Album Review: Beyoncé

With all huge Stars of the music industry and their new albums, expectations are the biggest hurdle. And for Beyoncé and her fourth solo album "4" it's no different.

Her discography up until this release has been quite diverse but also relatively safe, and for this outing people might be expecting something a little more out there from her. Maybe expanding on the Rock and Electronica she flirted with on her last album "I Am... Sasha Fierce", or going into a totally different direction with something more worldly and international given the year hiatus she spent traveling the world.Or the album could be commercial tripe made specifically for chart dominance.

"4" is none of those things, and that is it's biggest strength and at the same time it's weakness. Beyoncé is much more subdued than on any of her previous works, and it's because this album is her covering material that is right in her comfort zone. "4" plays like a continuation of her R&B heavy debut solo album "Dangerously In Love", but showing her vocal growth in the 7 years since than. While some might complain that she didn't push herself enough, others will say that she's taking a big risk by staying true to herself. Either way, when you put expectations aside "4" is a more than solid album, it's not nearly as safe as her previous albums, but it still manages to be really familiar and classic.This is truly the album of an artist that is no longer trying to prove anything, but just making music she enjoys.

Vocally she's the best we've ever heard her, and not in the showy way of past hits like "Halo" or "Listen", she barely belts or has any soaring notes on this album. Even on the Dianne Warren penned "I Was Here", she resists the urge to turn the somewhat schlocky lyrics into a 90's style power ballad ala Celine or Whitney. She focuses on singing the lyrics with conviction and emotion. Same with most of the albums best material, the stunning electro-ballad "I Miss You", the Prince inspired "1+1" and the soulful "Rather Die Young". When she does show out, it comes out of nowhere like on "I Care" (probably the worst Beyonce hook ever!) where towards the middle she starts running with the melody and pumps out some impressive high notes. Everything she does with her voice here feels natural and again, it's because this album is totally within her comfort zone. Several songs even feel like the music she probably loved pre-Destiny's Child. "Love on Top" is a breezy R&B tune that might have been released in 87 or 88 by LeVert or Whitney Houston. "Party" is a chilled-out Hip Hop track similar to an SWV or En Vogue from the early 90's. And than there are the Prince, Michael Jackson and Earth Wind and Fire influences. At times the album is so nostalgic and smooth it almost doesn't feel like a Beyonce album, than you have "Countdown" which has the King B stamp all over it with it's staccato phrasing and attitude. Earlier, the second single "Best Thing I Never Had" plays like a mash up of her previous hits "Irreplaceable" and "Halo" with the female empowerment and "neck twisting" kiss-off lyrics.

"4" is the album that right now might be surprising to listeners, but it will hold up years from now when matched with other albums in her career. It's not as aggressive and confident as "B'Day", and it's not as experimental and diverse as "I Am... Sasha Fierce", but it really does in a simple subtle way show all of the talents she's amassed over the years and why she's easily one of the most respected in her field. She has the goods, and "4" is proof that she doesn't even have to go overboard to prove it.

4.5 of 5
Best: End of Time (this link is from her performance at Glastonbury), I Miss You, Party  << not able to find links for the other two. sorry.

Top 25 All-Time Favourite Artists (14-11)

Without purposely ranking them like this, this next seems to be a celebration of of artists who were a major part of a incredible groups, but also were able to emerge and have incredible solo careers as well.

11. No Doubt & Gwen Stefani

In the late 90's No Doubt had their big breakthrough in the now classic album "Tragic Kingdom". The Orange County based ska/pop/rock group exploded on MTV and have since stayed a constant staple on U.S. Pop radio. Their big hits like "Underneath it All" "Just a Girl" "Spiderwebs" and their timeless classic "Don't Speak" can be heard daily on Pop, Alternative and Rock stations. The bands work was incredible, but it wasn't just the music that made America fall in love with the group. Their front woman Gwen Stefani can take a lot of the credit for making the group so marketable, a gorgeous, smart, fun and stylish blonde. And much respect for Stefani who decided to make a fun Pop Dance album in 2004 while the group was on hiatus which became a huge success, leading to a second album and two national solo tours. She has now said she is done with the solo thing and the group is back in the studio hoping to deliver some incredible new music (crossing our fingers) together in 2010.

myTop 3 Favourite Gwen Stefani/No Doubt albums: 1. Rock Steady (2001), 2. Tragic Kingdom (1995), 3. Love Angel Music Baby (2004)

