Beyoncé - Renaissance

I couldn't get more than 90 seconds into this, but my fondness for her whole deal has curdled and my ears are probably jaundiced

it sounded kind of incompetent though? the diff elements don't fit together at all imo

I was underwhelmed by this last night, but it's really grown on me through repeat listens this morning. Maybe you have to hear it when you're trying to psyche yourself up to go to work. (Now I'm silently mouthing "You won't break my soul!" all around my office.) There is an actual single cover for it now, and I think a video release is imminent.

This reminds me of when Solar Power by Lorde came out. There are 90s signifiers, but it's so empty. Oh wow, and then they straight-up pokemon'd us at 4:10 for some reason.

lol yes i was surprised she would allow a potentially seizure-inducing sequence in her lyric video

this is a tricky/dream joint fwiw

Might have done better with Portishead, tbh.

i fucking love this. it's gonna sound so good on a club system.

^^^^

liked this more than i expected based on the thread, eagerly awaiting the ten minute david morales remix

david morales?? he's not so great anymore imo. dimitri from paris would kill it. give it to someone like acemo for a raw take. i wish more pop stars would go the dua lipa route and get remixes from the underground. although that was a bit of a mess.

i'm sorry my post was a joke about how '90s the track is

haha gotcha

hell, Junior Vasquez.

yeah, back in the day. so many of these guys do not sound as good after they went all-digital. so many young producers sounding vintage in up-to-date ways. i hope whoever is directing remixes for this gives us some surprises. not to get on my hobby horse about that.

fb friend pointed out that there are going to be a zillion tech house remixes of course.

anyway i'm happy that this is 90s house because that's what i'm into and playing out atm.

between this and drake it's like that classic, reduced mood ii swing -> defected axis is relevant and i don't have to swim against a current so much.

give jayda g license to do whatever she wants with this track.

it sounds awesome in the car and love it, but stil charli's 'used to love me' > this

i like this the more i listen to it... just pretty certain i never needed to hear a "show me love" sample again. nobody has done it better than dj mustard did a decade ago. the intro & outro are the best parts, the actual beyonce-led song is fine. she kinda weirdly trips over the rap verse. it's funny, for as much as the song is about freedom from labor this track feels very workmanlike to me. it competently and efficiently achieves a desired end result.

in general i try to not get worked up by anyone's lead singles tho, you never really know what it portends for the quality of the album. pretty confident there will be some amazing songs on the album. this is much better than "run the world" at any rate

It's not a 'Show Me Love' sample though, right? Just sounds like a Korg M1 organ patch like everyone uses for '90s-referencing dance music these days.

Can't decide if I like the sprinkle of New Orleans bounce in there for flavor, but I think I do, why not. Kinda makes it sound more like a dj blend. I hope Freedia got a huge paycheck.

It's "Show Me Love." The songwriters got credit.

Speaking of "Run the World," I thought that one was dead, buried, and forgotten...then a couple weeks ago in my rhetoric class no less than three students cited it and/or its video as a feminist text. These are 18 to 25 y/olds.

she went so hard on promoting "run the world" and has kept it in her live shows for so long that it seems like a lot of ppl either don't know or don't care that it underperformed upon release. to be fair her performances of it have been pretty excellent

It's not a 'Show Me Love' sample though, right? Just sounds like a Korg M1 organ patch like everyone uses for '90s-referencing dance music these days.

― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, June 21, 2022 1:01 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's "Show Me Love." The songwriters got credit.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, June 21, 2022 1:03 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the synth part is rhythmically distinct and yonce's is harmonically simpler, this is probably a "blurred lines"/"got to give it up" style crediting

i was one of the apparently relatively few who liked it when it came out and still enjoy it today

Agreed, I'm sure it was inspired by Show Me Love and they were referencing it, but I think it's all new production (incl. the M1 piano chords, drums, etc).

They were probably getting out ahead of the inevitable lawsuit had they not credited

I would probably have thought of "Show Me Love" anyway because when I hear that ping-pong preset it's Pavlovian.

Beyonce - Break My Soul pic.twitter.com/67x49WVw2H

— Finn (@FinnMcCorry) June 21, 2022

Speaking of "Run the World," I thought that one was dead, buried, and forgotten...then a couple weeks ago in my rhetoric class no less than three students cited it and/or its video as a feminist text. These are 18 to 25 y/olds.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, June 21, 2022 2:04 PM (forty-six minutes ago)

gosh I’m glad the subtlety wasn’t lost on the youths

ftr, I gave this a second shot, and I get why people like it. I'm at the point where I simply can't buy Bey singing "I just quit my job," but it's not like I wish that condition on others

it doesn't sample Show Me Love

from the BBC -

Weirdly, Break My Soul neither samples nor quotes their song. It simply uses the same bass sound, a preset on the infamous Korg M1 keyboard. But Beyoncé has always been careful to acknowledge the black creators who have influenced her.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61878412

I think it is ok. it does feel like there should be a Morales Red Zone mix. As an aside, i heard when he was knocking those Red Zone mixes out back in the day (at $50-100k a pop!) that he allegedly would have multiple engineers in different studios essentially making those for him and he would go from studio to studio saying "yes", "no" etc.

ps, Beyoncé has always been careful to acknowledge the black creators who have influenced her.

of course the version of Show Me Love everyone knows where that M1 sound was used is the Stonebridge remix and he is white so i think it's even cooler that she credits the OG (black) writers of the song and they will receive some $.

gosh I’m glad the subtlety wasn’t lost on the youths

― k3vin k.

lol I think they googled "feminism"

Beyoncé has always been careful to acknowledge the black creators who have influenced her.

