I have been following this thread with interest. I think brickbacon has done a good job stepping back and framing Beyoncé and how this thread is looking at pop culture in general and black pop culture in particular.
I would say this: I get that Beyoncé’s music is not targeted to my old white guy demo. But I also readily acknowledge that her reputation and respect starts with her music – with her as a musician. She’s been around way too long, in too many incarnations, with too many hits, for me to not start there.
Now: if I don’t like all of her music, is that an opportunity for me to dig in a bit more, or to dismiss it? I would do a lot of digging first.
To those who question whether Elton John was truly a “megastar,” well, that just proves how hard it is to qualify as a megastar!
We can all agree that Elvis, the Beatles and Michael Jackson were megastars. After that… there have been MANY extremely popular musical artists, but that’s not necessarily the same thing as being a superstar. I think Elton John WAS a superstar in the Seventies, but a lot of acts that sold almost as many records as he did (Chicago? The Eagles? The Bee Gees?) weren’t.
It’s as much about perception as it is quantifiable record or concert ticket sales.
I hate that garbage. It is just racism dressed up with fake science.
I intended this to be specifically about Bey, not about black music or culture in general. Someone mentioned Dave Matthews. He’s another guy whose popularity and fame mystify me. He seemed to develop a specific type of cult, people who were really into his shows and whatnot. I can’t stand his voice, and most of his songs have either seemed to me to be either crap or trans-crap. (A little different than Bey; most of her music just seems boring.)
I made my standard pretty clear from the outset: I see Bey’s fame via the media but I don’t hear anywhere as much enthusiasm about specific songs or really the music in general as I do concerning other artists. Nor have the songs reached out and banged me over the head. Of course, I assume that her fans are discussing specific songs. As far as interacting with people about music, I don’t have any friends that are partisans of modern bands, really. I don’t interact with either Bey fans or Taylor Swift fans.
I did know that she had hits. The way her hits are celebrated or not seems qualitatively different than those of other artists.
To give another example from the world of mediocre white music, One Direction has had some genuinely catchy “event” songs, but I listened to a few from their last album, and they were just terrible. But that album sold in mega-volume, and it had hits. But the hits weren’t “out there” really exciting people in the same way as those from their earlier album(s). But they had a lot of momentum and a lot of teenage girls going crazy over them still. (This is all my perception, mind you.) I think Bey’s current musical fame is sorta the same kind of thing. People are really into her, they are looking to see the best in her music. But she’s not putting out albums of “Thriller”-level quality where all of the songs really pop and they are all distinctive enough to remember. Sure, I know albums of that quality level are rare, but that is what a mega-star like Michael Jackson could do.
It’s a really bad song. Generic (for 2015) beat, generic (for 2015) rappy stuff. Dumb lyrics about shaking the booty. Snore. “Bootylicious” covered that that shit! That really is a great song. Done, move on. “Partition” just seems half-assed and half-hearted. It is “ouch, awful” to me in a contextual sense. Had it come out in 1995, yeah, wow. But there are just a million songs like this now, and my ear is worn out to them. It is like all the rap that is still doing the bling and hoes thing. “Oh but that beat!” Um yeah, whatever.
I put a thread on here a few months back about how I thought rap has been in a rut since 2000 (when the Romeo Must Die soundtrack came out, which I love). Based on a recommendation from someone, I listened to the Money Store by Death Grips, and it blew me the hell away:
Now that shows what rap can do in modern times. Also, more recently, I had a thread about how it sucks that Aaliyah is dead, and where would she be today in terms of fame? Because I think her level of talent blows Bey’s out of the fucking water. And back in 2000, Aaliyah did hit me over the head with her talent, and that music seemed very modern and now. And no, I wasn’t a high school kid, in the demo, anything. I was 29. It was just good music.
C’mon, that’s so wrong you can’t believe it. Ever hear of a song called “We Built This City on Rock and Roll”? Ever hear of Phil Collins? If you lived through the 80s, you know that terrible, terrible music can reach the top of the charts. And I’m not even saying that Bey’s music is terrible on the whole. It just sounds like insincere R&B retreads to me.
Well, the whole point of this thread is to gain some insight. I am genuinely curious as to whether my speculation that her music is a appreciated in a different way than that of other artists is correct.
I think there are many similarities:
Both sell how hot they are.
Both sell their power-couple-dom.
Both sell their in-the-media-ness to maintain and gain in-the-media-ness (both are not just “famous for being famous,” but that is one important “module” of their current fame).
Both sell themselves as fashion brands, etc. Personality as product and brand.
Both have a similar bland, nondescript ways of talking to the media. They are very neutral and tend to speak in platitudes. It is a kind of practiced vacuity. (Kanye is the very opposite, which makes him a nice media partner for Kim.)
The origins of their fame and their respective “products” were originally different, but right now they seem quite similar.
