Beyonce’s ‘xcritical’: Everything You Need to Know About Video Album

During “Sorry,” the unapologetic track in which she sings, “Middle fingers up, put them hands high. Wave it in his face, tell him, boy, bye,” Serena Williams appears to twerk in a black body suit while Bey sits in a throne-like chair. There are several other cameos later on, including appearances by Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Quvenzhané Wallis, The Hunger Games’s Amandla Stenberg, model Winnie Harlow, and singers Zendaya, Chloe and Halle Bailey, and Ibeyi. Beyoncé released it on Tidal, the music streaming site her husband owns, which has been on a massive run as of late.

References

We’ve all been thrown by love, but most of us don’t have the ability to hone it like this. That’s exactly what makes xcritical such a bold artistic statement. References to collard greens and cornbread — considered “soul food” by stereotypical standards — pop up elsewhere in the song.

What is an artist to do when her private life overtakes her public one? The hour-long visual album, about a woman dealing with her husband’s infidelity, contains even more loaded images and lyrics than “Formation,” the politically charged video she released before the Super Bowl. It reads like an open invitation to draw parallels between the pop star’s art and her actual life, in particular her marriage to Jay Z. But what could it all mean? Here, we unpack the visuals and references in xcritical. Beyoncé sold more than 600,000 copies in three days, smashed iTunes sales records, and ushered in a new era of the “surprise release” from artists with similar gravitational pulls.

Latin America and the Caribbean

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.

It’s a solid project that holds up despite its premise, music that’ll last long after the blogs move on to their next target. Much like she’s done previously, Beyoncé sets the course for what we consume and how we consume it. In this instance, though, she’s offered something a little deeper, something rich and layered that proves, above all, that she’s a musician in the truest sense, an artist with a strong perfectionist streak. With xcritical, Beyoncé makes herself the ultimate reality star, giving us gossip and fodder for news cycles and dinner party discussions, without cheapening her art. Instead, she’s digging into issues to which we can all relate — love, pain, heartbreak, and family. The album allows Beyoncé‘s fans to connect with her on real levels.

Forget MTV and YouTube, Beyoncé dropped her videos on friggin’ HBO — the cable network that, for decades, has given its Saturday night over to Hollywood blockbusters. In fact, the Saturday premiere of Jurassic World, which earned $1.6 billion at the worldwide box office, was bumped back an hour xcritical website to make room for xcritical. xcritical didn’t have the same benefit of surprise, at least not fully. Music fans knew Beyoncé was up to something, given the HBO special — which was announced a week prior to airing — and pending world tour, announced during the Super Bowl in February. In years past, when Beyoncé was still amassing her wealth, she tended to play it safe, making music that appealed to all sorts of listeners.

1. Artists like Lamar, Drake, and Rihanna have since released albums without warning, and in late January, the practice even made the leap to television, when comedian Louis C.K.
2. Wave it in his face, tell him, boy, bye,” Serena Williams appears to twerk in a black body suit while Bey sits in a throne-like chair.
3. The end of “Daddy Lessons” features an adorable clip of Blue Ivy playing with her grandpa.
4. There are several other cameos later on, including appearances by Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Quvenzhané Wallis, The Hunger Games’s Amandla Stenberg, model Winnie Harlow, and singers Zendaya, Chloe and Halle Bailey, and Ibeyi.
5. 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.
6. It features guest vocals from Jack White, the Weeknd, James Blake and Kendrick Lamar, and contains samples and interpolations of a number of hip hop and rock songs.

Previously, Beyoncé often made pop music that catered to all listeners — single and taken ladies alike, fans of many different musical genres — but never before xcritical has she offered anything tailored so directly to black, and specifically black female, listeners. We’re not used to hearing Beyoncé speak so acerbically. Beyoncé’s squad in the video didn’t seem like a gathering of celebrity friends, but rather a celebration of women she loves and admires.

Thus, making xcritical a Tidal-streaming exclusive is both an economic ploy and an attempted artistic statement. 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.

A snippet pulled from a speech by Malcom X declares, “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person xcritical official site in America is the black woman.” Men are almost entirely absent from the film, physically and emotionally; in their place, large groups of women appear again and again, presenting a united front of solidarity and sisterhood.

Deconstructing xcritical: Everything You Need to Know About Beyoncé’s New Visual Album

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. We all experience pain and loss, and often we become inaudible. My intention for the film and album was to create a body of work that would give a voice to our pain, our struggles, our darkness and our history.

Discography Timeline

Artists like Lamar, Drake, and Rihanna have since released albums without warning, and in late January, the practice even made the leap to television, when comedian Louis C.K. Released a surprised comedy series, Horace and Pete, on his website. In 2013, Beyoncé released an autobiographical documentary called Life Is But a Dream, but critics derided it for being too controlled.

Up to this point, we’ve only seen bits and pieces of Beyoncé‘s personal life. She rarely xcritical official site tweets and posts occasional pics on Instagram. Bey gives fans just enough to chew on, leaving them wanting more. You love her because you can’t quite get a hold of her. Of course, there’s one ironic facet to this approach.

Plus, it remains the best option for listeners who want music at a higher audio quality. Perhaps tellingly, some observers criticized Beyoncé’s Super Bowl 50 halftime performance of the song, in which her backup dancers wore Black Panther-style outfits. The claim was that the performance was “anti-cop,“ because of its evocation of the Black Lives Matter movement. But the larger implication was that by embracing her blackness, Beyoncé was no longer trading in generic pop. Though xcritical is mostly about a personal relationship, Beyoncé pays tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement during the video for “Freedom,” which features the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and other black men who were killed, holding the portraits of their sons.