Grammys!

My Grammy notes, a week later:

The Grammys weren’t too bad this year, if you don’t mind Taylor Swift. The night scored tops in the ratings, and that was due to the volume of performances. This is fine, but it was really strange to have so few awards televised, especially in hearing all the references to pre-televised wins.

• In retrospect, had to know something was up when Song of the Year was awarded first, not something like “Female Pop Vocal of the Year”.
• More awards. It’s an awards show, please remember that.
• 3D was the worst idea ever, and even Rihanna and Beyoncé looked stupid dancing in their glasses.
• Michael Jackson’s poor children.
• The bleeping—or rather, the protracted silence of the censors—just made everyone think that something was wrong with the TV.
• Timing. Make sure those likely to win an award aren’t held up by costume changes or preparations for performance, and can actually accept the award.
• They need to stop dressing Taylor Swift in white. It’s ruining her image by overemphasizing it.
• While most of the chatter circulated on Taylor Swift failing to reach the high notes in “Rihannon”, it was odd not to note how strange it was to see Stevie Nicks singing “You Belong With Me”, because the song is so juvenile. It also proves that the song will not age well once T. Swift grows out of this demographic. I really like the arrangement on “You Belong With Me”, though.
• Sasha Fierce was very much out in full force. Surprisingly, Beyoncé did a medly of “If I Were a Boy” and the thematically fitting “You Oughta Know”, which worked perfectly with the tough soldier shtick she was working. The motif was very Rihanna, and reminded me very much of a recent podcast from the Slate Culture Gabfest discussing the decade in music. Beyoncé and Rihanna have both led the way in projecting female-driven and pop music into symbols of strength. They are fighters, kicking ass and taking names in their spike heels.

I’ve criticized Beyoncé before for being such a man-hater in her songs, and this combination only furthered my bafflement. Why is Beyoncé so angry? This is a question I’d wish 60 Minutes addressed in their pre-Grammy interview, instead of the stupid and softball questions about her relationship with her rapper-mogul husband and her history—all very well-known to her fans. Even for a general audience the interview was a letdown. Yes, Beyoncé likes to speak for the ladies, and she’s become phenomenally successful doing so, but in context, her anger is unjustified and contrary to the rest of her mild, measured persona. Maybe it’s just that performing righteously angry material like “You Oughta Know” is great fun and a tension release, and that Sasha Fierce is very much her alter ego; she’s speaking out for all the wrongs she’s seen in others. Sure, not performing smashes like “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” and “Halo” were puzzling, but “If I Were a Boy” showed off her vocal skills more, and she probably has a soft spot for that song. When it was released, she gave lots of interviews focused on the song and video, proudly showing it off, downplaying “Single Ladies”, which was released at the same time.

And of course, Lady Gaga and Elton John, which just needs to be seen again (sorry, no embed capabilities).

P.S. New York Magazine’s The Cut blog has a great roundup of Lady G’s costumes, seams and all.

Beyoncé, Don't Be Hatin'

Oh, Beyoncé .

For a long time, Beyoncé was my girl. I knew I shouldn't like her thanks to all the Destiny's Child hijinks back in the early years of this decade, but damn, that girl knew how to deliver hits. And she was so professional, so poised and just so great. "Crazy in Love" didn't start to get old until last year, that's how good it was.

A guy I know once noted that all Beyoncé/Destiny's Child songs are about how their men have screwed them--and while they do have positive songs about men, they're few and far between and are usually not the singles. It's funny that Beyoncé is still singing these songs, because she's married now to her beau of six years, Jay-Z. "Crazy in Love", after all, like many of the songs on her multiplatinum Dangerously in Love, is about him.

Beyoncé has a new album coming out November 18. Her obvious competition now is Rihanna, who, thanks to her glut of singles the past few years, will soon be taking a break. Beyoncé's done the curious thing and released two single simultaneously, one for R&B/urban radio and one for the pop audience. It's kind of an odd strategy--I'm not in favor of rushing singles, as I feel they can cannibalize one another and shorten the album's lifespan. Both singles--one a ballad, the other a club jam--will inevitably be compared to one another, fighting it out for greater prominence.

