Beyoncé - Renaissance

2024 is going to be a stacked year

I like the idea of this culturally but not so into the music.

I mean, she sounds amazing, but I wish it stayed closer to the dynamics of the verses and didn't feel the need for those stadium production touches, kinda ruins it for me.

Kinda want Act III to be metal.

egg punk

Agree with this take:

But as with “Break My Soul,” Beyoncé’s attempts at 9-to-5 relatability can ring slightly hollow from beyond the veil of privacy and security her monies afford—it’s just as difficult to imagine her boot-scootin’ at a honky-tonk as it was to imagine her rolling at the club. The ho-hey stomp-clap of it all, complete with an Andy Griffith whistle, veers dangerously close to the border of Lumineers car-commercial music; this is working-class music for folks who can afford to drive a Lexus.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/beyonce-texas-hold-em/

Eh. I find a lot of her stuff kind of hollow, but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of country fans that drive Lexuses. It's not like Beyonce is covering (or aiming for) Hank Williams. Plus: she is from Texas, after all.

Lol I thought of Lumineers listening to Texas Hold Em which is why I didn’t really like that one on first impression.

“Artists with too much money are inherently fake” is certainly a take, I guess

From Marissa R Moss’s weekly newsletter today re Beyonce

“Texas Hold ‘Em” is a perfect country song for the moment. The inclusion of Giddens, whose life mission has been a full-scale historical reeducation on the Black roots of country music and country instrumentation, makes it revelatory (Giddens and Beyoncé, as Natalie just said in a conversation we were having about this, were both shut out of the Country Music/Music Row machine, for both different but very connected reasons!). The omissions – a Nashville producer, a Music Row co-writer – tell a story, too. Beyoncé didn’t need to build a country record with Nashville, because anything she could borrow they had already taken out on loan.

You can add three seconds of banjo to a white man’s record, and suddenly it’s country. I have a feeling there will be arguments and diatribes on why “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” are not – we will hear a lot of the “just adding banjo doesn’t make it country.” The tell of that is they simply cannot register the Black ownership of the instrument in the first place. A white person holding it is authentic, while a Black person is show, signaling, fake.

https://dontrocktheinbox.substack.com/p/issue-42-beyonce-and-the-horse-she?publication_id=115265&post_id=141610190&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=5x9it

You can get a brand ass new Lexus for under 40k

"texas hold em" definitely does have stomp-and-holler lumineers-esque qualities. "16 carriages" is much better.

Beyoncé makes music for the elite 40 percenters

Sounds like the perfect record us to spin and fight about in this particular year

people made the same complaints about "break my soul," which was also silly. at the time, i tweeted something along the lines of:

*billionaire beyoncé makes song about dead-end job*
twitter: whoa whoa whoa slow down moneybags!
*hundred-millionaire/theme park proprietor dolly parton makes song about dead-end job*
twitter: <3 <3 <3

I was tired of the incoming tide of thinkpieces as soon as I heard the first few notes, but also approve of country music fans being forced to reckon with Beyonce.

I am a huge country -- and Beyonce -- fan and am very happy to hear her take on the genre (loved "Daddy Lessons"). I just wish "Texas Hold Em" didn't sound like the Lumineers!

my big question last night was: why did she do a Verizon commercial? not judging her, just seems like something she normally wouldn't do.

if the answer is "money" then how much money do you think it takes to get Beyonce to do a commercial?

or is it something more / bigger than that, i.e. they bankroll a tour (still money, i know) or maybe gave her a free line on her family plan for Blue Ivy's new phone?

fwiw a friend in advertising guesstimates she made $15-20mm for that spot

Not bad for a couple days of work.

people made the same complaints about "break my soul," which was also silly.

i think it's silly if you just take people's objections at the surface level of "this rich person is singing about doing 9-5 work" but i think there is a more bedrock criticism happening about her ability to inhabit songs that are not from her own perspective. and i would say that is generally fair criticism because i think beyonce has cultivated an artistic & celebrity persona that makes it hard for her to sing from the POV of a working class striver. like, this person's entire persona is based around the concept of regality, untouchability, virtuosity beyond comprehension ... partly of her own doing and partly of her stans but also from critics, commentators, talking heads -- beyonce as Queen Bey is not just some incidental context for her life's work. so for her to successfully inhabit the character of a 9-5 clock puncher she has to go the extra mile that other wealthy artists may not have to, and i personally would agree w/ people that "break my soul" and "texas hold em" do not succeed on those grounds. we'd all agree that "break my soul" is one of the least essential songs on that album right? that's not coincidental.

