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Album Review: Beyoncé – BEYONCÉ- Queen is Back

by Rio Toro

beyonce-new-album

Beyoncé: BEYONCÉ

Similar Artists: Janet Jackson, Ciara, Missy Elliott, Jenifer Hudson

Genre: Pop, Contemporary R&B

Label: Columbia

2013 is over, and overall, it’s been a pretty great year for me: I’ve started a new job, moved into a new apartment, and got accepted to graduate school. It’s been so good, in fact, that I think I owe it to myself to strip myself of my reservations and really fucking enjoy this new Beyoncé record. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been known to enjoy a Beyoncé tune or two in the past, but digesting her work through repeated and immersive listens to one of her full-lengths is something that until now I didn’t have the effort to do.

And as it turns out, what a record BEYONCÉ is to finally become accustomed to this era defining pop singer through. The secretly released record is already being hailed as a career highlight for the artist, as here she dabbles in themes that are darker, more sensual, and more complex than her previous work — one such representable track being the monstrous and intricately woven highlight “***Flawless”. She’s returning to some of her grimier, more southern influenced sounds with big breakneck beats and ominous, ghostly textures on tracks like “Haunted”, which couldn’t be further from the soul bearings of her last record, 4. Here Beyoncé is proving that even though she may be a mother quickly approaching her mid 30’s, she can still sound young, modern, and increasingly relevant regarding the current state of femininity.  In other words, this queen isn’t ready to retire quite yet, and as she points out on “Blow”, she can still get her ‘cherry turned out’ (whatever that’s supposed to mean). What BEYONCÉ is really about though, is the artist’s life cycle, and all the endless phases that have come along with it: hence her reasoning behind making this a ‘visual’ album. There’s quite a lot of Beyoncé backstory tucked into the corners of this release as well — told through cleverly placed vocal snippets — and it’s enough to make you feel a connection with a woman who otherwise lives a life that is incomparable to anyone else’s.

What I found to be the most striking with BEYONCÉ though, is how overtly sexual it is. Particularly on “Rocket”, which is gorgeous and sensual in the way that only D’Angelo can do better. At 6:32 though, it’s also too long, as you could say about the album in its entirety. With the bulk of these tracks being over 5 minutes, BEYONCÉ does occasionally fall into some of the same pitfalls of Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 experience — another 2013 album that proved to be a strong reevaluation of one of pop music’s biggest icons. I mean, how long can we truly continuously listen to someone with a perfect voice, singing about their perfect life, living in a perfect home with a perfect family?

But for the most part, it does work — mostly for the fact that we know Beyoncé has had to work violently hard to get to the point she is at now. As clearly told through the opening beauty queen inspired number “Pretty Hurts”, the main theme of BEYONCÉ is a debunking of society’s unrealistic interpretation of perfection. Beyoncé wants to show us how she’s just a regular human being: she gets jealous, she gets drunk, and she wants to impress people — specifically her husband, Jay Z: who unlike his wife, hasn’t done an adequate job of impressing us through his increasing age with a string of noticeably sour verses (including one here on “Drunk In Love”).

With the exception of perhaps “XO”, these 14 tracks are far away from the cookie cutter pop songs that have been endlessly rehashed through the decades in mainstream pop. Both in terms of spot on vocal delivery and interesting, layered production, BEYONCÉ  — while not 100% perfect – pretty much beats out every other major pop release of the year. It might just be filled with more rawness and honest emotion than you’ll get out of Katy Perry’s Prism, Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP, and Miley’s Bangerz combined.

 

Track Listing:

1.) Pretty Hurts*

2.) Haunted*

3.) Drunk In Love

4.) Blow

5.) No Angel

6.) Partition*

7.) Jealous*

8.) Rocket

9.) Mine

10.) XO

11.) ***Flawless*

12.) Superpower

13.) Heaven

14.) Blue*

 

Album Highlight – *

Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT, MUSIC, OPINION, REVIEWS Tagged With: Album Review, Beyonce, music, pop, R&B, self titled

Album Review: AlunaGeorge – Body Music

by Rio Toro

alunageorge-body-music-album-650-430 (1)

AlunaGeorge: Body Music

Similar Artists: Purity Ring, Charlie XCX, Inc.

