Because she is the most amazing human specimen ever to walk the earth, Beyoncé dropped an entire album yesterday with no warning, marketing, or pre-sale hype. “Beyoncé” is her fifth solo LP, including collaborations with Drake, Michelle Williams, and Frank Ocean, among others. Bey being Bey, this isn’t just any old album. “Beyoncè” is a “visual album:” for each song, there is an accompanying video released simultaneously.
The album doesn’t bring much new in terms of Bey’s sound–electro-synth R&B dominates, and it is (mostly) eminently danceable. The videos are lavish in detail, celebrating the globetrotting lifestyle for which she and her husband, who I hear is also a singer, have become famous. The real coup here is the surprise of the album’s quick drop, though it remains to be seen how the lack of marketing will treat Queen Bey.
But one of the songs is especially worth listening to/watching. “Pretty Hurts” is a powerful ballad and an even better video, with Beyoncé acting as a beauty pageant competitor: getting her (already tiny) waist measured, getting snide glances from other women, plastering a wide smile onto her face as she is judged relentlessly. The hook addresses the critical way women are treated in the entertainment industry, an especially grievous state of affairs when faiths of all kinds tell us that people have inherent dignity, of the kind that cannot be made stronger or weaker by the color of our skin or the size of our jeans.
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