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Album Review
by SashaS
25-6-2003
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| Beyoncé: 'Crazy In Love' and über-sexy |
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Beyoncé: 'Dangerously In Love'
(Columbia)
Beyoncé Knowles on a Child-less destiny step
As Beyoncé (no surname on the cover, any real diva needs just one moniker, n’est pas?) album finds its place under my laser for the first time, the second song, ‘Naughty Girl’ – containing “interpolations” from ‘Love To Love You Baby‘ by Donna Summer – gets hold of my curiosity and I open the inlay to see what else has been sampled only to get stuck on a series of photographs which are definitely there to keep attention (of all genders) focused… Oh, boy!
The music plays on and around track 8, ‘Signs’, with Missy Elliott, I get round to checking the credits; and, it is an impressive line-up of guests, as well as some choice “interpolations”: her boyfriend (fiancé?) Jay-Z is on three tracks, Sean Paul, Big Boi, Luther Vandross and, aforementioned, Missy E. They all help B to fashion a 70-minute CD that easily surpasses the already released discs by other Destiny’s Child members.
Beyoncé took her time to come up with this album by letting the other girls do their own thing, while she made her movie debut in ‘Austin Powers’, part XXII. (Yeah, the joke wore thin long time ago which whatsoever is not a reflection on B, she was divine in it.) So, the music: it is a solid album full of catchy tunes with two of them already hits: ‘Crazy In Love’ and ‘Bonnie & Clyde ‘03’. The former opens the album with its sample of the Chi-Lites’ ‘Are You My Woman’ to set up an up-beat mood but there appear to be more ballads than ‘funkers’.
Still, few faster paced song welcome you at the beginning: ‘Baby Boiy’ surprises one inasmuch that features Sean Paul but it is not a reggae flavoured track, more of an Eastern-seasoned cut that makes your booty move in the chair. The phat-bass drives ‘Hip Hop Star’ (featuring Big Boi & Sleepy Brown) although a song that ‘honours’ Parliament Funkadelic’s George Clinton penned ‘I’d Rather Be With You’ and Shuggie Otis’s ‘Strawberry Letter 23’, ‘Be With You’ is a gentle, a kind of emo rev-up shagger. (S. Otis’s ‘Rainy Day’ is also an inspiration behind ‘Gift From Virgo’.)
‘Me, Myself And I’ and ‘Yes’ get even deeper into sentimental domain to display that this is the woman, woman, woman’s world. The most surprising track is ‘Speechless’, a rock-ballad with a guitar sound that makes you think of Eric Clapton. Alas, perfection (as well as the truth) is beyond a single human’s reach and one of bonus tracks, uncredited and tagged on the back of ‘Bonnie & Clyde’, is an open love-letter to her father and is a bit too OTT, over-romantic; songs of such personal nature usually don’t translate into tracks that can be shared.
Beyoncé debut album is tagged as a R’n’B although it is the best pop music you can hear coming out of America these days. She may state in the ‘Thank you’s’ (to Kelly), “I can’t wait until the next Destiny’s Child record”, but this is simply the beginning of a parallel career. Some women have the looks, talent, hunky man to adore/be worshiped by, riches and all the luck.
7/10
SashaS
25-6-2003
Beyoncé’s album ‘Dangerously In Love’ is released 23 June 2003 on Columbia
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