12. Janet Jackson/ Michael Jackson & Jackson 5 (tie)

May he rest in peace, all of the various and never ending specials about Michael Jackson can't really describe the impact he had on the 80's. And I imagine the same can be said about the impact of the Jackson 5 in the 70's. I just remember seeing his concerts on TV and all the people who had to be wheeled out on stretchers because they were so overwhelmed with the guy. And I also remember how whenever Michael Jackson had a new video coming out... All the family would gather around and watch it like it was the Oscars or something. I remember all the 80's Douchebags with one glove or the "Beat It" jacket. And than I remember how quickly everybody turned on poor MJ when a scandal hit. However, before the possible pedophilia was exposed he already created a great catalogue of music for himself. And let's not forget the scandal can't erase the fact that he's still regarded as The best Music Video artist ever. And his death this past summer is somewhat bittersweet. We lost a legend, but now people appreciate his legacy a lot more and his groundbreaking music.

By the time that the scandal hit, it was already time for Miss Jackson to take over as the most popular Jackson. Janet, while sort of a puppet, is a performance artist point blank. And you can criticize her minimal vocal skills, or alleged Co-writing skills, or her plastic personality, or that she has a pattern of blatantly lying to the media. One thing you can't talk bad about is her on stage. Compared to concerts by her brother, I won't hesitate in saying she's a way better performer than he is. And probably one of the best performers of the past 30 years. It's no secret that she often lipsyncs, but she Attacks the stage like nobody's business. And (up until the last two albums) she was a very consistent album artist... you were almost guaranteed an excellent album if her name was attached.

myTop 3 Favourite Janet Jackson albums: 1. The Velvet Rope (1997), 2. Rhythm Nation (1989), 3. Control (1986)

myTop 3 Favourite Michael Jackson albums: 1. Off the Wall (1979), 2. Thriller (1982), 3. HIStory (1995)



13. Beyoncé & Destiny's Child

I'm not going to go on and on about Beyoncé (because I could... easily), what I will say is I didn't think an artist like her was possible anymore. So accustomed to having a female artist who could either Dance and entertain but couldn't sing and wouldn't sing live. Or the powerhouse singers whose performances consisted mainly of dramatic gowns and alot of standing. In comes Beyoncé and Destiny's Child. It wasn't until maybe 2001 where the true artist in Knowles truly started to emerge and on her debut solo album she easily shot to the top of the list in the industry. And incredibly gifted vocalist, who also is an incredible performer who sings Live (in stiletto heels no less) and engages the crowd. And she continually, in all areas, improves album after album. A True Legend in the making. Okay that's all I'm going to say =)

myTop 3 Beyoncé/Destiny's Child albums: 1. B'Day (2006), 2. The Writings on the Wall (1999), 3. Destiny Fulfilled (2004)

14. Raphael Saaqiq & Tony! Toni! Toné!

Saadiq is one of the most underrated Geniuses out there today. Beginning with the New-Jack swingers Tony! Toni! Toné! of the early 90's. They were never the majorly successful mainstream group, or flavor of the moment either. They did provide a consistent string of solid and truly soulful hit singles, creating new sounds all with clear influences from the 50's 60's and 70's and using live instrumentation. At the top of this decade Saadiq formed the short lived Lucy Pearl with En Vogue's Dawn Robinson and Tribe Called Quest's Ali Shaheed Muhammed. Though they only had one album, it was as flawless earthy and soulful as previous Tony! Toni! Toné! albums. His first solo album "Instant Vintage" is one of my all time favorites and his productions for other artists (Badu, Joss Stone, Dangelo, Whitney, Total) include a lot of my all time favorite songs.

myTop 3 Favourite Raphael Saadiq/Tony! Toni! Toné! albums: 1. Instant Vintage (2002), 2. Lucy Pearl (2000), 3. Sons of Soul (1993)

Concert Review: Beyoncé "I Am... Tour" Oakland, July 10th

A Few things before I start.
I Love Beyoncé, I'm not a total Stan but I'm a pretty fanatical admirer. I definitely look out for flaws in her performances and music, but even being as critical as I can be it seems I love everything she does. So I knew I'd have the time of my life at her "I Am... Tour" which touched down in Oakland, CA this past Friday July 10th.
Another thing I wanted to mention before I post my review, somehow I was blessed with an amazing ticket upgrade that literally had me interacting and Touching Mrs. Jay-Z!!! It was a concert experience I never had before and one I'm sure I'll never forget.

