When it comes to Beyonce, I have never much cared for her. Destiny's Child hit me as a lame TLC, Beyonce a case of the second law of thermodynamics come to live. A song here, a song there, fine. Plus she had great legs. I saw her sing "Crazy In love" with Jigga once and was suitably awed. That period of my life is now over.
i don't care what the rest of the world tells you, 4 is a magnificent album.. From the opening song, and song of the year, "1Plus1" through to the penultimate overblown but well deserved ballad "I Was Here" and modern Mia inspired techno Diplo magnifico "Run The World (girls)", this a marvelous piece of r&b product. Even a song I didn't like out of context, "Best Thing I Never Had" improves here. And the relentless string of full throated soul singing at the service of modern techno production, lean and mean, is aweinspiring.
It really is amazing. "I Care", the second song, simply couldn't be better: it is the anti-Gaga and a lesson to everybody to be yourself: despite the production values, despite the back up vocals, despite the distorted drums, it is stripped down. This is what she has learnt from Etta James. To not fuck with every song till it suffocates.
By the halfway mark, the album begins to pick up steam and ends with a brace of dance numbers, track # 5 is the Andre 3000 duet, and they are all good.
The only question now is… will it sell? If it doesn't it will weaken, the strain lines will be found, and the album will falter. If it does sell, it will be one of the best albums of the year.
Grade: A-