Both singles are lacking, but "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" edges out "If I Were a Boy" just by its sheer danceability. "If I Were a Boy" drags. Both songs share thematic similarities--both men screwed up badly and she's gone for good. A DJ on the radio, introducing "Single Ladies", called it the song that all the girls are going to go wild for in the club, and it's meant for that with its calling of "All the single ladies (repeat) / Now put your hands up" in the opening. Who knew women were clamoring for a song about being dumped because their man wouldn't marry them!

"Single" is a term that can mean two things: a person is not married, or they are not in a relationship. It's generally meant as the latter, but here she uses the census definition. Like many “single” songs, the girl has just broke it off with her man, and is all about having fun with her friends. This sentiment is seen in Pink's extremely frank "So What" and in many Destiny's Child/Beyoncé songs. It's a true enough feeling, one that seems to get too much airplay, but ok.

But where I object is the overt message of the song, that in order for the man to keep her, he should have put a ring on it. It's also noteworthy that the lyric is "If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it"--not her, not me, not my finger, not my love. What is this it? Sex? Companionship? The relationship? Her? I guess it is easier to rhyme with (although it only rhymes with it here, so it's a poor excuse). Why?

The problem also with celebrity is that we know Beyoncé got her man, she got her ring. She won, essentially, if that's the game you're playing. So she’s saying that if you want to get married and the guy doesn't, if he's not ready for that commitment, then throw him to the wind--he's not treating you right. She "cried her tears, for three good years"--either waiting for him or putting up with him, and now she's done.

What's fascinating is that apparently Beyoncé is not that type of girl. She didn't want an engagement ring. So why--if she considers herself untraditional--does she espouse such retroactive thinking in her music? "Single Ladies" does sound very much like her last single (also only sent to R&B/urban markets), "Get Me Bodied", a favorite of mine. She's talked about her multiple personalities through her music, especially her wild and crazy stage persona Sasha, and "Single Ladies" is very Sasha.

"If I Were a Boy" is her imagining of what it would be like to be a boy. This sentiment has also been expressed before (but what hasn't in popular music?), recently in Ciara's “Like a Boy”, even reminding me of Madonna's "What It Feels Like for a Girl" (album version). “If I Were a Boy” really only works with the music video—again featuring a lyin’, cheatin’ boyfriend. Seriously B, one gets the idea from your music that you’re married to one hell of a loser if that’s all you sing about. Beyoncé has two love interests, one black and one white, a twist notably used in Rihanna’s “Unfaithful”. I’ve seen this in videos featuring mixed-race lead female singers, as a way of showing both sides, although the boyfriends tend to be black. The song alone is spare, but her vocals just don’t hold interest, while in the video the swoops in her voice underscore the tension in the plot. The lyrics seem particularly stupid, especially the chorus:

If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man
I'd listen to her
Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

I don’t think loving someone else, at its core, is that different from gender to gender. And of course, if she’s becoming a male version of herself she’s going to project that she’s going to do all the wonderful things she wants her boyfriend to do.

If Beyoncé is trying to do something different and expand her reach, more power to her. But she’s one of the most successful artists of this decade (along with the aforementioned Rihanna), and so much of her music is based on attacking men. In this world, they’re all horrible people and women should be independent women, but they somehow go back to the losers time and again. They never learn. Beyoncé needs to move beyond this awful stereotype, especially as her own relationship is widely looked upon as an example of doing it right. She’s setting her listeners up for failure by constantly invoking that men suck, and her male fans are getting quite the slight. After all, she’s married to a guy that’s widely known to be devoted to her (he sings her praises constantly, as do other rappers wishing they were able to tap that), so why malign an entire gender? Her women don’t look so good, either. So Beyoncé , please, if you’re ready to grow up career-wise, please consider your subject matter.