Now, on to the show. When I say Beyoncé is THE best entertainer in the industry we have right now, Believe it. I don't think I've ever seen any pop performer rip through so many songs within a 2 hour set, singing live, doing high energy dance routines and genuinely engaging the crowd at the same time. Which is par for the course for Beyoncé, being that this is her third solo headlining tour since 2003. The "I Am... Tour" shows that she has been learning with all those previous tours how to give the perfect show. One that shows off her vocal talents, showcases her now pretty extensive catalogue, and entertains everybody in the arena. She did it, and did it well in Oakland. What amazed me is she was able to do a big spectacle of a pop show, with explosives, video montages, and stunts like her flying through the air to "Baby Boy". However, somehow she was able to have this huge show but still make the show totally personal to her fans. There were several instances where she talked to the crowd and had them participate in the songs that they made successful. And the video imagining during her stellar performance of "At Last" showed the African American struggle in the US and culminated with images of our first black president Barack Obama, (where she emphasized the "At Last". I have to admit, I found it a little self-centered and egotistical for her to repeatedly show pics of herself in "Cadillac Records" and her singing to the Obama's at their Inauguration, but I'll give her a pass). Since that was an experience all of us lived through, we all could relate in a very personal way.
Same goes for when she had the crowd sing a verse and hook of her #1 hit "Irreplaceable" or when she actually went into the audience to touch her fans during the show closer "Halo". Beyoncé did an excellent job of making you feel that she's both a Superstar Celebrity Entertainer as well as just a regular 27 old woman sharing the same experiences as everybody in the arena.

I honestly don't know what more to say about the show. Like I said before she basically went through all of her big solo hits but mainly focused on a lot of the material from her latest album "I Am... Sasha Fierce". Her "Ave Maria" mixed with Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" was as breathtaking live as it was on the BET Awards last month. "Smash Into You" and "Broken Hearted Girl" sandwiched that performance, and she put a lot of dramatics into the performances of her ballads and it worked to keep the crowd interested. Of course she had loads of uptempos, including her Electro'd out "Radio", 2007's dance ready "Get me Bodied", her first huge solo hit "Crazy in Love" and her mega-Iconic recent #1 "Single Ladies". One thing I did notice, it seemed like every song she performed was a performance that was prepared for an award show. Her performance of "If I were a boy" was probably my highlight of the night.It's a great song to sing along with, and it was the only song at the show where she got to Rock Out. With some of the interesting poses and moves she was doing with the mic stand she really reminded me of the great Tina Turner in her "What's Love Got to Do With It" heyday. During that performance she mixed in Alanis Morrissette's hit single "You Oughta Know" and did a number of head bangs. Again, her performances of each song were all like Award show performances in that she devoted 110% to make each song pitch perfect, perfect choreography and entertaining. Yet it's still amazing that she was able to do that with each song... back to back... for as long as she did.

The sad thing is, she performed on stage for a good 2 hours and the show was so much fun and so lively and entertaining that it only felt like half of that. I would definitely go again if that was an option. And if anybody is ever contemplating seeing her live, GO! You won't see a live Pop show better, no matter where you look.

Award Show Review: BET Awards 09

I'm like, really behind as you can tell. The BET Awards were on Sunday and it's now Tuesday morning. Not only haven't I blogged about the awards yet, but I have some work to do because I need to post a Classic Album Review for Michael Jackson, there are a few new albums I need to review and I have to give you the new set of 6 Artists on my Top 25 All Time Artists list. And I want to have it all done by Thursday night (when I leave for Atlanta for the weekend).

So here we go.

The BET Awards 09 was the first televised award ceremony since the unexpected death of Michael Jackson. And although I feel like it's more than appropriate for BET to celebrate him, being that a good 90% of the artists in the building owe so much to Jackson and the fact that BET have been long time supporters of all the Jacksons even when the other video networks betrayed him. And I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, they had less than three days to re-arrange the format of the show to make it a fitting and respectful tribute to the Legend.

For the most part, they did a great job. Jamie Foxx was the host and he did a pretty excellent job, his opening monologue included a hilariously funny attempt at Moonwalking and throughout the show he celebrated his love for Jackson and reminded the audience why he was so important.

There were a few performances of Jackson's hits by current artists. Ciara performed "Heal the World", Jamie Foxx and Ne-Yo dueted at the end on "I'll Be There", but Ne-Yo provided the best performance (imo) with "Lady in my Life". Ne-Yo connected with the song on an emotional level, and his vocals were the best I ever heard them. Aside from those handful of performances, and testimonies from stars in the audience on how Michael influenced them, there wasn't much else as far as a tribute to MJ. Michael's sister Janet Jackson came out to a standing ovation toward the end to speak for the family and thank the fans for their support.

