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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Destiny’s Child

  • Friday Throwback – No, No, No (Part II)

    With the release of Beyonce’s latest album, I Am…Sasha Fierce, I tried to remember the first time I really noticed Beyonce. It was in the Wyclef remix to the Destiny’s Child song, No, No, No. Beyonce would’ve roughly been about 17 years old at the time.

    – Just in case you didn’t know, Wyclef wanted you to know that this is the remix.

    – Why are they doing the Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It dance?

    – So this was the foursome version of DC.

    – Is it just me, or does Kelly Rowland look like a skinny Adina Howard with that short hair?

    – You know it’s 1998 when Wyclef mentions the No Limit Soldiers in his verse. Kids today would be like, “Who dey?”

    – “Why you frontin’ when you know you really want it?” Wyclef wants to know this.

    – Though Beyonce was front and center, the rest of the girls got some screen time. So this wasn’t the Beyonce is going to be a solo star push for DC as of yet.

  • Single Life: Special Beyonce Edition: Single Ladies and If I Were a Boy

    For her upcoming third solo album, the lovely Beyonce Knowles has decided to grace us with two singles at once. “If I Were a Boy” and “Single Ladies” are the two opening tracks from her new, as yet untitled album, which is scheduled to hit stores in mid-November. The videos premiere later today, but until then, I’m sure you’re wondering what the songs sound like (if you haven’t heard them already). You can check them out for yourself on Beyonce’s website.

    “If I Were a Boy” is something of a departure for Beyonce. Before actually hearing the song, I was a little concerned that the theme and the song would rip off Ciara’s recent hit “Like a Boy”. While the two songs are thematically similar, Beyonce’s song is more mature from a lyrical and musical standpoint (it should go without saying that Beyonce is a much better singer than Ciara ever will be). I would have loved to hear Beyonce go for the full-on rock treatment and use live drums here, but the song’s still pretty impressive. On the other hand, “Single Ladies” starts off in the same let’s-go-to-the-club vibe as previous Beyonce/ singles like “Jumpin’ Jumpin’” and “Get Me Bodied”. As such, it’s significantly less enjoyable than “If I Were a Boy”. It’s not a bad song per se-again, the beauty of someone as vocally talented as Beyonce is that anything she records is going to at the very least be interesting. However, it’s certainly a letdown after “If I Were a Boy”. Let’s hope that her upcoming album contains more material like “If I Were a Boy” and less material like “Single Ladies”.

  • “Sol-Angel & The Hadley Street Dreams”: Little Sister Strikes Back

    The cover of "Sol-Angel & the Hadley Street Dreams", the sophomore effort from Solange Knowles.
    The cover of "Sol-Angel & the Hadley Street Dreams", the sophomore effort from Solange Knowles.

    The musical landscape is littered with them: artists trading on the talent and fame of their more talented, more famous sibling. Most music fans are smart enough to know that whenever “the brother or sister-or son or daughter- of chart-topping singer XXX” arrives on the scene, they should run for cover. My pals at Popdose recently dedicated an entire article to the phenomenon, bringing back some famously awful examples of a few artists who assumed that sharing a bloodline with someone meant sharing their talent as well.

    So you have every right to be frightened by the sophomore effort from Solange Knowles. Yep, Solange is the little sister of world-famous diva singer/actress Beyonce Knowles, sister-in-law of Jay-Z. She’s occasionally stepped in as a fourth member of Destiny’s Child, co-written songs for her sister and her sister’s bandmate Kelly Rowland, and released a fairly horrid album of her own half a decade ago, “Solo Star”. However, she’s probably most known for creating a chink in the fresh-scrubbed Knowles family image by getting knocked up at 17 (Papa Mathew Knowles almost immediately made Solange marry the baby’s father, a move that Mr. & Mrs. Spears would have been wise to emulate). Now a 22 year old divorcee, Solange makes her re-entry onto the musical scene with “Sol-Angel & The Hadley Street Dreams”, a title so pretentious you almost want to hate the album before it starts playing.

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