It's not the diamonds, it's not the pearls

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

05/08/22 : Renaissance - Beyoncé

My 3.5th visit with Queen Bey so far - we've met her in '96 (with Destiny's Child), '13 and '16 (Lemonade, which was the high point for me so far).  Tbh, I've no idea where this would go - I imagined some kind of R'n'B thang, but that's a broad church these days and no mistake.

And, well - this is an interesting one.  It's very accomplished - which is a compliment, right? It's got great rhythms and vocals and it's steeped in musical legend, so that's good, right?  (although I hear that Kelis was less impressed when she recognised "Milkshake" in the mix)  But it all feels a bit "who is this supposed to appeal to?" to me - I appreciate the obvious effort that's gone into it, but I can't quite bring myself to like it.  I'm going to be very interested to see how long it hangs around - it doesn't feel like it's going to get a whole bunch of re-listens.  So, let's see how wildly wrong that statement turns out to be, eh?

And then there's been that all that backlash about the "ableist slur" - "spaz" for those of you that don't keep up to date with the vital news of the day.  Which I agree isn't exactly 100% PC, but so much of what is viewed as perfectly "acceptable" on albums isn't exactly 100% PC - I struggle to understand exactly why this caused such a fuss.  Was it because Beyoncé (and Lizzo) are being held to higher standards than others?  I suspect if Mr Beyoncé was to do such a thing, no-one would bother making a fuss - maybe because people know it would only encourage him.

We're at #1 with a new entry this week - can you guess who's #2?  We have another new entry in the top ten - Maggie Rogers at #6, which sounds like the sort of thing I might like, so I'll have to check it out.

Wikipedia tells me that on the album cover, "she is seated atop a "glowing", "holographic", "crystal horse" in a "futuristic, centipede-ish bikini"" - of course she is.  The critics liked it a LOT - it feels a very critic-friendly album because it enables them to show off about its influences.  It's safe to say the public have gone a bit mad for it too - but I still say it's not going to hang around (I might as well double down on my foolishness, I guess).

"Customers also listened to" Burna Boy, Lizzo, Calvin Harris and Drake - some reasonably successful artists there, I guess.  And Beyoncé's had a fair bit of success in her time and this continues the run - but it didn't hit the sweet spot for me, I'm afraid.

29/07/22 - I'm not sure I understand why
12/08/22 - Fine?  Probably.