Beyoncé, Beyoncé
It’s a new year, but we’re not done gushing over Beyoncé and that juggernaut of an album she surprise-dropped to a web blitz of industry-shattering joyousness. She was all like, “I’m just gonna put this here” when the pop behemoth snuck 14 songs and 17 music videos up on iTunes around Christmas, a game-changing move that was only outdone by the actual contents of the sprawling project.
Easily Bey’s most personally inspired, sexually uninhibited work, it’s what Erotica was to Madonna, what The Velvet Rope was to Janet, and what ARTPOP should’ve been to Gaga. Can you lick my Skittles, it’s the sweetest in the middle / Pink is the flavor, solve the riddle, she sexes on “Blow,” a flirty, innuendo-drenched ’70s throwback that has all sorts of roller-skating vibes radiating off its Donna Summer-esque shimmer (and naturally, it has Bey skating in the video).
Sex is recurring on Beyoncé, as is feminism, love, family, spirituality, death and self-image; it’s as all-encompassing as we’ve seen its creator, making for a provocative, multi-layered, career-best opus that’s reflective, sophisticated and decidedly not very mainstream.
“Mine,” with Drake, is a morphing, six-minute-plus piece of minimalism that, despite its trippy style, is still profoundly affecting. So is “Heaven,” the best of two child-inspired ballads (though the big-hearted “Blue” endears greatly). The song is pure and powerful, reiterating the sentiment that “heaven couldn’t wait for you, so go on, go home” — the “you” presumably being the pre-Blue baby she miscarried. In that context, especially, it’s wrenching, but it’s also real — more real than
Beyoncé, known for her elusiveness, has ever been. Here, the star lets down her guard and, for just a bit, lets us into her heart, her soul, her world.
— Chris Azzopardi
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Gary Lynn Floyd, “Music in the Meaning”
Dallas’ Gary Lynn Floyd has been making warmly-toned piano-vocal music for more years than he’d probably want to admit, but even after a few decades at his, his breathy tenor is still one of the pitch-perfect delights of the local music and theater scenes. His voice has always been suited to quasi-spiritual ballads, and his single
“Music in the Meaning” — out just last month and available on iTunes; a full album is due — definitely fits into that category. But the usually unplugged Floyd has added a great electric guitar solo on this inspiring, up-beat track that works as adult contemporary, country and pop. Dance with the audacity, find triumph in the tragedy, he says. Easy — nothing tragic here.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 17, 2014.