Gig review: Beyoncé at the O2

It has been an astonishing 12 years since Beyoncé recorded her first album with Destiny’s child, at the tender age of 16. Since then, she has been at the forefront of R&B, shaping and redfining the genre’s sonic boundaries with every self-penned release.

But we know precious little about the woman herself. The only glimpses we’ve had behind the curtain came on Survivor – a triumphant two fingers to the girls who quit Destiny’s Child – and the B’Day album, which strongly hinted that Jay-Z had cheated on his future wife.

The star’s I Am… tour promises to reveal the megastar’s true nature. It’s not just about the Beyoncé / Sasha Fierce alter-egos of her recent double album (Sasha is essentially Beyoncé with up-tempo songs and more eyeliner) but all the different aspects of her personality. Here’s what we learned on the night.

I Am… an incredibly talented singer
I Am… the best dancer in the business
I Am… promoting women by hiring an all-female band
I Am… immensely proud of singing at Obama’s inaugural ball
I Am… wearing a frock shaped like a motorbike
I Am… having convulsions of grief over Michael Jackson
I Am… apologetic for the problems on the Jubilee line
I Am… in a wedding dress for no particular reason
I Am… quite unhinged

Seriously, Beyoncé was a twirling cyclone of demented energy. Pumping her arms, gyrating her hips, screaming nonsense at the crowd (“it’s not your birthday!?!”) and whipping the entire auditorium into a histrionic frenzy. I have never heard a crowd make so much noise. Girls were literally shaking with excitement, just like in archive footage of Beatles’ concerts, and when Jay-Z and Kanye West made mini on-stage cameos, it was actually impossible to hear them over the explosion of oestrogen.

As mrsdiscopop said to me afterwards, it’s not often you get to see an icon at the height of their powers – and it’s even less often that you get to hear them.

When things died down, however, you realised what a precise and powerful vocalist Beyoncé is. Amid all the eye-popping choreography and Thierry Mugler costumes, the star’s voice sparkled effortlessly. As she went round shaking the crowd’s hands and kissing babies during Halo, it seemed like the falsetto trills were an absent-minded afterthought – just something she was doing as a background task while getting on with the real business of being a pop star.

The show had none of the circus-style distractions of recent shows by Beyoncé’s closest rivals, Madonna and Britney. There were no pyrotechnics and no props – just singing, dancing and real, live music. The huge video screen backdrop would often fade to white, leaving the musicians in a Motown revue-style silhouette while Beyoncé simply got on with her performance. Not many performers would be so brave but, in this case, it paid off.

A few minor gripes – it would have been nice to hear more of the Destiny’s Child material, which was largely dispensed with in a two-minute medley, and was it really necessary for every ballad to contain a dramatic “you really love me” pause just before the last line?

But it’s hard to fault a show with so much heart and conviction. Beyoncé never gave the (sadly all-too-common) impression she was filling time until the encore. It genuinely seemed that, having fulfilled the dreams of the little girl we saw in Knowles family home videos between the songs, she never wanted to leave the stage.

And that was probably the most revealing thing of all*.

*Except the costumes.

MTV Awards – they were on telly

I can’t abide watching these things in real time, so I only caught up with the MTV Awards this morning, making liberal use of the >>FF button. They were notable for three things:

1) Janet Jackson dancing with her dead brother – the sort of video concept he would no doubt have loved and spent $13m filming, were he not the one who was dead.

2) Watching the public turn on Kanye West live on television.

3) Beyoncé

Ah, Beyoncé. She really can do no wrong. From the moment during Jimmy Fallon’s Boyz II Men skit when the camera cut to Beyoncé cutely lip-syncing along, to her magnanimous decision to give her acceptance speech time to Taylor Swift – whose own prize-giving was ruined by Kanye West being a dick.

And, amid all the attention-seeking, overblown, badly sung performances (we’re looking at you, GaGa) Beyoncé took to the stage with a simple, old school song-and-dance number that blew everything else out of the water like an asteroid landing in Loch Ness. Here it is:

Beyonce turns into Sigourney Weaver

The opening scene of Beyoncé’s new video lifts shamelessly from Ghostbusters, but that only makes me love her more.

Beyoncé – Sweet Dreams

Apparently, there’s a “video album” version of I Am… Sasha Fierce out in the US. Does anyone know if it is coming to the UK?