you can compare her to taylor swift who is constantly being hounded over her wealth -- she's currently trying to prevent some twitter account from tracking her private jet etc -- but when she writes in character, people don't stop and say "hold on we don't believe you." and that's because her artistic and celebrity persona has long established her credibility in that arena. i would say that this is largely for artistic reasons -- taylor has been writing in character forever -- but also because she chooses to craft her celebrity in a way that maintains the veneer of accessibility i.e. fan meet and greets, standing on stage at her shows and speaking at length to the audience etc

the idea of beyoncé as existing on a different plane than the rest of us is the driving force of her art. we want something from her concerts that we don't, and don't expect, from taylor, to just use that example. we want to see beyoncé spend 2 hours showing us how inferior we are to her. but i'd also point out that the world *has* responded extremely positively to beyonce cracking the facade and showing us what is happening in her personal life, showing us that even the most untouchable genius artist of a woman may marry a man who fucks around behind her back. there is a huge amount of power in leveling with her audience in that way, as she has shown since the self-titled. i just don't think ppl wanna hear her talking about doing normal people stuff out in the real world! she doesn't do that and nobody really buys that character from her, and not being able to credibly sing about going to dive pars is a small price for her to pay given the rest of what she is capable of pulling off

(dive bars)

What helps or hinders Beyonce is that she's not a songwriter in the way Swift is; her public image doesn't depend on her audience's regard for her as a songwriter, therefore playing characters doesn't quite work for her.

i also actually do think "break my soul" largely connected w/ ppl in the real world on an emotional level, there is an urgency to the way she sings the chorus that i do think helped it stick as a club song even tho it's based off a tired sample and stuff like that. people will readily believe that there are forces holding beyonce back that she needs to move past just like the rest of us, i just think going the extra step to sing about 9 to 5s and dive bars is the part where people are like "yeah you don't need to do all that" & i would agree

I'm not sure that anyone else could have invested "Break My Soul" with more conviction - a homage to the idea of house music as a release from the dreary humdrum world of the working week is about as overdone as quoting "Show Me Love" is musically, and the fact that it rises above stuff like Michael Gray's "The Weekend" or Riton X Nightcrawlers' "Friday" at all is really down to Beyonce's performance. But I agree with J0rdan otherwise.

i agree with all of that, tho i think i like "break my soul" more than you. every artist brings their own larger than life persona to the songs they attempt to inhabit, and yeah, beyonce's image makes the regular shmegular degular thing much harder for her to pull off than, say, my other example, dolly parton.

but i do bristle against the prevailing discourse idea that a performing artist or songwriter must draw directly from their lives or lived experiences to make their art, or else lose perceived authenticity points.

and i'm not saying anyone in this thread is doing it, but i do see a lot of casual critiques that basically boil down to that. people are losing their ability, or willingness, to recognize that the words an artist sings in a song do not necessarily reflect their real lives

both songs good, both songs 100% stadium indie, honestly shocked

Great post j0rdan s, I think it takes the listener out of it to even think about whether they buy it or not, what kind of character this is, etc. It's a hard move to start pulling off at this stage of her career.

(I think 'Break My Soul' works fine because it's a dance tune, so it's easy enough to ignore or shrug off the lyrics)

I'm not sure that anyone else could have invested "Break My Soul" with more conviction - a homage to the idea of house music as a release from the dreary humdrum world of the working week is about as overdone as quoting "Show Me Love" is musically, and the fact that it rises above stuff like Michael Gray's "The Weekend" or Riton X Nightcrawlers' "Friday" at all is really down to Beyonce's performance. But I agree with J0rdan otherwise.

― Tim F, Monday, February 12, 2024 5:28 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

i hear you, i think that's a completely legit argument. i agree with the idea that her performance essentially allows the song to transcend itself, meaning that it accepted a lot of baggage w/ that interpolation at that point in time and was still able to stand on its own two feet as a record out in the real world, in my experience. it even transcends this lyrical bit we're talking about too -- it's not like people are out on the dancefloor screaming the 9-5 parts at the tops of their lungs, you know what i mean? and of course w/ the album there is a real personal history that she provides as context for the record that makes its pure musical quality even more enjoyable and meaningful, depths that i.e. 'future nostalgia' could not hit. and i expect she'll get to that same place w/ this album too, "16 carriages" is exciting

and i'm not saying anyone in this thread is doing it, but i do see a lot of casual critiques that basically boil down to that. people are losing their ability, or willingness, to recognize that the words an artist sings in a song do not necessarily reflect their real lives

― the defenestration of prog (voodoo chili), Monday, 12 February 2024 22:39 (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is really just a small part of a broader problem - i'm less bothered by this hyper-focus on biography in itself than I am by the fact that it's typically coupled with really shallow takes on what the music is actually doing. People are leaning on the former in part because they don't know how to do the latter.

