Live review: Ann Powers on Beyoncé*
Two news items chased Beyoncé into the Honda Center in Anaheim on Saturday, when she finally brought her latest world tour to the Southland after four months on the road. One had the singer earning the top spot on Forbes magazine’s “young rich list,” as the highest-earning celebrity under age 30. The other, more gossipy, story involved a rumor that she has banned photographers from shooting her from certain angles during her show, because she sweats too much.
Those tidbits – one about Beyoncé’s unique glamor and the other about a common, earthy foible – better summed up the inner divide she’s been exploring in her work than did the frenzied pizzaz of the concert itself.
That’s not to fault the production: It’s fairly astounding, as both showbiz and an athletic event. For more than two hours, Beyoncé led her large dance troupe and all-female big band (a concept to which she’s remained loyal for two tours now) through many compulsory arena pop routines and several she herself has invented.
She somersaulted while suspended in a harness. Thrilling! She sang Happy Birthday to a 2-year-old. Adorable! She let the crowd take over while singing “Irreplaceable.” Fun! She got on her knees and mourned Michael Jackson. Poignant! She hit most of her notes too, though sometimes slipping badly in her lower register. And she danced like only Beyoncé can dance, with a combination of power, grace and smarts that fully unites Broadway choreography with urban street innovations.
The only thing not fully realized was the show’s overarching theme. As in the album this tour supports, “I Am … Sasha Fierce,” Beyoncé meant to represent herself as a split personality, tender and open on the one hand, indomitable and rather scary on the other.
But she has chosen the wrong dichotomy to represent herself. Since she’s such a superb competitor, she might have done better with the one that preoccupies gymnasts: the difference between technical and creative genius, between nailing every element of your craft and turning that craft into an art. Or, to connect it to those news flashes previously mentioned and place it in the theatrical realm, the need to deliver both a great physical performance and one that moves the audience emotionally.
Bono, Springsteen and Beyonce to appear in inauguration special
Show Tracker brings us the following item:
A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.
Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.
"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."
-- Matea Gold
(Photo courtesy AP)
Beyonce at No. 1 with 'Sasha Fierce'
Beyonce is fierce indeed, topping the national sales chart this week with her new two-CD set "I Am ... Sasha Fierce," which sold 482,000 copies during its first week in stores. It's one of several new releases breaking into the top 10 as the final weeks leading up to Christmas heat up the action from some of pop music’s heaviest hitters.
Behind Beyonce at No. 2 is Canadian rock group Nickelback, whose new “Dark Horse” started out with sales of 326,000 copies. Coming in at No. 3 is “American Idol” champ David Cook, logging a first-week figure of 280,000 for the album bearing his name.
Taylor Swift’s “Fearless,” last week’s No. 1 album, dropped to No. 4 on second-week sales of 217,000 copies. The multinational vocal group Il Divo landed behind Swift at No. 5 with sales of 162,000 copies of its new one, “The Promise,” according to Billboard.
--Randy Lewis
Photo credit: Associated Press
Beyonce likes to make ... Hamburger Helper?
The first time I met Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (she hadn’t quite reached one-name stature yet) was back in 2000 in Houston. Her father and manager, Mathew Knowles, a former salesman, picked me up at the airport and drove me to the family home. The city was a soggy mess — the sewers were overflowing after a nasty storm — but the Knowles' house was immaculate and warm. Beyoncé was at the house with the other members of Destiny’s Child, the pop group that took career notes from the Supremes, En Vogue and TLC before selling 18 million albums in the United States and many times that abroad.
What I remember most about that visit: After a photo shoot, Beyoncé was wearing denim shorts and a gray sweatshirt and sitting on a kitchen counter top, tugging at her hair like a little girl, while, over her shoulder, her mom was stirring gumbo. I reminded Beyoncé of that moment when I met her in New York last week to interview for a Sunday Calendar cover story running this weekend. (We'll add the link to that story on this post on Friday.) She smiled and winced like someone thumbing through an old high school yearbook. “Well I can tell you this: I need some of that gumbo right now. I haven’t had one of my mom’s meals in a long time. She’s the best with that gumbo.”
Snap Judgment: Beyonce's 'I Am ... Sasha Fierce'
In the news release for her new, ambitious, somewhat befuddling double album -- the deluxe edition, with extra tracks, is currently streaming on her MySpace page -- Beyonce Knowles discusses her newly revealed alter ego, Sasha Fierce. "She's the party girl, she's Bootylicious," says the singer-songwriter-movie star-mogulista. "She is but I'm not. She's my alter ego. I'm finally revealing who I am."
The contradiction built into that brief comment says much about Beyonce's artistic predicament. A child talent-show winner molded into a pop star by her notoriously driven father, she is a creature of the stage, like Britney and Christina, the pop stars with whom she might have continued to be lumped if her father-figure husband -- and, more important, her own "rapperly" vocal gifts -- hadn't helped her secure a spot in hip-hop's firmament. Yet because the world of hip-hop soul expects its divas to be "real," she's often criticized for seeming distant within her own performances and refusing to expose herself.
For Beyonce, to say that an identity she is not can also "reveal ... who I am" is not a contradiction. As an artist, she is a role-player first -- a brainy, often showy interpreter instead of a gut singer on ballads, and a brilliantly varied rhythmic innovator on her club hits. "I Am ... Sasha Fierce" shows her further refining both of those tendencies, and it's full of interesting choices. But her misplaced worries about authenticity cause Beyonce to make some unfortunate missteps (mostly into the puddle of excess) that often afflict artists in mid-career.
Pop & Hiss goes to the movies: trailer for Beyonce's 'Cadillac Records'
A long-overdue cinematic account of Chicago's blues label Chess Records will be released in December, and a trailer for the rock 'n' roll drama, "Cadillac Records," has now hit the Web. The film stars Beyoncé as soul singer Etta James, Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, Mos Def as Chuck Berry and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.
The clip below is graced with Beyoncé's take on "At Last," and also offers a glimpse of how the young Rolling Stones will look in the film.
The Times' Patrick Goldstein has written extensively about "Cadillac Records" on his blog The Big Picture. The movie, which was produced by Sofia Sondervan and former Sony BMG chairman Andy Lack, is one of two films about Chess Records making the rounds this year. The other, "Who Do You Love," was screened at the Toronto Film Festival
First Listen: Beyoncé's 'If I Were a Boy' and 'Single Ladies'
Beyoncé may be a married lady now, but she's still all caught up in the drama of love's first glances and final door slams. It's refreshing that she's staying in character: When artists such as Mary J. Blige start making music about how happy they are with their chubby hubbies, it may be sincere, but it also serves the function of feeding the tabloids. Beyoncé and her Hova have always kept business and pleasure separate, which imparts dignity to their relationship -- and lets her be an artist first, a personality second.
Beyoncé's emotional reserve also allows for hits that still appeal to her core fan base of independent women. "Irreplaceable" was a masterpiece of that ilk, the finger-wagging summation of mercenary, "Sex and the City"-style post-feminism. That song made Beyoncé pop's Chairwoman of the Board, as worldly wise and merciless about love as Sinatra was in the wee small hours of the morning.
Her new club banger, "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)," elaborates on "Irreplaceable's" theme of love as sport, if not war; sounding a lot like a Destiny's Child song, it has Beyoncé doing call-and-response with her backup singers over a rump-shaking beat provided by The-Dream and Tricky Stewart. More than most female singers, Beyoncé understands the funky art of singing rhythmically, and this is a prime example.
