It says absolutely nothing to say that I like Beyonce. But it says quite a bit that I'm a fan of this song. It's kinda hot. Please don't attack me for being late. It's not nice to throw rocks at old people.
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Kinda hot? Great googly moogly!
Great song, too - except for that stanky bridge. It reminds me a little of a faster "Lemme Get That," also awesome.
Holy crow. Is she getting better with age?
I don't know if I like Beyonce, but I'm truly, madly, deeply in love with her thighs.
I kind of love this song, but I HATE Bey for making me spend so much time in the gym. It was hard enough living up to white standards of beauty... getting past those issues means I now have to live up to the achievable -- Beyonce's legs.
Love the song, love Beyonce, just commenting to add some fun trivia: apparently the video was shot in a single take, and it took TWELVE HOURS to get it right.
Her legs are ridiculous. Also, I love the shout-out in B's choreography to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9xer2luUXo
which many people may know was remixed into this hilarious thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU3N5c2Kxnw&feature=related
This is one of the high points of her new album--she joins her husband among the bevy of hip-hop/R&B stars to put out mediocre double albums.
No good reason?
C'mon, TNC. There's plenty of good reasons to like Beyonce. Don't make me count the ways.
There are many good reasons. I should be a man and say it. I love Beyonce. And I don't if the whole world knows.
Can't say I like R&B, and the song wears out its welcome quickly (for me anyway). But Beyonce's visuals more than make up for it.
Did anyone else see the blonde backup dancer with Beyonce when she performed this at the AMA?
Between the two of them I couldn't look away from the screen. Nor could my wife. She was walking by the TV and stopped and said, "Damn! Those are some hot ladies."
P.S. Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgTQ5FRxeSI&feature=related
I love the video, though it makes her look like she married Dr. Doom.
she is just unbelievably hot. i believe that her hotness may actually transcend sexual orientation. also, the choreography both plays up all the dancers best assets and tells the story of the song. does anybody know who did it?
great fun. thanks for posting it TNC.
I guess I will be the one who says that I don't like the song or the video...and to be honest, I think Beyonce has long worn out her welcome. The double album is ok at best.
Ta...right on point! She's smokin' and so is the video...the album has a couple of strong songs. nuthin much, but a decent attempt! Now, the SNL-skit on this video is hilarious! the whole episode with paul rudd and beyonce was a hit. Her performance....damn...her thighs should be considered a national treasure...sanctify them, consider them a national reserve or something, just dont ever make her or them leave!
Everytime I hear that song, I think of this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGemjUvafBw
I can NOT get him out of my head. He is the new "Chocolate Rain" for me.
Here he is with more clothes on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81RKVG4dFcA
Here's the mashup with Beyonce:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ifGHUfR5Ks
Isn't he fantastic?
(Or is it just me?)
I just can't get enough of that guy...
I'm not a fan of her music, ordinarily (now "her," that's a different story).
But this song . . . My wife has been staring at me strangely as I walk (strut) around the house singing it, nonstop.
Ehh... she's good to look at and all, but this sounds like a Christina Aguilera rip-off to me. Maybe not, since I don't really listen to either.
Since this is usually the blog of racial discussion, I'll point out that a big difference between white and black culture is that a black guy can admit to listening to Beyonce without getting his ass kicked by his peers. To this day I get confused when I see an otherwise straight-looking black dude blasting Beyonce or Rhihanna thorugh his head phones. I mean, without the visual, what the eff is the point?
I never really got Beyonce before. A pretty face (that tends to wear the same expression in every photograph I've ever seen of her...easy smile, vacant eyes; in essence a comely female version of Ben Stiller's 'blue steel') and indeed a nice voice, but her star-ish-ness eluded me. Then I watched the AMAs last night.
Well, about a half an hour after marriage the super-villian would be known as Dr. Whipped. No power on Earth can stand up to that hotness.
My girlfriend and I are always transfixed by the grinding and bouncing that goes on in this Video. Beyonce's face might be beautiful, but her lower-half is positively bodacious.
deva, JaQuel Knight and Frank Gatson are the choreographers. JaQuel Knight is from Atlanta which is where those Drill Team moves come from!
oh thank you, I thought I was the only one. And bodacious is exactly the right word.
this discussion really can't be complete though without mentioning how god awful her other 'if I was a boy' song is. I thought Ciara had already killed that theme with 'like a boy'.
