Album Review: 4 by Beyonce

I'll give Beyoncé credit for being experimental.  As the top diva in music right now she could have very easily shown up at the studio, done her vocals, and walked out the door to count her money.  Instead she seems to have put some effort into going after songs with challenging vocal arrangements and a bit off in terms of being radio singles.  This is definitely not an album that was assured of going number one based on radio friendly content.

She also gets credit for putting in very good vocal performances.  There may be a few throwaways here, like "Countdown," but for the most part she's on top of every song giving solid vocals and she shows that she deserves the diva label.

There are however two major problems with this album.  The first is that the songs themselves, though interesting to listen to fall flat lyrically.  If you want to make complex pop it's critical I think to provide solid lyrical content.  The lyrics here are no more thoughtful than those you would have found on that throwaway album she could have made.

The second problem here is too many producers.  I know it's the hip thing nowadays to bring in a lot of different producers to make an album.  And we've seen that work for some albums very well, think Gwen Stefani, but the key to that album was her ability to keep the songs in theme and keep them focused on what she wanted.  Too often the songs here become more about the producer than it is about Beyoncé and that should never happen.

I have to note here too the heavy influence of 80's pop.  The opening song 1+1 can be thought of as Whitney Houston sings "Purple Rain."

It's not a bad album but it is an album to be listened to.  It doesn't play very well as background music and so you have to want to listen to it to enjoy it.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 2 out of 5 stars for Not Bad.