Beyonce has claimed her right to be different and unpredictable

When in 2004 Beyonce Knowles’ solo debut album Dangerously In Love earned her five Grammy Awards, it was clear that she has become a new American icon. Pop and R&B diva, she is also making a successful movie career and has worked out her own clothes fashion label. This year Beyonce’s sophomore effort B’Day has been released on the 4th of September, the singer’s 25th birthday, and hence its name. The artist’s idea was to make a special surprise and it took her and her co-producers only three weeks to record the album, the work having been hard and unremitting. The result has exceeded all expectations: keeping experimenting with the possibilities of her outstanding vocal, Beyonce has made a record completely different from the debut work. The melodies on B’Day are significantly more complicated and multilayer, and many of the songs are tougher, more eccentric and filled with emotions. Working with Rich Harrison, the Neptunes and Swizz Beatz, the singer has achieved the most unusual transcriptions enriched by the special audio effects and making each song a challenge for her powerful high tone vocals. With this record Beyonce has claimed her right to be different and unpredictable and do the music that she thinks best expresses her inner world.

B’Day surprises with its singularity

Beyonce’s debut album started with the extremely successful single Crazy In Love performed with her boyfriend Jay-Z, and this time she has decided to follow the same way. B’Day opens with the new R&B masterpiece from Beyonce and Jay-Z, a single called correspondingly Deja Vu that immediately demonstrates the changes in the singer’s style towards more unusual performance. As before, here we have an opportunity to enjoy a lucky combination of a female vocal and rapping, but now notes that she is taking are much higher and the tune is not so simple anymore. Her quality changes again on the Swizz Beatz produced track Get Me Bodied, and to such and extent that some might even compare it to Tina Turner’s, and the background is also formed of repeating vocal samples. The second single off the album Ring the Alarm is a very emotional song about Beyonce’s jealous suspicions concerning her man and she also advises other girls to keep away from him. Green Light is one of the frankest songs the singer has ever written, its sweet rhythm and explicit lyrics won’t leave any indifferent, while on the superb acoustic ballad Irreplaceable she demonstrates her self-sufficiency to the treacherous lover and sings so artfully, that behind there is still heard the voice of a weak woman with hurt feelings. Ending on a catchy danceable hit Check On It featuring Bun B and Slim Thug, B’Day surprises with its singularity and proves that Beyonce is still inimitable.

A new Beyonce, more mature and striving for experiment

Starting as a member of a band, Beyonce has been an object of the public interest for quite a long time now. When her solo career began, she has gained a steady fan base that is constantly growing. Yet, with the release of B’Day the situation may change. Due to so many nuances and hidden tints of feelings, it is impossible to get the complete impression of B’Day from the first hearing. This is an album, presenting a new Beyonce, more mature and striving for experiment. Some songs are especially different from what we are used to, others are just as great and destined to be hits as most of her previous material. Anyway each of them witnesses a considerable musical growth and inventiveness of this young talented singer, and as long as there are new ideas in store, she is sure to keep surprising. Some have predicted a competition between Beyonce’s and another former Destiny’s Child member LeToya’s albums, but now the question is naturally off. B’Day is beyond all comparison, and no matter what the evil tongues say, the artist has once again confirmed her status of a star and presented the world with a new collection of great interesting and memorable songs.

07.09.2006