100 single ladies

God knows why, but Beyonce has teamed up with chewing gum brand Trident, who are giving away all 13,000 tickets for one of her gigs at the O2 later this year.

According to PR trade publication Talking Retail, parent company Cadbury is investing £2.5m to raise awareness of the promotion. That’s rouchly four times as much as Beyonce makes from ticket sales at the venue (13,000 x £50 = £650,000).

Part of that campaign is a so-called “viral” video, where 100 women recreate the rapidly-becoming-iconic Single Ladies choreography in Picadilly Circus. It’s not a particularly groundbreaking idea, but the execution is completely on the money.

Still, I wonder whether all this hilarity will be of any comfort to all the Cadbury staff who are losing their jobs when the company closes one of its main UK factory next year?

Maybe Beyoncé could help them out by buying a fuckload of Creme Eggs.

Rawwwwrrrrr!

Forget GaGa’s pervtards and Britney’s single entendres, the last 30 seconds of Beyoncé’s Halo video are the sexiest moment pop music will produce in 2009.

Beyoncé – Halo

I got sent the remixes of this track last week. Sadly, they’re all bobbins. Where are the Freemasons when you need them?

Rawwwwrrrrr!

Forget GaGa’s pervtards and Britney’s single entendres, the last 30 seconds of Beyoncé’s Halo video are the sexiest moment pop music will produce in 2009.

Beyoncé – Halo

I got sent the remixes of this track last week. Sadly, they’re all bobbins. Where are the Freemasons when you need them?

The worst singles of 2008

Instant review: Beyoncé’s new album

Beyoncé’s third solo album, I Am Sasha Fierce, has just arrived at Discopop Towers… because I went out and bought it this morning. It emerges from is cellophane wrapping to reveal two CDs – one with six tracks and one with five (nuts to the environment, eh readers?)

Resisting the temptation to play both simultaneously in the search for a hidden satanic message, here’s a blow-by-blow account of my first listen. Brace yourselves.

Disc One – I Am… (syrupy ballads)
1) If I Were A Boy
This still sounds like a gender-challenged update of Joan Osborne’s One Of Us. The tune is essentially the same all the way through, except Beyoncé shifts up an octave for the chorus. Derivative, but super nonetheless.

2) Halo
This is one by Ryan “Bleeding Love” Tedder that Simon Fuller supposedly wanted for Leona Lewis – but Beyoncé gets the lead writing credit. Far be it from me to suggest that Leona’s people put that story out to “position” her alongside the world’s most successful female solo artist, but something smells a bit fishy here (possibly the smoked mackerel paté I had yesterday, which is repeating on me something rotten). This is actually very good, with big handclaps and an Umberella (ella, ella) style call-and-response hook.

3) Disappear
The word “beautiful” is clearly some sort of magic charm for this song’s co-writer Amanda Ghost, who also did You’re Beautiful and Beautiful Liar. Disappear does not contain the word beautiful, and is therefore rubbish.

4) Broken Hearted Girl
The lyric booklet consistently mis-spells “you’re” as “your” during this song, which invokes an instant penalty of two points. Six more points are deducted because of the incredibly dated mid-90s R&B balladeering, and further one goes because they’ve put a stupid synth line over the chorus in an attempt to disguise this fact. So that’s 1/10.

5) Ave Maria
The verse is lifted from Madonna’s Promise To Try, and the chorus is lifted from religion’s Ave Maria. Only slightly better than when Michelle Bass sang Pie Jesu on Big Brother Five.

6) Satellites
Sorry, I completely drifted off during this one. But look at this picture from the back of the album. How does she do that?

Disc Two – Sasha Fierce (the uptempo ones)
1) Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)
Much better in hi-fidelity than it seems on Youtube, with loads of rumbling bass and a much more expansive sound stage. Feet are tapping…

2) Radio
This starts off with a piercing synth riff like Destiny’s Child’s Jumpin Jumpin – and it lives up to the standards set by Beyoncé’s former band. A europop-influenced love letter to a DJ (“I fall in love with my stereo”), it is really very good indeed.

3) Diva
“Diva is a female version of a hustler,” says B. Not according to my dictionary, it’s not. It also reckons that a hustler is “a prostitute who attracts customers by walking the streets”. Now I’m confused. Is Beyoncé saying she’s the female version of a male prostitute? But isn’t that just a prostitute? Either way, Beyoncé has been one since “she was 15 in stilettos” which is surely against all sorts of moral and legal codes. The song is bobbins, by the way.