I was in the civil rights museum in Memphis a few years ago, and in the lobby, they had an exhibit of quilts done by African American women. One of them was just awesome- it was a quilt of Tina Turner, onstage, with crazy yarn hair, and a little girl in the audience in front of her with a 3D Tina doll (also with crazy yarn hair) in her hand, and a thought bubble that read "I want to be TINA!"
Every time she sees Beyonce on TV, this here 30 year old white chick thinks, "I want to be BEYONCE!!!" Everything she does looks incredibly fun.
I like Beyonce's music sometimes, but that song was a bit repetitive. The dancing was fun, though.
I love Beyonce. But, the darker skinned dancer is/was a man. I think she was the choreographer. And, she absolutely MURDERS the dance. I'm all woman and I'm fucking jealous.
Adrienne- Shut. Up.
The dark skinned dancer is the one I can't take my eyes off of. What is it with men being able to knock this dance out of the park?
I just want somebody to come out with a pop song where the message is "I don't wish to get married and be shackled by a diamond ring, I would prefer to stay home from the club with a book and read, and though I could do otherwise, I am wearing clothes."
That being said, when I don't think about it too much, I like Single Ladies.
MJ
PS. Check out what Mary J Blige has to say about Beyonce:
http://www.wwd.com/lifestyle-news/eye/proud-mary-552194
I like Beyonce, but I like her BECAUSE she's pure kitsch. There's talent there, no doubt. But as anyone who's seen that "Upgrade" commercial can attest ("Let me upgrade YOU, baby"), there is clearly no distinction between artistic production and pure commercial prostitution in the oeuvre of Ms. Knowles.
(Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
Warhol proved that there need be no distinction, but one has to be very agile to pull it off. I'm not sure that Beyonce is any Andy Warhol, but she's appealing for that glimmer of self-recognition coming through that it's all just absolutely preposterous.
I approve!
To follow up on Michael Jackson's post, re: Mary J Blige:
That's the perfect antidote to the kitsch of Beyonce. MJB may lapse into melodrama, which is its own variety of kitsch, but can anyone imagine MJB in that upgrade commercial, as if it's no big deal at all?
I just want somebody to come out with a pop song where the message is "I don't wish to get married and be shackled by a diamond ring, I would prefer to stay home from the club with a book and read, and though I could do otherwise, I am wearing clothes."
MJ, you should check out P!nk. U+Ur Hand is pretty much what you're describing.
I hate to wreck the party especially when it's just meant to show appreciation toward Beyonce but I have been thinking about this post and been re-visiting the comments a few times and now I feel the need to say that I think this video feels degrading to watch. Beyonce is beautiful and I think the choreography is really cool but I don't know, all the excitement for her (and her thighs) makes me a bit uncomfortable.
@ Rachel
I can believe that the video shoot took 12 hours or even longer, but there is no way that this video was a single take. You can clearly see the cuts where it was edited together.
I like the song! The video takes it to another level, in that it inspires me to get to the gym more often.
This is the first time I even heard this song, TNC, so the rocks can be thrown at my little old lady self. But I love it, and am having fun shaking my chunky white booty to it.
@shani:
No lie! I felt the same way. She was dancing harder than B was. And she murked it.
@zereyda:
The edit you saw wasn't from different takes it was from different camera angles. You can tell that it was one continuous take that was shot from more than one angle using different cameras.
To me, she's great if you don't listen to the lyrics or the attitude at all. I'm not sure why but the stuff she (or that group she used to be in) talks about and the way she says it just reminds me of the dumb chicks back in school whom I disliked so much that I didn't even want to fuck them. Not that I'd ever have had a chance in hell anyway, but for me to not want to fuck a female when I was 15, especially a young pretty one, was really really saying something. She's like the epitome of female attitudes that I don't like - and I don't mean confident, that I like; I mean she's got this classic airhead prom-queen thing (no offense intended to prom queens) that really irks me somehow.
But this song is really good, the video is amazing, and she really is a classic beauty. Overall good for her.
This video is a problem.
The beat for this song is bonkers -- it really gets pretty weird during the chorus when those unsettling synths swoop in. & the upbeat handclapping is a pretty undeniable call to dance.
But, and for some reason I don't really see this in the comments above, I get really hung up on the lyrics. Sure, I'm all for single-lady empowerment, but that seems so deeply undermined by the whole "shoulda put a ring on it" bit. No?
I dunno. For me it just smacks of ol fashioned territorializing -- if you like it, then you shoulda marked it as yours. Makes me think of dogs peeing.