Look Out! Neal Shyam is bringing the ruckus with a fresh music video review. Beyonce dropped new videos for Halo and Diva last week, and after viewing both, I decided to train my sights on the greater of two evils. My assessment covers both track and video, natch.
The Track: This beat is the raunchy 90210-esque love triangle of a thuggish ruggish hard knock beat, a baby-voiced chorus, and a broken violin. If it were just the percussion, this beat would be savage. I love the drumline sound mixed with the kick of the 808. But as it is, my brain can't process all three elements at once.
You've know how cocaine is often cut with crap like baby laxative? Well here the track is the yayo, (shoutout to John Forté who just got out of lockdown. Talk about stayin alive!), while the laxatives are everything else.
The entire idea of a thugged out Beyonce track always strikes me as mildly ridiculous (This is a stickup/ You see the mask/ I need them bags of that money). Furthermore, is there anyone who doesn't already acknowledge her diva status? I get the feeling that Beyonce is facing some sort of street-cred crisis. It's as though she feels that if she doesn't release tracks like this every now and then, she'll lose her ghetto pass. Well I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news B, but if you ever had a ghetto pass - it expired the day you gerrymandered Destiny's Child around yourself and Kelly Rowland.
And I call bullshit all over the chorus. Everyone I know who calls themselves a diva is a spoiled, bratty, twelve year old acting, daddy's girl. How can you compare that with being a hustler? Diva's are high maintenence. A hustler doesn't rely on anyone but himself.
The Video: Here is my impression of the director's pitch: "Hey B, I got an idea. Let's take your recent and wildly successful video and do it over again in a warehouse with some golden mannequins." Amazing, I know.
The director, Melina, has quite a few videos to her credit (Go Girl, Just Dance, Money Maker) - but at least half of them are stinkers (Sensual Seduction, Good Good, Green Light, anything by NeYo....) Curiously, she did not direct the Single Ladies video. Which begs the question: What the fuck, when did jocking Robert Palmer's marketing strategy become cool?
And while some artists release one video at a time, Beyonce likes to drop deuces. As we discussed on the podcast yesterday, this is probably just part of the split personality / Sasha Fierce thing. Release a soulful song (Halo) and a really in your face track simultaneously (Diva). I understand it, but I also understand saturation. Single Ladies is way more popular than If I Were A Boy, to the point where only one single can be relevant at any given time. This did not work so well with the last album either, when she released 4 videos at the same time and no one knew about 3 of them. Interesting experiment though.
Here is the thing, the black, the white, the dancers, the warehouse, the mannequins, the crazy angular outfits, those ridiculous sunglasses at the beginning, I can't take it! This video is an audio-visual cacophony. I'm all for art and high fashion and dancing - but, I think I prefer B at the end of the video: jeans, t-shirt, and a ponytail.
The Bottom Line: When was the last time your diva ass had to hustle for shit B?
i didn't understand this song until the VERY end of the video!!! way i see it, the mannequins are other pop stars and Beyonce is, well, Beyonce. i think more specifically what she means is that "a diva is a female music business version of a rapper calling himself a hustler." so whatever to the song. i think it's kinda dumb but the beat is decent (though i agree it's overstuffed with sounds).
now the video is a whole other matter. a HUGE WTF to you Beyonce. i mean, seriously, what's with those glasses? i feel like she's going to look back on this video in 10 years and be like "uh.... i was going thru a weird phase then..." the mannequins theme only works as a beginning and ending thing. it sucks in the dance. and the dance just plain sucks. it looks like they hired Tim Burton's art director to make the sets and they got Tina Turner's art director to make the costumes (circa Thunderdome... which, BTW, Thunderdome would be a hilarious UAL track name... think about it...). okay i'm spent. good effort on the track and video all around, but the whole production is awkward.
I didn't even think about the mannequins like that. Good eye Nick. There is that one costume with the huge triangle thing, and they only show it to you for a second, but I nearly lost it when I saw it. How much more ridiculous can you get?
yeah i saw that too! it's right at the end. same exact thing happened to me when i saw it.
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Interesting...
Can't say I was ever a Beyonce fan though - amazing voice and vocals but she's marketed herself like a brand name and it shows.
Give me the artists who are still doing the Indie thing like Missy Higgins and Ben Lee and John Butler. Sure, their music is a different style but they also don't try and put themselves too far out there. This makes me beg the question of what would happen to fill the void if everyone was Indie?
And now I'm way off topic...
I did appreciate your closing sentence.
indie is the way it's going. i mean, record companies exist mostly for distribution and advertising purposes nowadays. i don't think things would be much different if EVERYTHING went indie though. some artists would still sell out regardless of whether they finance their own endeavors or not.
Nick
Thanks for the visit and listen. I used Sony Acid 6 to record and mix up some samples but did the final editing in Audacity. I did it over a few times as there were a few spikes. I learned how to normalize it.
I had some site issues and technical problems but all that seems to be settled and I am scripting a 2nd show. I don't have a partner like you do with Neil so my plan is to keep the show about 5 to 6 minutes in length or until my wit and charisma level doubles.
I am totally new to all this podcast stuff. I used feedburner to make the RSS feed. I guess it is working. I am not gonna worry too much over all that until later. If there are some sites like yours you can recommend, media like music, movies and comic books, please let me know and I will check 'em out.
Thanks
Bill Courtney
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