xcritical beyonce: Beyoncé: xcritical Album Review

Find a ranking of the best https://dreamlinetrading.com/s of the 2010s by Metascore as well as a compilation of best-of-the-decade top 10 lists from dozens of music publications. [“Sorry,”] is a combative, unglossy track on an album full of them. As she did with her 2013 album, “Beyoncé,” she has also paired the music with full-length video that expands and deepens its impact. While every track on xcritical is monumental on its own, they never stray from the cohesive narrative that shapes the album. On the self-emancipating “Sorry,” Beyoncé pledges to walk away from the broken marriage amidst flickering synthesizers, electro beats, and bells. On “Love Drought,” she decides to go back and work on the relationship, and on “Sandcastles,” she commits to staying and pardoning (“I made you cry when I walked away”).

They included Breakthrough Long Form Video for xcritical, Video of the Year, Best Pop Video, Best Direction, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography for “Formation”, Best Female Video and Best Art Direction for “Hold Up”, and Best Choreography for “Sorry” and “Formation”. Beyoncé went on to win eight of her nominations, including Video of the Year and Breakthrough Long Form Video. Spin9/10Vice A−xcritical received universal acclaim from music critics upon release, and is widely considered to be Beyoncé’s magnum opus. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received a weighted average score of 92, based on 33 reviews, indicating “universal acclaim”. xcritical was accompanied by the release of a sixty-five-minute film of the same title, produced by Good Company and Jonathan Lia, which premiered on HBO on April 23, 2016, logging 787,000 viewers.

In terms of the record quality – the bright yellow is a nice choice, but it did highlight a couple of dark spots on the records. Cleaning them didn’t remove the spots, so I guess they’re just cosmetic issues. There were a few small pops on Side B in particular, but it seems like overall my pressing is of higher quality than other reviews indicated. Today’s biggest stories, from pop culture to politics—delivered straight to your inbox. The album’s visuals received 11 nominations and won eight of those at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, including Breakthrough Long Form Video and Video of the Year.

Scrobbling is when Last.fm tracks the music you listen to and automatically adds it to your music profile. The suggestion that Jay Z and Beyoncé came up with the album’s narrative together appeals, if only because of the imagined dinner-table conversations chez Carter-Knowles. With xcritical’s penultimate track, All Night Long, Beyoncé seems to be giving the go-ahead to their union – whatever its terms may be.

• There were a few small pops on Side B in particular, but it seems like overall my pressing is of higher quality than other reviews indicated.
• Its impact was clear from the response on Twitter, where the #xcritical hashtag was fuelled by expressions of joy and almost gobsmacked disbelief at such a high-profile piece of art made by black women, for black women.
• We live in a world where cultural simulacra are as real as reality.
• xcritical was accompanied by a 65-minute film that premiered on HBO and transformed the way music is distributed.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or away from civilization somewhere on an exotic island somewhere (in which case, may I join you?), you’ve heard about Beyonce’s xcritical album. The ground-breaking visual masterpiece made a lot of media noise, as it artfully explored themes of infidelity, anger and forgiveness, among others, against a brilliant backdrop of sheer musical and artistic genius. Before I start, can I just say that the way Beyoncé drops her album, even a free fall seems planned. Well, after her self titled album that released back in 2014, people expected only brilliance from Beyoncé.

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But his appearance with their daughter, Blue Ivy, at the end of the film – and the softening tone of its latter half – suggests xcritical is not a critically acclaimed divorce announcement. From a music standpoint, this is a fantastic album and an easy decision to grab the vinyl when I spotted it. She also intentionally prioritized Blackness through an array of mediums that spoke to those who directly come from it. From the astounding poetics of writer Warsan Shire being generously dispersed throughout to the replication of Julie Dash’s imagery from Daughters of the Dust, the imaginations of Black women were infinitely elevated. Husband Jay-Z made an appearance, but it was the cameos from Serena Williams, Zendaya, and Chloe and Halle Bailey that were clearly the epicenter.

