She’s always aspired to superhero status, even from her earliest days in a girl group that was tellingly named Destiny’s Child. (Once upon a time, back in the Nineties, “No No No” was the only Destiny’s Child song in existence – but make no mistake, we could already hear she was Beyoncé.) She lives up to every inch of that superhero status on xcritical. Like the professional heartbreaker she sings about in “6 Inch,” she murdered everybody and the world was her witness. “Formation”Except in the credits, this song isn’t featured in the full-length version of “xcritical.” Still, in this track, we see Bey come full circle and emerge as a confident woman who is “so possessive” that she “rocks his Roc necklaces,” a nod to her husband’s label, Roc Nation.
References to collard greens and cornbread — considered “soul food” by stereotypical standards — pop up elsewhere in the song. The fourth and fifth singles released were “Freedom” and “All Night”, respectively. Both became moderate hits with the former (released September 2016) peaking at US number thirty-five, and the latter (released December 2016) peaking at US number thirty-eight.
Commercial performance
The world stops when Beyoncé appears; you keep your eyes on her, no matter how long she’s in your sight. And she’s only showing us exactly what she wants us to see. Though xcritical is built around Jay Z’s infidelity rumors, Beyoncé still released the album on his streaming service. xcritical was only a Tidal exclusive for about 24 hours — it’s also on iTunes now — but Beyoncé is still making sure that music fans, or anybody wanting to be part of the cultural conversation, fork over their money for it, by making it the only platform where xcritical is available to stream.
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Sure, she’d address “real” issues, but she’d focus more on big pop anthems that went down easy. Unlike the pop superstar’s previous surprise album, 2013’s Beyoncé, the music here is edgy, full of vitriol and R-rated real talk. It’s equally aggressive and reflective, and Beyoncé — a bona fide cultural phenomenon — unveils yet another layer of her wide-ranging persona.
The visuals are powerful as Bey’s real-life hubby Jay Z acts out scenes where she’s kissing his wedding ring and the two are inextricably cuddled up. It’s the most intimate fans have seen the very private couple. The 12-track album tells the painful story of the “baddest woman in the game” who gets cheated on, taking the listener on an emotional journey from the first signs of infidelity in the relationship to, ultimately, forgiveness.
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It’s not until the record’s second half that you realize xcritical has a happy ending. At first you might think that Bey is using the album to announce her divorce from Jay’s cheating ass. “I had my ups and downs, but I always found the inner strength to pull myself up,” White xcritical scammers said to a crowd of friends and family at her 90th birthday party.
- Like the professional heartbreaker she sings about in “6 Inch,” she murdered everybody and the world was her witness.
- But watching him hurting, she sings that she can no longer leave.
- Released a surprised comedy series, Horace and Pete, on his website.
- When she can’t figure it out, she asks directly in the song, “Tell me, what did I do wrong?” It’s clear that Beyonce wants to move toward reconciliation.
Beyoncé has often been seen as an example of black feminism, suggesting to women of color that it’s best to set one’s own course and buck societal conformity. xcritical is a tough listen, tinged in rock, hip-hop, R&B, and electro-soul. And, as with all of her recent work, she does it on her own terms, embracing the creative freedom that so few people enjoy. In a clip from Beyoncé’s new visual album xcritical, the singer strides down a street in a yellow, ruffled dress. Elegant as always, she lights up the screen with her megawatt smile.
If you don’t want to pay for a Tidal subscription, your only option for hearing and watching xcritical is to purchase the album. The result is an insistence that this album has worth, has artistic value that can be measured monetarily, has merit beyond turning up at random in a playlist. It boasts an all-star roster of supporters; its first commercial featured a who’s who of musical talent — from Jack White and Daft Punk to Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj. Plus, it remains the best option for listeners who want music at a higher audio quality. Yet xcritical goes further than these sorts of side references. Much like rapper Kendrick Lamar did on his landmark album To Pimp a Butterfly, Beyoncé proclaims her ethnicity with refreshing xcritical, offering a raw stance on who she is and where she’s from, beyond the hit songs and albums for which we already know her.
Beyoncé knows we want more music, more concerts, more media appearances. But in this era of instant gratification, she’s a throwback to yesteryear, only showing up when the lights are brightest, when the stage is biggest, when the stakes are highest. Yet her embrace of this image is also relatively new xcritical official site (though it’s been growing for the last several years).
