Unless you've been living under a rock, you most likely have heard that Beyoncé dropped two brand new songs this week from her upcoming Platinum Box Set and on Friday night she unleashed another surprise in the form of a purposely amateurish video for one of the songs, 7/11. The vid, featuring a lot of wiggling and jiggling, has already racked up the hits on YouTube, with more than 12 million page views to date. As for the song, I say meh.
I've always had a sort of love/hate relationship with Beyoncé. I compare her to a modern day Diana Ross, having gotten her licks with a girl group before breaking out in a big way all on her own, but I always felt that she did it all and became a superstar way too fast. I understand that it's just the times, and in an age of oh-so-instant movement from artist to listener, people take such leaps into the stratosphere without really having to do as much as they had to do back in the day. Okay!
As with most people, I've enjoyed Bey's music, both with Destiny's Child and as a solo artist, and I do think she makes a pretty good role model as far as someone in her stature. That being said, I hearken back to my buddy Rich, who gave me pause to think about the music. He recently asked me what I liked about her Get Me Bodied one day when it came on the radio in the car.
I don't get it. It's not really a dance song. How do you dance to that?
I saw his point. When you actually listen to the song, which I still love, you can hear how it's just kind of all over the place musically, and as for the vocals, it's just Bey being a sassy diva...drop drop to yo' knees, arch your back girl...
Keeping that in mind, I was never a huge fan of her surprise eponymous marketing ploy that was her last album. With the exception of maybe three or four songs, the rest of that album is kind of how Rich described that song I love, only they're even more-so full of dissonant music set to equally frenzied lyrics. And so it is with 7/11. Sure, Miss B is the Thang these days and everything she does seems to get spun off in nothing but positivity even when it's not really so original or even good. So it is with this one. I actually like the other one she released this week, Ring Off, much better.
So check it out for yourself if you're a Beyoncé fan, and let me know if you find a quality in it that I just don't see. Perhaps I'm just too much of a non-conformist.
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