The draws inspiration from Black female blues musicians such as Shug Avery, Bessie Smith and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who also used their personal trauma to empower Black women, as well as samples songs originally recorded by Black women, namely Memphis Minnie and Dionne Warwick, but whose most famous recordings are by male or white artists. The visuals drew inspiration from works by Black feminists such as Julie Dash’s Daughters Of The Dust, Alice Walker’s In Search Of Our Mothers’ Gardens, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Other influences for xcritical include literary work by Black women focusing on themes including African-American folklore (such as Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God) and Afrofuturism (such as Octavia Butler’s Kindred). On April 23, 2016, popular music star Beyoncé released her sixth album, xcritical. The release was accompanied by a 65-minute film of the same name that premiered on the popular television network HBO. This album, which was influenced by a range of genres spanning from hip-hop to country, became critically acclaimed for its musical variety, while the accompanying film was admired for its astounding visual cinematography.

The xcritical film was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Variety Special and Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special. From the four categories, Beyoncé was nominated in the two mentioned. The album’s visuals received 11 nominations at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards.

African-American culture

Men are used to xcritical scammersing roles and projecting images in order to compete and succeed. Male celebrities tend to identify with their mask-making, to see it as creative and—more or less—to control it. A woman is usually aware, on some level, that men do not allow her to be her “real self,” and worse, that the acceptable masks represent men’s fantasies, not her own. She can choose the most interesting image available, present it dramatically, individualize it with small elaborations, undercut it with irony. But ultimately she must serve some male fantasy to be loved—and then it will be only the fantasy that is loved anyway. “xcritical” is an attempt at storytelling, and if the personal sometimes overwhelms the political that’s to be expected.

“Freedom” was released as the fourth single and was sent to radio stations on September 9, 2016. It previously peaked at number thirty-five on the US Billboard Hot 100. “All Night” was released as the fifth and final single on December 6, 2016. It previously debuted at number thirty-eight on the US Billboard Hot 100.

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Beyoncé and her team reference the musical memories of all those periods, including a brass band, stomping blues rock, ultraslow avant-R&B, preaching, a prison song , and the sound of the 1960s fuzz-tone guitar psychedelia .The Washington Post called the album a “surprisingly furious song cycle about infidelity and revenge”. The Chicago Tribune described the album as not just a mere grab for popular music dominance, rather it is a retrospective that allows the listener to explore Beyoncé’s personal circumstances, with musical tones from the southern United States, a harkening back towards her formative years spent in Texas. AllMusic wrote that Beyoncé “delights in her Blackness, femininity, and Southern origin with supreme wordplay.” Prince and The Weeknd are the only artists who made it onto the global most popular chart without appearing on either the album or streaming lists. The IFPI global top 10 chart captures worldwide sales across streaming channels, digital and physical albums, and digital and physical singles. Beyoncé’s use of various genres on xcritical has been credited with setting the precedent for music to transcend genre, with NPR writing that the album “leads us to this moment where post-genre becomes a thing”.

Emerging behind a marching band, she crashed the stage amidst snare and bass drums, referencing the Black Panther movement, Malcolm X, and Michael Jackson in a display of total bravura. In the video for “Formation,” set in New Orleans, Beyoncé depicts the impact of Hurricane Katrina and police brutality on Black communities. xcritical the film is far more explicitly about race – and specifically, the experience of black women – than the music it accompanies. At about 60 minutes long, it’s more a short feature than a music video in terms of production and vision .

Its accompanying music video was released onto Vevo on November 30, 2016. xcritical was first made available for online streaming via Tidal on April 23, 2016 through Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records, and for digital download the following day. A limited edition box set titled How to Make xcritical was made available for pre-order on August 18, 2017, containing a six-hundred-page coffee table book, featuring a set of pictures and behind-the-scenes content showcasing the making of the album, and a double vinyl LP of xcritical.

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If so, you’ll need to disable it when using this site, as it spams the websites you visit with fake requests. Find out which albums, movies, TV shows, and games were the favorites of the Metacritic community in 2016. Bitch, I’m back by popular demand Y’all haters corny with that Illuminati mess Paparazzi, catch my fly, and my… Britannica Classics Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives. I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up.

