I Could Have Another You in a Minute

Things don’t look so good for Beyoncé. She started off the summer inundated with rumors of her man’s infidelity with Rihanna who is basically Beyoncé five years ago. Then her latest album B’Day has gotten little buzz as her record label had to rush out a second single after the first failed to make a dent at radio. Of course this may because even the novice listener could tell Déjà vu was a knock off of her first solo hit Crazy in Love except without the great Chi-Lites sample Jay-Z shows us why he should have stayed retired as his flow has gotten anemic (and his verse on Upgrade U isn't much better).

Things don’t get much better for B on the rest of the album which was somewhat inspired by her character for the upcoming Dreamgirls. Keeping with the “heard it all before” theme, the second single Ring the Alarm sounds like a rehash of Kelis’ Caught Out There. Well except Kelis sounded like a woman scorn ready to fight back where Beyoncé just seems made just because some other chick is rockin’ her chinchilla coats (and on that note can someone explain VVS stones to me please). Not to mention Christina Aguilera was more entertaining when she had to “ring the alarm” because Redman was throwing elbows on Dirrty.

Then there is Suga Mama where she uses food as a euphemism for sex, but Adam Sandler did that over a decade ago with Food Innuendo Guy, and at least he was intentionally funny. Then Beyoncé tries to add another word to the vernacular, but I’ve used Bootylicious, Bootylicious is a favorite word of mine, and Feakum Dress, my sir, is no Bootylicious.

Not if there is a glimmer of hope for Beyoncé it comes at the tail end of the album. Irreplaceable is up there with anything she has done, albeit solo or with Destiny’s Child. You can hear the hurt in her voice which cause her to miss a note or two, but that only adds to the mystique of the song. Resentment is also a slow song that starts as an acoustic song that builds making a great capper to an album.

But wait there’s more; there are a few hidden tracks. First Beyoncé talks about how she wants to give her fans a little extra. Well had she not given the “extra” songs the album would have finished at a paltry thirty-eight minutes, so really there should have been a little more anyways. The first song is Listen which from Dreamgirls and is decent even though it definitely has a “musical” feel to it. Then there is an extended mix of Get Me Bodied that somehow manages to be more annoying than the original. Maybe she should have stopped at Resentment.

Song to Download - Irreplaceable

B’Day gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.