One artist. Every album. Ten songs.
The Music of Beyoncé
I'm on a quest to broaden my musical horizons, and my strategy has been pretty simple. I get recommended an artist, I listen to every album of theirs, and I pick my ten favourite songs. I get there by picking up to three favourite tracks from each album as a starting point, and then narrowing it down. And when I started asking for recommendations, I knew exactly who my sister-in-law Leah was going to suggest.
Beyoncé was the lead singer of the popular girl group Destiny's Child before charting her own course with her first solo album in 2003. Since then, she's been on a path of continually growing glory - with her seven studio albums each debuting at the Billboard 200's number one spot. Her fans have a hyper-intense loyalty to her and her brand, to the point where she's really spoken of as more of a deity than a flesh-and-blood human. Whether this was intentional or not, she certainly hasn't shied away from the idea in her songs.
Beyoncé's albums are powerful, energetic, and graphically sexual. The first two made listening to her work a ton of fun - the last one had me quickly deciding that she wouldn't be the kind of artist I'd recommend without reservation. Don't get me wrong - she's a powerhouse of a performer, and her songs are infectiously confident. But right from her very first solo album, it's made clear that not all of her tracks are the kind you can listen to with your grandmother. For me, there were a number of tracks that I'm really looking forward to never hearing again, and it's simply because the lyrical content isn't the kind of thing I'm looking for from my music.
But let's focus on the good, because there's a lot of it. Beyoncé's talent and range as a singer is proven time and time again in the ferocity and urgency of her songs. I missed hearing Love On Top back when it originally hit the charts, but as I finally listened to it go on and on I kept getting more and more invested. Other hits like Run the World or Single Ladies are iconic show-stoppers that I'll probably never get tired of hearing. Daddy Lessons from her album Lemonade was probably one of her biggest departures from her own genre, and I found it intriguing both musically and lyrically. Everything she describes in that song is something that I'd normally be horrified to hear, but she describes it with an earnest loyalty that really had me thinking about the power of national traditions and values - particularly broken or misplaced values - on the individual.
If you're ever looking to get pumped up, Beyoncé is a great place to start. But if you're in the midst of a family event - or if you're like me and aren't interested in hearing about Beyonce and Jay-Z's extensive sex life - then I'd also proceed with caution.
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