She’s already broken free from her girl group and launched a solo career—all under the watchful eye and firm guiding hand of a Svengali (or two). And now, following Ross’s timeless blueprint of ambition, the Houston native has kicked things into turbo: Last year alone, she launched a fashion line,
House of Deréon, with her mother and landed the Ross-inspired “Deena” role in the forthcoming film adaptation of
Dreamgirls.
And, of course, there’s music. Set for release twenty-four hours after her twenty-fifth birthday,
B’Day—the follow-up to her multiplatinum 2003 solo debut,
Dangerously in Love (Columbia)—is by turns steely, seductive, and professional (terms that also apply to Beyoncé’s frozen, eerie stare on the album’s cover).
Beyoncé allegedly cowrote, arranged, produced, and recorded all of
B’Day without any parental input, suggesting that after nine Grammys—three with
Destiny’s Child, six by herself—she’s done with being the child. The resulting ten tracks are monomaniacally focused, a generally exhilarating marriage of pop songcraft and state-of-the-art rhythms.
Perhaps to offset the reportedly ballad-heavy Dreamgirls soundtrack, due for release this winter, eight of the ten here are uptempo club bangers, breathlessly sequenced without breaks. The
Swizz Beatz–produced “Get Me Bodied” is sinewy, bouncing with hand claps and clanging rims, while
Rich Harrison’s kinetic “Suga Mama” complements Beyoncé’s lascivious come-ons with a dusty funk sample. Dizzying
Rodney Jerkins lead single
Déjà Vu seems cloned from the DNA of the raucous “Crazy in Love”—same speed bump bass, same clipped horns, same blasé
Jay-Z cameo.
But the compact and caffeinated B’Day also sounds calculated, as if it were A&R’d by a nervous number cruncher. One senses Beyoncé is forever holding something back. Maybe it’s a holdover from her Destiny’s Child early days as a seemingly virginal Christian role model, or maybe it’s the predictable effect of morphing into a global entertainment complex. Nevertheless, artistically, Beyoncé thrills amid the restrictions, having discovered a newly effective vocal strategy.
Discarding overwrought melisma (see “Dangerously in Love”) for throaty belts and grimy growls, she finally sounds in control, as if the process of cutting through her strings—as, say,
Janet Jackson famously did two decades ago—has given her vocals new passion and purpose.
On B’Day, Beyoncé is a self-aware woman who knows precisely what she wants from men and how to demand it on her own terms. When Jay-Z shows up again on the bombastic “Upgrade U” (produced by Cameron Wallace), Beyoncé asserts her primacy: “Your dynasty ain’t complete / Without a chief like me,” and “I can do for you / What Martin did for the people.”
Beyoncé’s also happy to fight back, issuing fierce retorts to badly behaving men. On the soaring “Irreplaceable,” one of the album’s two ballads, she warns, “I could have another you in a minute / Matter of fact he’ll be here in a minute / Don’t you ever for a second get to thinking that you’re irreplaceable.” And the hook to Swizz Beatz’s “Ring the Alarm” is both a sexual invitation and a threat: “Ring the alarm / But I’ll be damned if I see another chick on your arm.”
While artists like Amerie and Rihanna are attempting to walk in her footprints, Beyoncé clearly spared no expense reclaiming the turf that’s rightfully hers. But the downside of this steely self-confidence is that she all but forgoes vulnerability—a quality that anchors all great R&B divas—for mere sass. It seems Beyoncé would rather merely appear to be crazy in love than to actually grapple with love’s nuances. “Listen,” a gargantuan orchestral ballad newly written for Dreamgirls, asks us to celebrate Beyoncé’s towering sense of self-esteem, but what’s lacking
are the stumbles she’s made on the path to self-satisfaction.
It’s why, despite her skill, Beyoncé remains today’s most aloof pop singer: She’ll never crack or show her seams. Even when the material gets spicy, her image remains drenched in composure and respectability. She’ll wear her efficiency on her sleeve, but never her emotions.
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