Beyoncé 4 (Columbia)

By June 29, 2011Music & Reviews

One of the year’s best music videos was directed by Jay-Z and cost about zero dollars to make. The camera phone clip shows Beyoncé rehearsing her new album’s opening eternal-love ballad, “1+1“, backstage at “American Idol”. There she is: eyes shut, standing in front of a mirror, singing her guts out while family and friends look on in quiet awe. The video has a similar impromptu charm to the many intimate, one-shot performance clips popularized by Vincent Moon’s “Take Away Show”, its appeal compounded by the shock of seeing such a notoriously manicured superstar without embellishment. “Help me let down my guard,” she belts. And, as Beyoncé finishes the song, you hear her proud husband let out a joyous “woo!” It’s all quite endearing and personal– two words one might not often associate with this superhumanly talented and famous couple. “Sometimes you need perspective,” wrote Jay in an intro to the video on his Life + Times website. “You’ve been right in front of greatness so often that you need to step back and see it again for the first time.”

It’s a fitting sentiment and song to introduce 4, which largely deals with monogamy and all that comes with committing to one person for a potential lifetime. Which, like a bad marriage, might sound boring, repetitive, staid. But, in Beyoncé’s more-than-capable and still-in-love hands, a relationship that lasts can seem as complicated and rewarding as anyone would hope. “If I ain’t got something, I don’t give a damn/ ‘Cause I got it with you,” she testifies on “1+1”– potentially dubious words from a woman who certainly has “something,” but her mainlined vocals quickly dismiss mere logistics. The song boasts some of her finest-ever singing laid over a bed of warm and flowing synths, strings, and bass that manages to connect the dots between Sam Cooke and Prince without sacrificing any Beyoncé-ness. “1+1” is that rare wonder: a wedding song that pleases but doesn’t pander.

The only recent pop ballad that comes close to its power is Adele’s stunning “Someone Like You“. But where that song– and its massively successful corresponding album, 21— wrung out the aftermath of young heartbreak, Beyoncé is aiming for something a bit more challenging with 4: love the one you’re with, and have some fun doing it, too. The album’s relative riskiness extends to its music, which side-steps Top 40 radio’s current Eurobeat fixation for a refreshingly eclectic mix of early-90s R&B, 80s lite soul, and brass’n’percussion-heavy marching music. All of the album’s best elements, thematically and sonically, burst ahead on Jay-Z ode “Countdown”, a honking, stutter-step sequel of sorts to “Crazy in Love“. The new track makes 10 years of loyalty seem just as thrilling as the first time, with Beyoncé offering her partner copious praise in that famed half-rap cadence: “Still love the way he talks/ Still love the way I sing/ Still love the way he rock them black diamonds in that chain.”

The album’s carefree retro sensibility pops up on three more highlights, including the Kanye West-assisted “Party”, which combines a pitch-perfect André 3000 guest verse, a Slick Rick sample, bubbly 80s keyboard tones, and 90s girl-group harmonies. The track has Beyoncé infatuated once again while its mid-tempo bounce provides prime summer barbecue background. “Love on Top” lilts like a lost Reagan-era smash, its light-as-air bop recalling Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Stevie Wonder at their sunniest. And “End of Time” is perhaps 4‘s most strident declaration of co-dependence; sounding like En Vogue remixed by a high school pep band, the song has Beyoncé finding the strength in two as she sings, “I just wanna be with you/ I just wanna live for you/ I’d never let you go!” That track– along with most of 4‘s stand outs– was co-written and co-produced by the star’s other invaluable partner, Terius “The-Dream” Nash.

The pair first combined forces on super hit “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)“, but their collaborative relationship fully blooms on this album’s ramped-up back half, including the bombastic, Major Lazer-sampling empowerment tract “Run the World (Girls)”. As a songwriter, The-Dream has a way of drawing out a side of Beyoncé that’s both more personal and brash, and, as seen on his several brilliant solo albums, his production style routinely references past greats while standing in the now. Tellingly, without his help the album stumbles, as on the overblown “I Was Here”, a faceless, theoretically-inspirational slog written by veteran schlockmeister Diane Warren. (Unsurprisingly, “I Was Here” is the only cut on the record that wasn’t co-written by Beyoncé herself, too.) Elsewhere, Babyface spearheads the decent “Irreplaceable” retread “Best Thing I Never Had”, which probably wouldn’t sound out-of-place on a Vanessa Carlton album, and Sleepy Jackson/Empire of the Sun leader Luke Steele worked on the ungainly “Rather Die Young”, which ruins its Philly soul vibe with a theatrical Broadway glaze. (Steele also contributed an awful hook on Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3 trash-can bait “What We Talkin’ About“– can we get him away from this couple, please?)

Ironically, 4‘s deluxe edition comes with three bonus songs that would easily count among the proper album’s finest moments. Chiefly, The-Dream co-written/produced “Schoolin’ Life” is an irresistible Prince tribute that’s much more motivational than “I Was Here” could ever be: “Who needs a degree when you’re schoolin’ life?” struts Beyoncé. The singer has said she recorded more than 60 songs while making 4, and some of the wrong-headed inclusions are lazy attempts at re-creating her past hits. But they are few. And the lion’s share of the album– along with its excellent deluxe tracks– has one of the world’s biggest stars exploring her talent in ways few could’ve predicted, which is always exciting. After 2008’s I Am… Sasha Fierce, which saw Beyoncé catching up to trends when she wasn’t trying Streisand-wannabe ballads, 4 is more akin to her wily sophomore solo album, B’Day. But where that record was preoccupied with the club, 4 is happy at home; on Off the Wall-style bonus track “Lay Up Under Me”, the contented 29-year-old gushes, “You ain’t gotta worry ’bout a club, just come on lay up under me tonight.” If anyone can make a quiet Friday night come off like an open-bar blowout, it’s Beyoncé.

Ryan Dombal, June 28, 2011