People are leaning on the former in part because they don't know how to do the latter.

yes, epidemically

and i'm not saying anyone in this thread is doing it, but i do see a lot of casual critiques that basically boil down to that. people are losing their ability, or willingness, to recognize that the words an artist sings in a song do not necessarily reflect their real lives

― the defenestration of prog (voodoo chili)

Well, this. And Beyonce's success or failure rate has to me little to do whether she can walk into Coyote Ugly or wherever. More than Swift she's the consummate pop actress/stylist of our time. I've been listening to more film and Oscar podcasts than usual in recent weeks and I was struck by how many of them (and most were gay) obsessed over who they dated and why and What It Meant and I could give a damn.

who = actors

I could never be a reporter because I really don't give a fuck about artists.

in the 24-48 hours after the 'lemonade' film aired people truly thought they were going to open twitter and read that beyonce was divorcing jay z, and when it became clear that they were still a happy couple there was an adjustment period for some portion of her fanbase who had to accept that the album was a work of art and beyonce wasn't going to be living out a cinematic revenge fantasy irl. but i don't get the sense that beyonce remaining in her marriage diminishes the quality of lemonade in the eyes of the listening public, so it's not like people are completely unable to recognize, or accept, that her music doesn't necessarily reflect her real life. there may be something about her working man's cosplay in particular that people are getting stuck on

I think the public is shrewder than us who insist on autobiographical frames.

so it's not like people are completely unable to recognize, or accept, that her music doesn't necessarily reflect her real life. there may be something about her working man's cosplay in particular that people are getting stuck on

I agree with this but I also think the issue being referred to has gotten a lot more pronounced since early 2016, and broadly reflects/tracks changes in popular left wing (twitter) discourse over that time period (which in turn was in part a reaction to Trump being elected).

I actually made some of these points already upthread:

I talk about this quite a lot but I find it super-frustrating how the convergence of pop criticism, cultural studies, gossip and twitter snark results in this kind of short-circuit argument where the connection between the quality of the music and the issue which is purportedly problematic is posited but not unpacked, e.g.:

"But, as a wealthy cis woman, Beyoncé lacks an intimate understanding of the subcultures she is borrowing from, and this sudden, random interest in underground queer culture renders the execution awkward at best, and painfully pandering at worst. "

How would an "intimate understanding" of queer/ballroom subcultures (even assuming the writer is correct to conclude that Beyonce lacks it) have manifested as a different end product? The writer doesn't say, perhaps hasn't even turned their mind to the question, beyond a kind of vague "I'd know it when I saw/heard it" presumption (presumably because the artist in question is not a wealthy cis woman).

The result of this kind of approach tends to turn what could be a very thoughtful examination (of how an artist like Beyonce can successfully or otherwise engage with queer culture) into a quite shallow one.

― Tim F, Wednesday, August 10, 2022 3:03 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think a lot of writers just find it easier to frame assessments of music which throw up these issues as boiling down to a question of "who gets to have this conversation" rather than "what is the conversation, and what does this specific artefact add to that conversation".

― Tim F, Wednesday, August 10, 2022 7:23 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

country *is* working man cosplay afaict

I do like the songs, shame about the whistling

what the conversation is hard to pin down so far but the rollout and reactions to it will probably bring that into focus a bit more (seems reasonable to assume the music - regardless of quality or popularity - won't be inert in the context of the culture war esp this year)

could have seen authenticity discourse coming from a shit Nadine Smith piece coming from a mile away, wheeeee

sounds glib to say that she wouldn't have levelled this critique against a white country artist but she did fall over herself repeatedly to defend Toby Keith the other day, glib critiques get glib responses

anyway

Where is Nadine Smith from? You can’t imagine a Black American woman from Texas with family roots in Louisiana and Alabama….boot scooting? Do you know any country Black folk? If you did, Nadine, you wouldn’t be confused by Bey.

— Alva Johnson (@ThatAlvaJohnson) February 12, 2024

The thing that’s really driving me crazy about that Pitchfork review is that it feels like Smith just grabbed a couple of words out of the song to bolster a dismissive “stay in your lane, fake Black girl” bullshit without actually listening to the song or even trying to comprehend what it’s doing.

it's a silly critique, but let's not post stan pile-ons plz

the tweet I posted is a valid response, whether she is a “stan” or not

The whole song seems to be using line-dancing as a metaphor for sex. Pulling the Lexus reference out of its context and moaning about 9-5 cosplay seems, well, deeply stupid to me.

the first two paragraphs of the review are all about the black roots of country music, and the first reply to that tweet is of a beyhiver making fun of nadine's appearance (she is trans)

I don’t remember posting the whole thread

… I mean, I’m not going to say that post isn’t making fun of her appearance because it very well could be, I’m not in the mind of the person who posted it, but what I noticed was a picture of a white woman juxtaposed next to other pictures posted to her Instagram feed, which included a picture of two bleeding Black men depicted in some amount of distress with “I ❤️ u” drawn freehand on it. I don’t recognize the picture so I don’t know if it’s a still from a movie or a picture of actually-injured people.

from a wrestling match, i am pretty sure