Beyonce

By Benjamin Huber-Rodriguez     1/13/14 6:00pm

Last December, as we spent late nights in the library cramming for our finals, Beyonce Knowles dropped Beyonce, a surprise visual album on iTunes, a full-blown LP with 14 tracks, each accompanied by a music video. The quality of the production, combined with a change in the direction of the songwriting, set the music world abuzz as critics were clamoring to complete their year-end lists. 

This is Beyonce's first album in two and a half years, and in the interim she has left little resembling her former days as "Sasha Fierce," her aggressive, femme fatale performance alter ego. She has had a child with husband and rapper Jay-Z, filmed an autobiographical documentary, endorsed products like Pepsi and H&M, and even embarked on a tour titled "The Mrs. Carter Show." Yet, despite endorsing the settled life as a mother and a wife, the 32-year-old has released her most sexually driven and lyrically ambitious album of her career.

Artists have often drawn a line in the sand between poppy, radio-ready singles that sell CDs and the artistic subtlety that crafts an album as a whole, but because Beyonce is the full-blown superstar of the magnitude she is, Beyonce gets to have it both ways. Her album contains no notable singles, nothing to the tune of smash hits "Single Ladies" or "Irreplaceable." Rather, the album is linked thematically and sonically, filled with long tracks that stop and start abruptly and change gears halfway. But by spurring the record on the public at a time when other artists were sleeping, and with the holiday season looming, the album sold a million copies within just six days.

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Take "Rocket," the six-and-a-half-minute baby-making soundtrack that pulls out every trick in the R&B book of seduction despite never breaking the funky, trip-hop groove it settles into from the get-go, over which Beyonce croons "So rock right up to the side of my mountain / Climb until you reach my peak baby / And reach right into the bottom of my fountain." The sexual innuendo frays completely on "Blow," a bass-driven pop masterpiece that showcases cascades of Beyonce's voice repeating in ecstasy: "Can you eat my skittles / It's the sweetest in the middle."

These types of lyrics do not quite sound like the type of woman who most recently labeled herself "Mrs. Carter," but Beyonce treads the line with grace and is somehow able to swing the roles of both sex diva and loving wife and mother. "I'm in in my penthouse half naked / I cook this meal for you naked" she sings on the opening lines of "Jealous," a highlight and centerpiece of the record that both sonically and lyrically builds aggression before exploding into the kind of unbridled fierceness Beyonce has built her name upon.  

The album closes with three softer, more melodic tracks on which Beyonce steps into her role as a woman both confident in her place in society while still trying to further define it. "Super Power" features R&B star Frank Ocean and details the strife marriage can bring that will always be conquered by love. "Heaven" shows Beyonce at her most human and most vulnerable, a move that takes her down from her cloud as a goddess and places her in the mortal realm with the listener. "Blue" features coos from her daughter Blue Ivy, a true mother's anthem that bounces along to a shuffling piano and kick drum.  

Beyonce features excellent production all around, and its myriad guest stars, including Pharrell, Drake and, of course, Jay-Z, keep it fresh despite its extended length for a pop album. Beyonce has proved once again that she can make music about anything she wants and release it however she wants, and it will still feature the unfairly fantastic voice and presence of a woman who has been a recording star since her teen years.

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