REVISED (Academic Argument): Beyonce

It takes a queen. It takes a queen to release an album without any promotion or previous announcement…and to do it successfully. It takes a queen to nearly break the Internet. Who is this queen you ask? Katy Perry.

Just kidding. It is Queen Bey of course.

            On December 13, 2013 Beyoncé did a surprise reveal at midnight of her self-entitled album, Beyoncé. The album contained fourteen songs, five singles, and was accompanied by seventeen music videos. The singles on the album were “XO”, “Flawless”, “Pretty Hurts”, “Drunk in Love”, and “Partition.” Beyoncé quickly became the fastest selling album in iTunes history. The album featured artists Jay Z (of course), Drake, Frank Ocean, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and even her young daughter, Blue Ivy. It went two times platinum in the United States and reached number one on Billboard’s Top 200 and Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums. Of all of the fantastic albums Beyoncé ever released, this is by far the greatest and the most bootylicious.

            The themes found in Beyoncé can be put into three categories: Sex/Love, Relationships, and being yourself. The songs that fit in the sex/love category include “Drunk in Love”, “Blow”, “No Angel”, “Partition/Yonce”, and “Rocket.” The relationships category includes “Jealous”, “Mine”, “XO”, “Superpower”, “Heaven”, and “Blue.” The being yourself group has “Pretty Hurts”, “Ghost/Haunted”, and “Flawless.” There is a pretty good spread of songs per group. After listening to each song and lyrically analyzing and grouping them I have came to a conclusion. Many critics who had negative things to say about Beyoncé and its sexual content are looking too close to the surface and too individually at each song instead of viewing the album as a whole. According to Pitchfork, Beyoncé is just trying too hard to follow the risqué pathway way that Miley Cyrus and Rihanna have paved. What they are failing to recognize is that she is completely different from Miley and Rihanna in that she has a successful marriage to back up her sexual music; she is not just singing about sex without a healthy relationship to base it off of. Then there are the critics, like Vivienne Pattison who did an interview with Daily Mail about the subject, who say that Beyoncé is making us take steps backwards in terms of the feminist revolution. Since when has embracing your sexuality and being who you are made society change their views on where women belong in the world? In all honesty, Beyoncé embracing her sex life and normalizing the idea of sex in a healthy relationship is empowering to women. It is showing them that maybe instead of one night stands; they should be looking for someone who actually cares for them. Laura Cox talks about how Beyoncé released her album and videos straight to video because Beyoncé says she wanted to speak “directly to her fans with no filter.” Honestly, why in the hell would someone just want to tell the whole world about their sex life without some deeper reason? It is just illogical. The album is truly about her relationship with Jay Z and her family, not just about sex. In “Flawless”, she even goes on to reference her mother, father, and sister. “Blue” is a song all about how much she loves her daughter. Daily Mail also made a statement about how Beyoncé “cashed in” by using her daughter in the album. My reaction to that: they are just searching for something to hate Beyoncé for at this point. That is them looking at the surface level of the song versus applying its meaning to the album as a whole. The crazy thing to me is that when Beyoncé remade her song “Crazy in Love” to fit the themes of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey, no one had a word to say about how extremely sexual she made the song. Why? What is the big difference? Just because it was made for a movie about an overly sexually crazy man? In the song “Flawless”, it begins with an intro by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and part of it states, “…We teach girls they cannot be sexual beings in the way boys are.” I think that explains exactly why Beyoncé was not criticized for her remake of the song “Crazy in Love.” I also think that is exactly why I can not find any articles that call out Lil Wayne, Jeremih, T-Pain, Ludacris, Trey Songz, or any other male music artist for embracing their sexuality in their music. Lil Wayne’s song “Lollipop” has the same exact theme except from a male’s perspective as Beyoncé’s song “Blow.” Somehow though, it was an outrage when Beyoncé released “Blow” but no one cared at all about how dirty “Lollipop” was when it came out. Ludacris literally has a song called “Sex Room” that talks solely about having a room to have sex in that includes poles and candles to “entice” women. Still, no reaction from the critics or society. I think that like Adichie said, society thinks it is unacceptable for women to embrace and speak/sing/rap/refer to their sexuality but if a man does it then it is completely fine. Unfortunately, I do not have an answer to this problem. I am not sure how to change the views of our society. I do not know how to make people see that women can be and should be allowed to express that they are the sexual beings men are. What I can say is that I think Beyoncé is on the right path. I think she making leaps in the right direction. If people are not going to come to the conclusion that women should be treated equally on their own, then women may as well express their freedom to be equal and eventually society will succumb to the reality.

            Now that my rant is over, I want to focus more on the album, Beyoncé, itself. I am so overwhelmingly pleased with everything Beyoncé did with this album. This is the first album of hers that I felt like she had a true goal; I felt like she had a plan in her mind from the moment she began working on it. From the themes of the album to how she released it, I think she knew exactly what she was doing. She wanted Beyoncé to make a statement about sexuality and feminism and relationships. The downfall in this plan though is that not everyone will get her planning. The people who did not understand her intentions were the ones who did not know how to listen to the album. It is honestly like a person trying to read a book and make each chapter it’s own story instead of putting all of the chapters together to see one important moral of a singular story. I do not have a personal favorite song from the album. I like each song for what it has to provide to the final story and its method of getting its point across. I love “Pretty Hurts” because it is so meaningful and applicable to real like that it evokes an unavoidable emotional response not to mention how beautiful Beyoncé sounds in it. My favorite song to dance to in this album is “Yonce/Partition” as long as I am somewhere that has some poppin’ bass. It is the greatest song to get pumped up for something. About to go play a soccer game? Listen to “Yonce/Partition.” About to go to a party? Listen to “Yonce/Partition.” About to go to the grocery store to buy milk? Hell, listen to “Yonce/Partition” any way cause why not? The best song on the album to sing/rap along to is absolutely, without a doubt, “Drunk in Love.” I feel like anyone who has the slightest affinity towards Beyoncé has just screamed “DRUNK IN LOVEEEE!” at least once in their life. It is ok if you have. Do not deny it. There is nothing to be ashamed of. One thing that I think contributed to the success of this album was how Beyoncé incorporated other artists on her tracks. On Beyoncé, she featured Jay Z, Drake, and Frank Ocean. All three of those artists are very popular so it appealed to not only her fans, but also their fans. Again, another smart tactic displayed by Queen Bey while creating this masterpiece.

            This is it. This is the moment I have been waiting for. I have reviewed Dangerously in Love, B’Day, I am…Sasha Fierce, and 4. Every time I have found and had to give negative feedback on something in every album... up until now. Beyoncé is the first solo album Beyoncé has released that I cannot find anything that I do not like. She has done it ladies and gents. She has created the perfect album in my professional Beyoncé expertise. I cannot imagine her releasing an album more perfect than this one, but I sure as hell hope she tries to top it anyway. On the bootylicious scale, I give Beyoncé a ten out of ten.

Works Cited:

Battan, Carrie. "Beyoncé: Beyoncé." Pitchfork. 6 Jan. 2014. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.

Cox, Laura. "Beyonce Backlash: Parents' Anger at Star's X-rated New Album and Videos... Which                        Even Include Her One-year-old Daughter." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 14 Dec. 2013.         Web. 11 Dec. 2015.

Webber, Stephanie. "Beyonce "Killed It" With Fifty Shades "Crazy In Love" Remake." Us Weekly. 24       July 2014. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.