4) Sweet Dreams
A good album track. Sounds a bit like Rihanna, but with decent vocals.

5) Video Phone
This is one of those songs Beyoncé seems to be able to turn out in her sleep – all syncopated rhythms, sparse instrumentation and tricksy backing vocals. A close cousin of Get Me Bodied on her last album.

Conclusions:
There is already a special edition with five extra tracks. To be honest, I’m glad I didn’t bother spending the extra £2…

Update – 12:36 I’ve just tried playing both albums simultaenously. It was actually something of an improvement.

Ladies’ chart battle – and more!

Sorry the blog’s been a bit underpopulated for the last couple of days – I’ve been poorly sick. But here’s a few things you might have missed (or seen elsewhere while I was away, natch).

:: Is this the biggest battle of the pop divas in the history of the cosmos?

Big guns Britney, Beyoncé, Christina Aguilera and Alesha Dixon (and Leona Lewis) all have singles out this week, while Girls Aloud have squeezed out their fifth studio album. Chart-wise, it looks like X Factor’s not-quite-as-awful-as-you’d-expect version of Hero will be number one again, with Girls Aloud’s The Promise at two and Beyonce’s gramatically-incorrect If I Were A Boy at three. Meanwhile, Out Of Control looks set to beat Razorlight to the top of the album charts, giving Girls Aloud their first ever non-compilation number one. Amazing. [More on the midweeks at Music Week]

:: Jamelia has a comeback single, Break It Down, Tear It Up. It’s miles better than the confused mess of her last album – but is it good enough to put her back where she belongs (somewhere between The Saturdays and McFly on the bill for T4 on the Beach)? The jury is out. [listen / download]

:: Another track from the Killer’s new album, Day & Night, has leaked. No surprises here: Too many synths, Brandon Flowers not very good at singing, the track itself = brilliant.

The Killers – Spaceman

:: It’s like a blogger’s wet dream – M.I.A. covers the theme tune to The Wire. Sadly, it’s rubbish. [Youtube (youtube)]

:: Is this a new Justin Timberlake single? Hmmm… it sounds a bit like a FutureSex/LoveSounds cast-off to me.

:: The NME has published its annual “cool list” – with entries for Jay-Z, Liam Gallagher, Amy Winehouse and, er, Peter Gabriel. The number one slot, as is customary, goes to someone the NME is trying to justify having put on their front page in April, despite the fact they’ve made absolutely no impact on anyone, anywhere in the intervening six months. This year, it’s Alice Glass from Crystal Castles (they’re like the Human League with all the tunes taken out). As Stereogum points out, the NME have once again confused “cool” with “notorious”. [Stereogum]

:: A Kiss Is Not A Contract – but a baby is a life sentence (in a good way, obviously). Flight Of The Conchords star Jemaine Clement is a dad. Congratulations. [3 News, New Zealand]

:: Lukewarm S Club 7 reunion is lukewarm. [Popjustice]

:: Oh yes, and there was a completely historic, paradigm-shifting, momentous election in the US. Barack Obama is President elect (Yay!!!) and Will.i.am has written a song about it (woop!). And so has Nas (respect) and so has Seal (er, hooray?!)

Back to business as usual from tomorrow…

Beyoncé videos appear in pairs

Black and white music videos are great, aren’t they? They’re so much more serious and earnest than those attention-seeking colour ones. When I watch a black and white music video, I can relax, confident in the knowledge that I’m being culturally enriched by a weighty, considered piece of film like Schindler’s List or Citizen Kane.

Luckily for me, Beyoncé has filmed both of her new videos in black and white. One is for a slow song and is sad 😦 One is for a fast song and really just Beyoncé dancing – but in monochrome, so it can’t just be a glorified shampoo commercial, can it?

Here are they both:

Beyoncé – If I Were A Boy

Beyoncé – Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)

Of course, Laurel and Hardy made movies in black and white, too.

EDIT: According to this website Beyoncé’s new album is a double. The first disc, I Am Beyoncé, is all ballads; the second, I Am Sasha, is uptempo dance “numbers”. This is either genius or the sort of unhinged lunacy we’d expect from R Kelly (or secret option c: it’s completely made up).