Beyoncé

Without playing into cheap “tortured by fame” tropes, she’s made an emotional album that’s dense and substantial but never difficult or self-important.

Here more than ever Bey indulges clashing impulses--between strength and escape, megapop and fresh sounds, big messages and resonant lyrics.

At its dizzying zenith, Beyoncé is a loaded fusion of generosity and self-empowerment. or perhaps, more accurately, it finds self-empowerment in generosity.

Though there are a million details about BEYONCÉ to examine--from the release strategy to the visual aspect and more--the strongest ideas are still found solely in the music. She addresses topics like beauty, body image, miscarriages, jealousy, sexuality, marriage, motherhood and self-worth.

Beyoncé’ is one of the best damn albums of 2013, basically, however you’re looking at it: as an R&B record, a pop set, an electro collection. Whatever your tastes, you can’t question the quality here.

In time, it should be seen as a career highlight from a superstar--one of the hardest-working people in the business, a new mother, in total control, at her creative and commercial peak.

We’re clearly listening to one of the most purely talented artists of our generation working at her peak, or at least somewhere close.

Beyoncé is a stronger personal statement than Magna Carta… Holy Grail, less self-indulgent than The 20/20 Experience, and (in its own way) as dark and confrontational as Yeezus.

It is a bold, expansive body of work that should have all the praise heaped on it because, without warning, she dropped one of the strongest albums of the year on us.

The result is artistic click bait, and its genius and connective power is that it doesn’t treat music fans as factions. This one is for everyone, all at once.

The songs are alert to the current sound of clubs and radio, but not trapped by it; the refrains are terse and direct, but what happens between them isn’t formulaic. And while Beyoncé constructed the songs with a phalanx of collaborators, they all know better than to eclipse her creamy, soulful voice.

Once the initial novelty and shock wears off of Beyoncé's impressive stealth-release feat, the brilliance and creative audacity of the album itself can sink in.

Beyoncé seized the powers of a medium characterized by its short attention span to force the world to pay attention. Leave it to the posterchild of convention to brush convention aside and leave both sides feeling victorious.

This is plainly Beyoncé’s most personal album yet, one forged in the fires of public miscarriages, a wrenching journey that does as much to combat this years Yeezus-led political misogyny as it complements with its own version of black empowerment and self-love, one that is staunchly, inclusively, womanist.

She’s this decade’s Beyoncé, grown secure and prominent as ever.

If there’s one thing you can take from Beyonce, it’s that you never have to feel “bored” as she describes in “Ghost.” There’s always room to innovate.

This is easily Beyoncé’s best album yet, a clear progression from her previous work and a musical triumph.

While there isn’t a chart-smashing Single Ladies or Baby Boy in the mix, the resulting 14 tracks (plus 17 videos) make her most complete album to date.

There are no real bangers here, but for once that’s not a disappointment cushioned by wafty ballads. Instead the low-key, moody production throws the spotlight on the words and the images brought to play by Beyonce as serious album artist, encompassing bulimia, post-natal depression, the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood, and lots and lots of sex.

The entire team delivers on the 32-year-old singer’s ambitious aspirations. There’s an incredible stylistic range displayed within the constraints of the album’s contemplative and darkly seductive tone.

Beyoncé is better than good, slickly packaged, created with the best of intentions yet still comes off as a postmodern mash of hubris, sincerity and gloss. It will be a hit regardless.

Beyoncé's got the tour out of the way first--with this year's Mrs Carter jaunt--and released a singleless, multi-layered, head-spinning album second. Maybe she knew what she was doing after all.

The best surprise of all, in an autumn in which Beyoncé's closest competitors--Gaga, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus--made underperforming bids for the throne, is how thoroughly assured, immersive and substantial this album is.

For all its length (16 tracks) and elaborate staging (with videos for every song), the album has a focus and intensity unusual in multi-writer ensemble productions, a sense of purposefulness that holds the attention even when the songs sometimes drift off in search of a chorus.

The lack of universality to much of it keeps it from being the great album it wants to be, and some of the fascination seems to stem from 2013 celebrity culture obsession and speaks to the need to disappear from our own lives and become so wrapped up in the world of the rich and famous.

While there are songs that will work as singles, overall, this is Beyoncé at her most experimental and, yes, risky.

The merger of trap beats, punk defiance and feminist theory may not be destined for the top 10, but boldness like this can’t be measured by chart positions.

What’s exciting about the record, beyond its means of delivery, is how the music similarly blends the intimate and the extravagant.

For all this bravado, BEYONCÉ’s confessional moments are when you connect with it the most.... Flawed? Certainly. Boring? Never.

Beyoncé may have gotten "bored" with the popstar routine, as she confesses in "Ghost." But only massive hubris could have made a feat like this album possible. And Beyoncé's hubris makes the world a better, more Beyoncé-like place.

What makes the album significant is the fact that its creator is a bona fide superstar who, apparently, seems to care more about following her creative bliss than scoring easy hits. And it takes her (and us) to some mighty weird and exhilarating places.

It's this continued need to feed her multi-platinum beast that stops the album from being the post-modern wheeze it could have been. [Mar 2014, p.94]