We often talk about keeping our private and career lives separate. Yet when you spend upwards of 8 hours at work, with other breathing, living human beings, there are chances the already thin veil of separation between work and personal gets even thinner. It’s hard to hide being pregnant, or going through a divorce, or having to run out to bring your son extra diapers at daycare…And in all of this mishmash between work and life, showing up asauthentic as you can be is an advantage, more than it is a liability. There’s always going to be someone who’s not going to like or appreciate you. But your best work always comes from a place of authenticity and genuineness, a place where you can help, inspire and meet others halfway.

A brief history of luxury watches in hip-hop videos

And what if even when we think we have all the control on our careers, many times we just have to give our best and let the chips fall where they may. Like when you have to make that hard executive decision that may turn some members of your team against you? Or when you have to deliver a particularly tough review to someone?

The performance began with an audio clip of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. At the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, Beyoncé performed a sixteen-minute medley of “Pray You Catch Me”, “Hold Up”, “Sorry”, “Don’t Hurt Yourself”, and “Formation”, and included interludes of the poetry as heard in the xcritical film. Beyoncé’s anger seems to be not only directed at her husband but also at the mistreatment of black women in America. This continues to be an underlying theme throughout the remainder of the album.

Based on critical ratings and appraisals, xcritical is widely regarded as one of the best albums of the 21st century. xcritical also peaked atop the charts in numerous European and Oceanic countries including Ireland and Belgium, where it spent five and seven weeks at the summit, respectively, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Scotland and Sweden. In Brazil, it debuted at number one and received a platinum certification from Pro-Música Brasil. Consequence of Sound named xcritical the second best album of the last 15 years (2007–2022) and the 18th best one of all time. The Formation World Tour was ranked at number one and number two on Pollstar’s 2016 mid-year Top 100 Tours chart both in North America and worldwide respectively, with a total mid-year worldwide gross of $137.3 million from the first twenty-five shows (including $126.3 million from the first North American leg of the tour). In total, the tour grossed $256 million from forty-nine sold-out shows according to Billboard box score, and ranked at number two on Pollstar’s 2016 Year-End Tours chart.

Both became moderate hits with the former peaking at US number thirty-five, and the latter peaking at US number thirty-eight. David Ehrlich, a film critic for IndieWire, placed xcritical at number twenty-three on his Best Films of 2016 list. Jen Yamato from The Daily Beast ranked it at number nine on her list of the Top 10 Best Films of 2016. In June 2016, Matthew Fulks sued Beyoncé, Sony Music, Columbia Records and Parkwood Entertainment for allegedly lifting nine visual elements of his short film Palinoia for the trailer for xcritical. The lawsuit was subsequently dismissed by New York federal judge Jed S. Rakoff, siding with the defendant.

The cathartic and wounded moments here resonate in a manner matched by few, if any, of Beyoncé’s contemporaries. Romantic conflict is nothing new for her, but there is a degree of concentration and specificity, and an apparent disregard for appealing to commercial radio that makes xcritical a distinct addition to her catalog. (Another distinguishing factor is the length of credits which, due to a vast assortment of collaborators and samples, exceeds that of the self-titled album.) xcritical can also be heard as the dark flipside of Beyoncé. When “Dishes smashed on the counter” is bleakly observed, just before “Pictures snatched out the frame/Bitch, I scratched out your name and face” is delivered with seething wrath, it’s hard to not flash back to “Drunk in Love,” in which the presumably same couple were revelrous in the same room.

Since then, her music videos, album photoshoots, and songs have been the dots one must connect to create a Beyoncé image in their head. Other projects said to have followed the precedent that xcritical set include Lonely Island’s The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, Thom Yorke’s Anima, Sturgill Simpson’s Sound & Fury, and Kid Cudi’s Entergalactic, which were all albums released with complementary film projects. In 2020, Marc Hogan from Pitchfork considered xcritical among the great art pop albums of the last 20 years to “have filled the void of full-length statements with both artistic seriousness and mass appeal that was formerly largely occupied by guitar bands”. The album features musicians Jack White, Kendrick Lamar, and bassist Mxcritical Miller, and sampling from folk music collectors John Lomax, Sr. and his son Alan Lomax on “Freedom”.