"influenced her" /= "worked for her" ;)

maybe it should have read Beyoncé has started to be careful to acknowledge the black creators who have influenced her.?

Heard this on the car radio today (for the first and only time) and thought it sounded incredible. Surprised to see the mostly negative comments.

if we're talking about credits especially as it pertains to sampling/interpolation that's really a legal question & not a choice of who the artist wants to highlight, unless they're specifically trying to avoid paying people

Right, I'm sure the remixer who used the M1 bass doesn't have publishing on the song, so any credit would have to go to the songwriters.

I like it a lot. I love how, on the chorus after the first verse, she basically grunts/barks the word "break" the first two times and then backs off and sings it straight the next two times. With pop music at Beyoncé's level, every microsecond of every song is agonized over, and sometimes that attention to detail pays off with details like that

lol that last sentence was clumsily worded but you know what I mean

I've been wanting to do a mix of my favourite Korg M1-based house tracks for ages, "Korg M1s for my Korg M8s"

I feel like this song is one that will sound better and better the more ubiquitous it becomes, a constant staple at gay clubs and weddings. I think it needs ubiquity to rise above and banish the patchwork of obvious influences it otherwise resembles.

It will ultimately break me the same way Kylie’s “Spinning Around” did.

That's a pretty optimistic view of its prospects! You think it's destined for that kind of success?

Not sure about broader commercial success per se, but it has a shot of being the current "Cold Heart" for whatever that is worth.

as someone who actually liked "cold heart," this isn't anywhere near as unadventurous as that was, + frankly that was basically the reason it was a success, especially in the us

"cold heart" strikes me as a good call for both potential chart position and how it doesn't seem like much at first but turns into an anthem. n.b. "anthem" in my view means you'll hear it almost every weekend all summer long if you're going out to gay clubs.

xp i loved "cold heart." honestly it's a pretty weird track? the levels of call-back, and like how can something be so nothing-y and emotionally resonant at the same time.

now Renaissance needs to release an album called Beyoncé

OTM

Both this and the Drake album feel more like workout jams than club jams, in the same way that "Work Bitch" is.

country *is* working man cosplay afaict

I don't have a strong negative reaction to smith's piece, but I've been thinking about the suggestion that "texas hold 'em" is "working-class music for folks who can afford a Lexus" - more than the second part of that claim, it's the first that feels too easy, too quick to look past the fact that (as left notes) almost all modern country already is cosplaying some kind of working class authenticity.

I agree with j0rdan above that beyonce's attempts at relatability can perhaps be complicated by the fact that she has cultivated (and/or had cultivated on her behalf) this aura of untouchability. But I think her literal wealth is only a small part of that.

If you google the net worth of Miranda Lambert (someone who I don't think would ever be widely criticised for consistently flirting with working class tropes) the results say that she was worth $60 million last year but is also the "most frugal" country star, who eats at chain restaurants etc.

So, not to belabour the obvious point but, this is really about how people perform (or are perceived to be performing) their class status rather than anything else. What perhaps-inevitably flows from that is that music journalism which purports to offer a "class critique" is often just reheating and repackaging fairly superficial Walmart versus Trader Joe's distinctions.

I'm really surprised by so many ILM posters' love of Lambert, who is literally married to a cop.

it gets even worse check out who she was married to before that

So, not to belabour the obvious point but, this is really about how people _perform_ (or are _perceived_ to be performing) their class status rather than anything else. What perhaps-inevitably flows from that is that music journalism which purports to offer a "class critique" is often just reheating and repackaging fairly superficial Walmart versus Trader Joe's distinctions.

there’s also something with beyonce where people — and i include major cultural critics in this group — extend the persona of regality & virtuosity that we all cherish about her to the point of, essentially — this person does not make art that needs to be critiqued hard and, potentially, in a negative fashion. which is how we end up with the temporary nationwide psychosis that was pretending like that beyonce and jay z rap album was not even just merely good (which it wasn’t) but also equal to if not superior to the current rap of the time (as an insane an argument now as it was then). again not obliquely referring to ppl in this thread i think beyonce gets a fair shot on this wonderful message board. speaking about a larger critical phenomenon

part of that is PR and stan culture capitalism.and all the rest and part of it I assume is remembering all of the *really bad* critiques from over the decades esp from around 10 years ago of her and the things she was was taken to represent, and wanting to be more careful this time

her wealth and scabbing are fair game much like taylor's emissions but picking apart some basic lyrical signifiers that even I know are all over the genre anyway and flirting with a very loaded and empirically false line of argument is definitely the wrong way for people to go

even though I want better criticism of her I am wary of asking for it since I know there are a lot of people who have always been waiting for a chance to take her (and by proxy a lot of other people) down for various unsavoury reasons

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
― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Monday, February 12, 2024 10:14 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well even if you're right about the "persona", that's still a bit of a double standard isn't it? I expect even average Joe to be able to separate artistic figure from the actual artist. I'm not American and not following the cults over them, but one of the only times I saw Beyonce interviewed on TV years and years ago, I was positively surprised and charmed by her humility, and the one thing I remember her saying is that she had worked very hard to make it to where she was. And I believed her, and good for her if she made millions. "Working person cosplay" is just infinitely silly. As if we listeners know what it means to work, and she doesn't? Are people serious?

"We headed to the dive bar we always thought was nice"

this line is hilarious

it gets even worse check out who she was married to before that

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, February 13, 2024 6:44 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

made me lol

https://pitchfork.com/news/beyonce-makes-history-as-texas-hold-em-tops-billboard-hot-country-songsandnbspchart/