Posts Tagged ‘beyoncé’

all about the music // December 3rd, 2009 // 6 Comments

America, this is your Grammy winner. Right here.

I’m only just getting around to paying any attention to the Grammy noms, since my investment in not only popular music but music as a whole and any discussion thereof is diminishing faster than the speed of light. Seriously, the world has gone mad and all I can do is laugh until my sides hurt.

 

Compare the headlines that Beyoncé was nominated for 10 awards while Whitney was nominated for zero and you begin to understand the magnitudinous absurdity at work. And no, I don’t have any particular investment in either Whitney or Beyoncé (although in theory I’m supposed to be genetically predisposed to worshipping them since I’m a Black, gay male–but then I truly do not give first-fuck or last. I’m hoarding fucks and distributing them only for emergency purposes. Waste not, want not.) but 10 to 1 for these two speaks volumes on music, its industry and fans, and our culture. (Even a close comrade says of  Beysus: “GaGa gets shunned in the new artist category because of a bullshit technicality and this nursery rhyme writing ho gets 10 NODS??? Please. She must be fuckin’ somebody on the nomination board somethin TERRIBLE!!!”) Or maybe it doesn’t. Consider this:

 

Nominations for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
Ego: Beyoncé & Kanye West
Knock You Down: Keri Hilson, Kanye West & Ne-Yo
Run This Town: Jay-Z, Rihanna & Kanye West
I’m On A Boat: The Lonely Island & T-Pain <—THIS
Dead And Gone: T.I. & Justin Timberlake

 

Have you LOL’d all over yourself like I did yet? One can only imagine the copious amounts of crack smoked and bong water swallowed to arrive at this nomination. But, I think it should win, just be-fucking-cause.

 

all about the music // November 2nd, 2009 // 9 Comments

We must destroy Hidden Beach “Unwrapped” jazz thingy.

smfhDid you know Hidden Beach, record label to Jill Scott plus a bunch of other artists, was still releasing those atrocious Unwrapped “jazz” compilations? If not, I’m here to fuck your day up: They are. A long long time ago, “jazz” renditions of popular Hip-Hop songs seemed like a novel idea, but as Hip-Hop becomes more grotesque, what we need less of is multiple versions of played-out, shitty songs.

 

Unwrapped Vol. 6: A Tribute To Lil’ Wayne Give The Drummer Some features a 24-year-old drummer named Tony Royster, Jr., who is too young to be sucked into this Old People Fail. Who decides, at 24, that they’re gonna totally fuck up the crappy songs their peers love by oldifying them? Also, this album is mostly a bunch of songs we got sick of until they became parodies of themselves: “Best I Ever Had”, “Every Girl”, “Turnin’ Me On”, “Single Ladies”, etc, with a couple tracks by De La Soul and Craig Mack tossed in for ornery Hip-Hop elitists such as myself. Whatever, Hidden Beach!

 

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get your girl // October 12th, 2009 // 7 Comments

Pop’s Dissociative Identity Disorder

Much has been written about a disturbing trend in Pop music where a singer adopts an alter-ego that is a little more fearless, a little more sexy and completely without boundaries. This is the sort of thing that plays directly into the hands of fans that love to attach epic mythologies to their divas where none before existed. For the rest of us, it’s at best pure comedy and at worst completely tiresome. Seems Lola didn’t get the memo.

 

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new shit // July 9th, 2009 // Comments Off

In response to the ‘Sweet Dreams’ video

Oh dear. I think it’s time I finally, truthfully, go on record about how I feel about this Beyonce person. Not that anyone particularly cares what I have to say unless it’s here, but for those of you still reading, here goes:

 

What is it with her? Like, is there anyone “at home” in there?

 

I think, at nearly 30, I’m way too young to feel like I’ve seen/heard everything there is to see/hear in music. When the current stuff gets dull, I often find myself digging into the archives, back to the good shit. That kind of discovery is always rewarding, especially since it is truly independent of modern tastemakers that so often piggyback one another. So when people gag and marvel at everything Beyonce does, I just don’t get it. Maybe she’s really, really trying to push herself to create something that is either visually or aurally fresh. But she can’t. There isn’t a single new idea under the sun, and unfortunately when it’s presented in the package that is her, I’m never really inspired to say “Oh she nailed that.”

 

Beyonce, the more famous she becomes, tends to remind me of a little girl playing dress-up. You look into her face, and at once you can tell she’s very serious about putting on a good show, but it always feels like a great big joke. She’s the perpetual drag queen in the Bob Mackey fashion show that is Urban Pop.

 

And the funny thing is, I’m supposed to have a genetic predisposition to Beyonce worship, what with me being Black and gay and all. And sometimes I think, maybe I’m not that moved because I’m almost 30, and her target is 12-year-olds, but time after time I find myself containing my laughter at 40-year-old Black gay men that think she’s Jesus. Like Diana and Tina didn’t happen. This phenomenon never fails to astound me.

 

So no, I don’t particularly hate her. Hate would mean that she stirs some kind of emotion in me. But I also don’t like her very much. She’s good for a cute, catchy single, but beyond that, I feel like we finally have a nationally-beloved Black “diva” that in her prime would hump the stage for coins and it would be boring, or at most slightly humorous.

 

I originally posted this shit on my Tumblr and decided it was too long to just sit there.

 

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