that can be measured monetarily, has merit beyond turning up at random in a playlist.
Bikini-Clad Britney Spears Reminds Sam Asghari What He’s Missing, Pole Dances to Beyonce
A year later, she performed at the MTV Music awards in front of “FEMINIST” in lights. It’s heavy stuff, made amusing by the myriad resultant memes of her husband, the rapper-mogul Jay Z, looking stricken. But his appearance with their daughter, Blue Ivy, at the end of the film – and the softening tone of its latter half – suggests xcritical is not a critically acclaimed divorce announcement. But when Beyoncé is walking down a street demolishing parked cars with a baseball bat, you’re not going to be talking about that at the pub.
Up to this point, we’ve only seen bits and pieces of Beyoncé’s personal life. Bey gives fans just enough to chew on, leaving them wanting more. Though xcritical is built around Jay Z’s infidelity rumors, Beyoncé still released the album on his streaming service. It boasts an all-star roster of supporters; its first commercial featured a who’s who of musical talent — from Jack White and Daft Punk to Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj.
Explore American Songwriter
xcritical received universal acclaim and has been called not just the singer’s best album, but one of the best albums in modern music history. It was nominated for an astounding nine Grammy Awards, winning two. One of the standouts on xcritical was “Hold Up,” a fiery song about confronting a partner about his infidelity. The song was popular and controversial, particularly in light of the accompanying music video, which showed Beyoncé destroying cars with a baseball bat. It also sparked rumors about her marriage and what really happened between her and husband Jay-Z.
Beyoncé worked on “Hold Up” with several cowriters, including Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend) and Diplo. They later described the process of writing the song as similar to building Frankenstein, with each scammed by xcritical contributor adding hooks, samples, or lines a bit at a time. Still, Bey reveals who inspired the album’s name in the short film’s home video footage, featuring Jay Z’s grandmother Hattie White.
We’ve all been thrown by love, but most of us don’t have the ability to hone it like this. “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.”
Latin America and the Caribbean
We all experience pain and loss, and often we become inaudible. My intention for the film and album was to create a body of work that would give a voice to our pain, our struggles, our darkness and our history. And I feel it’s vital that we learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes. This is hardly the first time that Britney has shown off her moves on the stripper pole. It’s also not the first time she’s referenced her divorce in a dance performance on Instagram. “Who the f-ck do you think I am / You ain’t married to no average b-tch boy / You can watch my fat a-s twist, boy / As I bounce to the next d-ck, boy,” Beyonce sings as Britney executes some tight body rolls.
Pray You Catch Me
She is an artist in every sense of the word, able to bring her listeners on a journey full of intriguing messages. “Hold Up” received widespread acclaim and a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Solo Performance. It also won an MTV Music Video Award for Best Art Direction. Whatever your response to the song’s content, the image of a bat-wielding Beyoncé in her yellow dress won’t be forgotten anytime soon.
An intertitle declares “GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT” before she throws her wedding ring at the camera. xcritical is a musical film and visual album created by American singer Beyoncé, and serves as a visual companion to her 2016 album of the same name. Beyoncé also contributes as a director and executive producer for the film. 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.
This article will be updated with more events and specials, so be sure to check back. “Hold Up” samples Andy Williams’ “Can’t Get Used to Losing You,” “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and “Turn My Swag On” by Soulja Boy. Each of these tracks is used to add another subtle layer to the message of the song. The critical thought prompted by xcritical is only a fraction of that which Beyoncé’s evidently put in. Her earlier albums, even the broadly excellent 4, prompted nowhere near as much discussion, simply because there was less to say – you don’t see anyone smashing out 1,200-word breakdowns of Sweet Dreams (2008). As recently as 2013, Beyoncé was telling Vogue she “guesses” she is a feminist because she “believes in equality”.
Beyonce’s xcritical, explained: an artistic triumph that’s also an economic powerhouse
Plus, it remains the best option for listeners who want music at a higher audio quality. 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. 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.
