Beyonce in 2016 - 'Formation' and Lemonade

yeah that's precisely why it wasn't my favourite! fuck a cross-generational fave

lol

mine are "hold up" and "freedom." but i'm kinda happy for ppl to like any of these songs.

i'm gonna renege on my earlier negativity toward love drought, it won me over.
this is a good album. still haven't seen the video.

I apparently understated when I said her light cube is 50 feet -- I just read something that said it's 10 stories tall. Big Beyonce.

i like freedom but it sounds like idk a blue jeans ad song to me

also it doesnt touch the self-titled imo

yep

i can confirm that i've probably never felt more powerful ever than when running to "freedom" over the weekend

'love drought' is my fave on this atm, love its ethereal spacy optimism

clearly what i meant by "rainbow pony princess"

'love drought' is my fave on this atm, love its ethereal spacy optimism

I totally agree, it's so gorgeous. Also musically it reminds me of Suzanne Ciani's Seven Waves.

only one i am consistently >:C on is 'daddy lessons,' it sounds like it was written for a tarantino film montage

"Daddy Lessons" is pure magic IMO

so weird to me that anyone is down on "daddy lessons". so much fun to sing along to

i like "freedom" a lot but it's the kind of deliberate attempt to write A Protest Song that precludes much organic life of its own - "formation", despite being far less politically explicit lyrically, feels more politically meaningful. (similar to how kendrick's "alright" was never intended to be a protest song)

the urban ac station here played "sandcastles" tonight :)

(i know half of you don't like that song >:( )

At least 'Sandcastles' is in the middle of record whereas the ST put fucking 'Pretty Hurts' right at the beginning.

pretty hurts needed to be at the beginning for its video :D

"Pretty Hurts" would be a lot better if Beyoncé admitted "bitch I scratched out your name and your face!" halfway through.

xxxpost, i wouldnt disagree that beyonce is still something of an unnknown quantity. she def is. but im not sure shes 'unknowable' in that old showbiz sort of way that prince, and michael jackson, were. i doubt we really know beyonce, shes been shrewd in controlling her image, but ive never really thought of her as having 'mystique' or something all that fascinating behind the public profile. she seems like someone whos relatively normal, albeit someone whose been groomed for fame from a young age. i couldnt imagine her having a britney style meltdown for example, nor generating the kind of weird stories you hear from people who met prince. then again, it might be that shes totally crazy, and has just shaped her image for the current age, which doesnt really seem to be all that cool with weirdness or mystique. her work ethic seems quite james brown-ian. id be interested to know more how hard she works people, or those around her, if such stories exist.

bell hooks went in on it http://www.bellhooksinstitute.com/blog/2016/5/9/moving-beyond-pain

i'm at the stage of thinking this might possibly be better than the s/t

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Tuesday, May 3, 2016 1:39 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like it a lot but for me it's not even close to s/t

my favorites on 4 comprise my favorite Beyonce sequence.

i've decided that the 2013 reordered re-release of 4 is better than the original album

I prefer the s/t to lemonade however the run from "sorry" thru "love drought" is kind of incredible

struggle hooks

i've decided that the 2013 reordered re-release of 4 is better than the original album

One of the best things about the original tracklisting is the way it sweeps up and up towards the end. The new version (which I've only just seen) front loads the bangers but kills that momentum. Also Kanye now appears way too early.

The re-release gets points for including "Dance For You" and (especially) "Schoolin' Life" but "Love On Top" does not make sense as an opener at all.

I could work with "Schoolin' Life" as an uptempo opener, but not "Love On Top". And I've always sort of admired how the album started with a sequence of ballads which is kind of an unfashionable move.

relegating those to bonus track status was always insane but idk if it counts as excluding them per se - the original sequencing of 4 was perfect imo, including listening to "schoolin' life" as a kind of closing-credits song that wouldn't really have fit anywhere on the main album (in fact i wonder whether that's the reason it was a bonus track - it's been a prominent song in her live sets since so it's not like she's paying it dust).

i am...sasha fierce wasn't ever an album i disliked but it's the one that seems worse and worse with everything she does now

4 had almost exactly the same narrative arc as lemonade

B'Day is another one with wack sequencing - "Green Light" seguing into "Irreplaceable" is very ungainly

Very Final Fantasy-esque synth figure on "Love Drought"

So I finally listened to this yesterday. The early songs were pretty good, and the songs at the end are pretty good. Some interesting decisions made, etc.

The earth didn't move for me or anything, but we're all different. On one listen vastly prefer the s/t.

fwiw both this and s/t are massively enhanced by the accompanying video

Completely agree that this a great album but not in the same league as the s/t. The last two Miguel albums would be a good comparison for me. I loved Wild Heart and thought it was a worthy follow up but it didn't take over my listening the same way that Kaleidoscope Dream did. That's how I feel about Lemonade at this stage (I know it's still early days). Beyonce and Kaleidoscope Dream were both perfect records in my opinion.

yeah i would put this comfortably below 4 & the s/t on the same level as b'day

Her vocals, her songwriting, the songwriting she commissions, her choice of collaborators has reached such a zenith that the crap ballads on this thing still put it past B'Day, i.e. I can forgive "Love Drought" and "Sandcastles" and the Blake crap. I guess Lemondade for me is like 4 in that even the album tracks sparkle such that "Party" I can pretend doesn't exist.

wait but...... "love drought" is fucking amazing

Yeah, Love Drought is one of the highlights. I like Sandcastles a lot too.

https://imgflip.com/readImage?iid=23188056

struggle hooks

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Tuesday, May 10, 2016 1:19 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/camby.png

fwiw both this and s/t are massively enhanced by the accompanying video

― i like to trump and i am crazy (DJP), Thursday, May 12, 2016 2:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the lemonade film is really rich and beautiful and def adds layers to the music but i'd argue that both albums would be masterpieces with no visuals (which is 90% how i've consumed them). this has taken over my listening in much the same way that the s/t did

anyone annoyed by the accent on/rhythm of sandCASTles?

The "jarring" nature of the subject matter actually seems pretty crucial to me. I think if Beyonce did a straight political protest song it would seem... not insincere, but at least gestural. On "Formation" the politics feels like a natural consequence of the extent to which she's feeling herself. The protest is something she is, not something she occasionally decides to do.

This intersects with the points above about this being a political irruption into mainstream culture. "Formation" makes confronting black politics a necessary and indivisible part of America's enjoyment of black culture, rather than a medicinal counterpoint to it.

― Tim F, Tuesday, February 9, 2016 9:10 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this tim f post sums up for me why "formation" is a more successful political song than "freedom"

Most Tim F posts sum up *everything* tbf.

hey this seems like a good place to ask this: anyone have an idea when a chloe x halle album might come out?

my show on Sunday is gonna get canceled bcz of a thunderstorm, i just know it

finally watching the music video/movie thing this is pretty awesome

yeah, IMO the thematic throughline elevates the video above the self-titled

love that she's doing something so arty and out-there on scale that very few artists could afford to do just because she can and wants to