To give the bottom line first: Beyonce is doing nothing but good for the music business. Why? Simple, she isn't using her vast resources to produce a killer video to take your attention from poor music. Instead, she's just making quality tracks, powering into them with her immense vocal talent and making videos with the soul purpose of giving you a face to go with the name, so to speak.
- Now Wait a Second -
Regardless of your music tastes, it is hard to deny that Beyoncé Knowles has a magnificant voice. A voice so powerful and complex the likes of which hasn't been heard since the hey-days of Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, and the once great Whitney Houston. In the minds of cynics there would be little doubt that her voice is more than enough to make up for shoddy lyrics and could easly be complimented by a mind blowing video, resulting in an ultimate hit. However, her latest album, 'I Am Sasha Fierce...'(2008) is still taking the world by storm and with good reason. Having been released on November 8th, 2008, Beyoncé Knowles and her team are still releasing singles from this powerhouse of an album. Not every song is as electrifying as her most recent, "Why Don't You Love Me", but of the 19 songs (Deluxe Edition), there has been a stable of strong songs that are both lyrically sound and arranged with tedious attention to detail. Friends of mine in the music business, both singed and devoted indie, have even confessed their respect for the piece of work. Even I'll admit that even though I had heard the album before its release, and wasn't overly impressed, I have grown to respect it.
The latest release (video above), written by Beyoncé Knowles, her sister Solange Knowles, and her cousin Angie Beyince and produced and co-written by The Bama Boyz, combines very clever lyrics and sublime drum loops that ring 70s disco with a hint of Prodigyesque snare. A complete diversion from the rest of the Sasha Fierce album. It's timing is certainly perfect as I suspect that this track will become one of the 'anthems of the summer'.
But my point in writing this article was not to spend too much time dwelling on the specifics of Beyoncé's latest album's minute musical pros and cons as much I wanted to focus on the strategy an album this respectible affords a recording artist. If we look at the 12 music videos that have been created to promote these tracks, only two of them look as though they have cost large amounts of money to produce. And they don't need to. I would in fact argue that the two most expensive videos are covering for two of the weakest songs of those released as singles.
- To do a brief comparison -
If we compare Beyoncé with Lady Gaga, and exclude their collaborations, it is clear as day that the production costs are frighteningly different. Yet, the combined sales of Gaga's 'The Fame' and 'The Fame Monster' (8.2 million) only outsell 'I Am Sasha Fierce...' (7 million) by just over a million copies. However, Gaga has had to rely on outrageous videos and insane publicity performances to reap the benefits that Beyonce has by simply writing a number of good strong songs. I'm not trying to take away from Lady Gaga's music. Her songs are good in their own right, her special stage performances (as seen as the 2009 AMAs and MTVVMAs) are second to none, and her videos are visually mind blowing. In short, I am simply using Gaga as an example.
- My Point? -
I guess what I am trying to say is that Beyoncé's lack of spending on her videos acts as a testament to her own confidence in her music. A song like "Why Don't You Love Me", which presents clever lyrics and music reminiscent of a more up tempo version of Dee Edwards' 1972 hit "Why Can't There Be Love", stands out. It therefore does not need to be pampered and packaged with a big budget video to distract listeners from poor lyrics, as is so often the case on today's music scene. It is true that videos are the norm. More often than not, if there is no video to compliment the song, the track will be a commercial flop. But if the song is good enough, it is enough (as seen above) to take a camera and place someone in front of the lens for a little while to get that air-time. But when the quality of the video overshadows the quality of the song...is this a message we should read into? Is the song just not that good?
It's just a hunch, but I suspect that in twenty year's time we will still be talking about this album in a not so distant vein from the way in which we speak of Donny Hathaway's self-titled studio album, or Michael Jackon's 'Off The Wall'...an underrated masterpiece.
SHC