That is very true. Big Bang Theory is currently perceived as big hit show, and it is for 2015, but it would not have ranked in the top 57 in 1994-1995:
It would have been a miserable failure and canceled right away. But what would have been terrible ratings then are great now.
The same thing goes in the record industry. Many #1 albums these days would have been mediocre sellers back in the 1980s.
I agree with all this - she clearly works her ass [sic] off in her singing, dancing and self-promotion. I still don’t like her music though.
I agree. I’ve never been an MJ fan but he was an *incredibly *good songwriter and performer, even if he went off the weird end with his personal life in later years.
How many of the songs she performs does she actually write?
This is pretty much the main indicator that I’m completely out of touch with the rap scene, because everything I’ve heard from him has been terrible. I want crisp rhythms, rhymes and cadences in my rap, dammit, not sloppily-delivered half-assed doggerel. Maybe I’m listening to the wrong songs.
I’m assuming “warbling” refers to that horrible Mariah/Whitney/Christina/every-other-fucking-pop-diva habit of inserting ludicrous melismas into every possible space in a song no matter how stupid it sounds. I don’t recall Dave Matthews or Neil Young doing that, and not nearly as many men do it as women. I think if I ever heard a modern female pop singer actually just hold a note I’d be shocked.
Equating Beyonce with Kim Kardashian, again, is doing you no favors. If you want your arguments to be heard, you have start from a place that acknowledges that Beyonce is a great, talented musician with, at best, some superficial similarities to KK.
I’d say she’s definitely a megastar, although one who the public eye hasn’t really been focused on for the past 4-5 years. Prior to that, from about 2000 through about 2009 she was about as big as anyone got.
But since 2009 or so, she’s taken a hiatus, had a baby and from what I can tell, dialed things back somewhat, while other female singers like say… Katy Perry, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga (to a somewhat lesser extent) have taken up the slack.
So I think if you take the last 15 years and look at it as a whole, she’s definitely a megastar, but in the past 5 or so, not so much. I agree that she hasn’t got nearly the radio air time that her competitors have in that time frame.
I guess I somewhat disagree with this, in that when I learn someone doesn’t write their own music it makes me like them a little bit less.
Enjoying music, to me, is not just all about the voice, it’s in the emotion or backstory of the song. I like a number of artists who have, at best, mediocre voices, but their music works on another level.
Someone being a megastar has nothing to do with you or what you like or dislike or prefer. It has to do with the fact that the artist is wildly popular around the world.
Like, just because you don’t like Vegemite it doesn’t mean that it’s not a hugely popular food in Australia. Not understanding how or why it can be so hugely popular still doesn’t change its popularity.
I just don’t get this. There are a million songs out there like “Partition”? Like what?
For context, here is some critical recognition that the song itself received:
If it was like every other song out there, would it necessarily have gotten critical acclaim?
And that is the difference, right? One can claim well the masses love all sorts of crap, but it’s a harder argument to make when something is also critically acclaimed.
But the problem that I have with this sort of sentiment is: who cares what a critic thinks after you’ve heard the song yourself? Their primary utility is as a guide to what you might like before you’ve heard it. I’ll admit to reading the press about my music, but that’s stupid vanity, and I shouldn’t do it. Once you’ve heard the song, your opinion is as valid as any random critic’s. Don’t give them more credit than they deserve. Hell, musicians like some god awful performers (the fat, short one addressing you is included), and you’d think they’d know better than a critic.
Now, good criticism can sometimes help you understand a work, but not always. Even if it can help you understand it, it can’t make you like the work. In art, context is just about everything. Listening to Beyonce’s work from my context, and even considering the extra context provided by others: her work is unremarkable enough that her status in the pop pantheon is bewildering to me.
For context, in leftfield6’s list, I think Pharrel and Prince are talented enough to have their status, and even they will plop out a golden stinker from time to time. The rest are mediocre pop stars to me.
I know better than a critic what I like. I don’t know better than a critic what is good. Critics can be wrong, but I think they as a whole are more likely to be right than I am about what is good.
But why? “Good” isn’t really an objective judgment. And disregarding that, after I’ve heard it, and heard the criticism, I find it unconvincing and I still think it’s bad, what then? Their information still isn’t of much use to me, is it?
Not at all. Critical acclaim allows one to put a work in perspective. Art isn’t entirely subjective. If it was then these threads basically would come down to arguing that someone’s subjective viewpoint is silly and yours is better just 'cause. But we don’t really think that way, right? We believe that there is some other standard out there. No one just says, well it’s ok to think the Beatles suck and that’s just as valid as my opinion. No, we tend to argue that that opinion is an aberration.
Saying all art is merely subjective and therefore the opinions of those more expert on the topic are irrelevant just basically completely shuts down any discussion at all.