Genre: Pop/R&B

Label: Vagrant

 

I was at first disheartened when I came face to face with the wave of “indie” artists who were embracing the sounds of modern radio — specifically the sounds of bubblegum pop and electronic focused R&B (the ones which nearly always contain some kind of glitchy vocal samples from the female vocalist). Don’t get me wrong, I adore pop music — I have no qualms admitting this — but I also feel that the radio has failed us when it comes to variety, or in awarding us any perceivable freedom with our choice of selection. After all, many of us entered the world of “indie” music for the sole purpose of escaping the hollow, cookie-cutter sounds that are endlessly rehashed over the FM waves. However, after further listening, it turns out that the best artists from this indie pop revolution are indeed advancing the limitations of these tainted “pop-radio” genres by approaching them with an experimental aesthetic and a keen ear for sound design.

The London duo of Aluna Francis and George Reid are the next in the wave of “hotly anticipated” acts who are said to be ushering in a new era of pop music. Granted, while there’s nothing on AlunaGeorge’s debut album that sounds miles away from the current strands of top charting radio, Body Music manages to be accessible, catchy and left of center all at the same time. You’ll immediately be reminded of groups like Purity Ring; although I would say that AlunaGeorge are less formulaic and more innately talented than them. Through the 13 tracks, the duo seem to go back and forth from maximalist, club oriented songs like those from Charli XCX, to minimalist, sensually moving tracks like those from Inc.’s debut No World. The thing is, the duo seem to not know which one of these styles they have perfected (hint: it’s the latter). It’s during the more somber, melancholically led pieces where we hear some real hard earned honest emotion from the duo. The songs that tackle these themes, such as “Outlines”, “Diver”, and “Friends to Lovers”, all contain lower BPM’s and are close to perfect in their own right, whereas the more dance oriented tracks such as “Lost & Found” and “Superstar”, are tightly sung and smartly produced, but overall unremarkable for a lack of ingenuity.

The musicianship on the album is consistently excellent, but after AlunaGeorge topped the UK charts a few months back with “White Noise”, they probably felt a lot of pressure to bring out the bangers with this release. Still, they should know that they don’t need to “go big” to make the necessary splash. The fact that major label artists are often pressured to make chart topping singles might be the main reason they are so frequently forgotten with time — as another artist is sure to outdo the last when it comes to louder drums and more radiant synths. The previously released “Your Drums, Your Love” happens to be the album’s one exception to big = forgettable, as it ends up sounding crowd pleasingly massive as well as acutely tuned emotionally — like every great single should be. Sadly, while “Best Be Believin” does its best to become the pivotal album climax — as it includes a grander array of instruments, such as acoustic guitar, piano, and a choir — in the end, it feels as if they tried too hard to make a spectacle out of it. Consequently, it doesn’t feel as honest or real as the best material here.

It’s quite ironic that the best bits off of an album called Body Music happen to be the least dance oriented ones, but it turns out the album title has more to do with the album’s lyrics — which deal with the most basic of human needs: to have physical human interaction. Aluna deals with this theme accurately lyrically, and as it turns out, the two are indeed good songwriters — although certainly not yet in the top tier. Still, although the album is far from perfect, it shows undeniable promise, especially when it’s at its most introspective. Few pop acts have the power to keep us enticed without the use of in your face bass and frenetic sampling; while AlunaGeorge certainly do bombard us with these elements a handful of times, it’s during the quietest moments where we peer into their hearts and realize their true potential.

 

Track Listing:

1.) Outlines*

2.) You Know You Like It

3.) Attracting Flies

4.) Your Drums, Your Love*

5.) Kaleidoscope Love

6.) Bad Idea

7.) Diver*

8.) Lost & Found

9.) Best Be Believin

10.) Superstar

11.) Just A Touch*

12.) Body Music

13.) Friends to Lovers*

 

Album Highlight – *

Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT, MUSIC, REVIEWS Tagged With: Album Review, aluna francis, alunageorge, body music, george reid, pop, R&B, vagrant

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