The rest of the show was pretty typical Award show stuff.

I'm pretty sure Beyoncé won the most with two awards, Ne-Yo won, Weezy won, T.I. and Rihanna won, Lebron James won, Taraji P. Henson won. But this was not an awards show where awards were actually important. In fact, because of the last minute changes the awards alot of the categories were combined and the nominations weren't announced. Just the winners.

Performance wise, it was pretty boring to tell you the truth.

Jamie Foxx did a terribly auto-tuned live rendition of his monster hit "Blame It". It's sad when T-Pain outsings you live, and you have no sense of stage presence or choreography. His performance was a bit of a mess, but still fun enough to appropriatley get the crowd on their feet.

Keri Hilson performed an uptempo medley of her two hits "Turnin Me On" and "Knock You Down" (without Ne-Yo or Kanye). She tried. She really tried. However seems like she missed a few rehearsals, or she was just super nervous. She looked awkward trying to sing live and do the little bit of choreography she was expected to do, though she still wasn't terrible. She pulled it together enough for me not to laugh at her.

Soulja Boy Tell Em (like is that his full name? I thought it was just Soulja Boy) got the crowd all singing along to his hit(?) "Turn my Swag On", which I hadn't heard before and is actually a pretty catchy tune. He, like most rappers, didn't do much performance wise. Just kind of walked back and forth on the stage. It was the crowd that made his performance a winner with Taraji, Keri and Lebron dancing and singing along.

Jay-Z introduced his new single "D.O.A. Death of Auto-Tune" to a live audience and pretty much slayed it. You could tell our boy Jigga was more than happy to be back on stage. Meanwhile his wife slowed it down (and put a bunch to sleep, I have to be honest) with her beautiful rendition of "Ave Maria" where she incorporated Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" and went opera on us with the original Spanish version of "Maria". She sounded amazing, but I think everybody was expecting Sasha Fierce to come out.

Speaking of sounding Excellent, Keyshia Cole sang her duet with Monica "Trust". They both looked great, and Keyshia made a vast improvement over her mess of a performance last year. However Monica stole ALL Ms. Cole's shine. She sounded excellent, and like Jigga, was so excited to be back on stage. She'd be smart to release an album real soon.

Maxwell came out and performed his new single "Pretty Wings", a beautiful song sung beautifully but just like Beyoncé Keyshia and Monica, great vocals don't always make for the most memorable performances.

Drake and Lil Wayne's performance was memorable for the wrong reasons. First of all Drake was sitting down the whole time. It wasn't until the after show that I realized he was injured and couldn't move around. So he gets a pass, although I didn't understand why he didn't Sing the sung parts of his hit "Best I Ever Had", but whatever. The most bothersome thing about the perfomance is when Lil Wayne came out with his crew to perform "We Like Her". With all the terribly disgusting and vile comments they made within the song about Women and Sex I was really bothered with the fact they brought out about 5 or 6 under age girls (like 10-12) to stand around and dance to the song. What was he thinking?

Ofcourse there was the annual tribute, this time to The O'Jays. I can't for the life of me figure out why they'd pull Tevin Campbell out to perform for them, but they did. Than Trey Songz, Tyrese and Johnny Gill came and sang a trio of the O'Jays hits as "The Young O'Jays". They sounded good, but I have to say Trey Songz impressed me the most. He has great vocal talent. With the right material he'd be bigger than Chris Brown without a doubt.

I can't think of anything else to say about the show. Masterfully MC'd by Jamie Foxx, and pretty solid performances. I think overall I may just be getting bored of Award shows. However this was a good effort overall for the network. And I think they succeeded in giving Michael a great tribute.

Beyoncé = Diva!

I was trying to think of an excuse to post this pic... but do I really need a reason? This Pic is beyond Awesome.

Beyoncé is in the midst of her "I Am... Tour", which comes State side in June. July 10th in Oakland. And her final 4 shows will be "special" performances at Las Vegas' Wynn Hotel with "special" pricing packages, they are like $500 plus you HAVE to get a room package with it. And the venue was allegedly designed just for her, but it only seats 1500 people. This is actually a promotional picture for those Las Vegas shows. Additionally the Las Vegas shows will be taped for the "I Am... Tour" DVD.