"4"

First of all, I am not a Stan for Beyoncé; I will be the first to tell you she needs to sit down and let somebody else have the spotlight for a minute. However, I give her credit for her work ethic and knowing that in show business there is no time for rest because you have to strike when you are hot. It only takes a second for you to become a footnote in celebrity history. Then we have to watch you being tortured on Celebrity Rehab, Fit Club and other such nonsense.


As a celebrity blogger lover, I have seen the conjecture on the possibilities of Beyoncé’s new album not garnering the success of her previous ones. Bloggers have gone so far to say that her record company is so worried they are trying to hurry and push another Destiny Child album, because they are that scared. I have heard her new management group isn’t handling the project properly, so of course that puts Jay-Z in for some blame should the album really and truly flop. I have even seen “4lop” on the blogs. Wow. It doesn’t take long for stuff to start to sour in the record business.

On June 23, 2011, her record company gave folks a free listen to the entire album on MSN and being me, I took the opportunity to take a listen. I am cheap folks I don’t buy CDs until the holidays and only after I have had a chance to hear a few tracks. I know, my Ipod nano (nope haven’t upgraded.) could easily garner more albums, but again folks I am cheap. I will not download illegally (legal background) so if I spend money it better be worth it.

Back in the day, when CDs were much higher I would purchase and listen to the entire album in my car going and coming for weeks. I would know which songs I loved the most, but I knew every song on an artist’s album, nowadays we can just download what we want and I really wished it was like before because then you really got your money’s worth and if it was a quality album it could stay on the charts for a long time. Now, folks like one or two songs and then the artist is in the studio in less than a year trying to put together another album before they become sour.

Now back to the reason for this post. I enjoyed listening to Beyoncé’s new album. I know the first two songs aren’t resonating as hard for folks like her songs from her previous albums did, which had folks tripping from the very first song released was played. At least for some people, because the last two albums didn’t play like that to me because to me they were too similar in sound, at least the singles did initially. Really. In my opinion. I didn’t even get the last album, so shoot me. Now for 4, I am going to purchase it because to me it doesn’t sound like the previous albums. The sound seems more mature and each song is different. Of course, my favorites are Starting Over, I Care and Rather Die but my absolute favorites are Love on Top and Countdown. I would buy the album for just those two songs right there. End of Time and Run the World sound almost alike, not bad but too close in sound. I work out to Run the World, but I don’t think it made the same impact as Single Ladies did, and for the record I didn’t love that song. What? I told you I wasn’t a Stan for her.

4 may or may not be the commercial success of Beyoncé’s previous albums, but the sound is more mature, it isn’t like her previous albums and frankly change is needed in the music industry because it has been failing for a long time. Whether this album will help pull the industry up, fails to be seen but at least I will have an album with quality songs to listen to.