Review Summary: Big on ideas, relatively short on tunes
I don't like the word overrated. It's so rooted in the negative and tries to lend one's opinion an air of objectivity. That being said, Beyoncé's self-titled album was an album destined to be overrated. Beyoncé has long been among the ranks of pop stars it's “acceptable” to like, but she never released an album-fan's album – an album that feels like a complete auteur's statement. That's not a slight against her; singles are the pop fan's bread and butter, after all. But for crits and rock fans, it kept her from true critical acclaim. Her 2011 effort 4 came close to capturing that acclaim, but it wasn't until her self-titled that she was thought of an album artist. Reading press releases on Beyoncé, it practically reads like a checklist for acclaim. Released as a surprise with no advance promotion or album cover! A “visual album” that tries to paint a portrait of the artist's multiple facets! Featuring songs co-written by Caroline Polachek, Frank Ocean, and Miguel! Now, those things don't detract from the album, but they did distract listeners from what is most important – the songs. Stripping back the extraneous details, Beyoncé is pretty much your typical singles-and-filler pop album. There's some interesting production and songwriting, but it by no means is the cohesive capital “A” Album advertised and promoted.
Now, the singles for Beyoncé are fantastic, as can be expected of the artist who has given us “Crazy in Love,” “Single Ladies,” and “Countdown.” “Drunk in Love” is easily the best of the four. It's a heavily trap-influenced tale of sex and liquor that is just amazingly catchy. Jay Z's verse is pretty awful, featuring some references to Ike and Tina Turner as rough sex metaphors (as well as some really lazy lines), but it's short enough to not detract from the song really. I've heard “Drunk in Love” easily over a hundred times since the album came out, and it still sounds incredibly fresh. The other single released at the time of the album release, “XO,” is an arena pop song with more romantic lyrics. It's not remarkable, but it's catchy and feels heartfelt enough. The next single released, “Partition,” is another great song. It has a bit of a hyphy influence, with a simple but effective bassline and some pretty synth swells in the chorus. The lyrics are very raunchy, but it's fun and sexy. The final single, just released at the beginning of June, is “Pretty Hurts,” an emotional ballad about standards of beauty. Beyoncé's “girl power” songs have been criticized in the past as seeming calculated and generic, but there's some real hurt and emotion in the song, in her vocals and in the lyrics. I remember being with friends when the album came out and “Pretty Hurts” was the first video that leaked. We were all hanging out and having fun and then we watched the video and were just speechless. The video is all acting of course, but that doesn't make the emotional impact any less real. I don't think you can ask for any more from pop than that kind of visceral emotional reaction.
Besides the singles, however, there are ten other tracks on Beyoncé, and they are more hit-and-miss. To their credit, most of these tracks have very interesting production. The album draws about equally from trap and from the supposed “PBR&B” wave of artists like Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, and Miguel. What this effectively means is that there is both some great bass on this album and some gorgeous atmospheric synth textures. “Haunted” is a particularly well-produced track. The 2-step drum pattern and dark, engrossing synths are reminiscent of Burial. Many of these tracks are multipartite in the style of The 20/20 Experience. “Blow” for example switches between a slow groove and a more energetic, danceable beat a couple times. The aforementioned “Partition” has the short track “Yoncé” at the beginning, which is a dark kinda-rap track with a lot of bass hits before moving into “Partition.” In its production, Beyoncé is something like this generation's Ray of Light, successfully incorporating sounds and ideas of more eccentric pop acts into a mainstream pop context.
Unfortunately, a lot of the songs – perhaps most – fail in that most important of pop criteria: they're not catchy. As nice-sounding as “Haunting” is, it's quite a slog to get through honestly. The worst is the three song stretch between “Partition” and “XO,” which features two songs over six minutes long. None of the three really grab your attention, with “Rocket” being particularly monotonous. It drags its feet for six and a half minutes with no interesting melodic or percussive ideas in sight. “Mine” is very repetitive, repeating its couple hooks incessantly throughout the song despite them not being catchy at all. There are some good songs that weren't released as singles - “No Angel” and the last two tracks in particular stick out – but a lot of them are skippable after a handful of listens.
Despite the accolades Beyoncé received for making a consistent “statement” album, her self-titled just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Ultimately it's just Beyoncé doing what she does well: making some great singles and a few good deep cuts. As an album, Beyoncé can't really stand next to its “PBR&B” inspirations or to slightly more left-field competitors like Lorde, Charli XCX, and Sky Ferreira.
