“Déjà Vu” doesn’t get it’s due, and I completely get why people found it so underwhelming as a lead single - it certainly does fade into the background on this album as a more muted take on the album cuts. A bitch literally be growling on some of these songs.ī’Day has some great songs, all of which are deserving of going down in the lexicon of great Beyoncé songs. Because that’s another thing Beyoncé is on this album. It was always there during the days of Destiny’s Child, but was muted somewhat on Dangerously in Love because she was so freshly boo’d up with the Jigga man, and possibly maybe because Beyoncé didn’t wanna come off as ‘aggressive’ on her debut. There’s an assertiveness to B’Day which I think became a core part of Beyoncé’s brand from this point on. Where-as Dangerously in Love was an album for the most part about being the object of a man’s desire, B’Day is about taking matters into your own hands whether it’s deciding you wanna be a sugar mama, letting your man know that you know your pussy is bomb and that you’re gonna give it to somebody who appreciates it, or just kicking homeboy out and reminding him the house he be livin’ it *Stands up* ♫ I bought it ♫. But this is also an album of reclaiming womanhood. Even the mid-tempo lamentations of “Resentment” will make the coochie slow pop. But still, she went for it.ī’Day is very much a party album, true to the album title being a play on the word 'Birthday', the date of which is referenced on the party anthem of all party anthems “Get Me Bodied”. Beyoncé had a clear objective of where she wanted to go with this album and she went for it. It makes for an album which feels far more cohesive to me than Dangerously in Love. B’Day is a one trick pony for the most part, yes.
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Every door at Sony studios where B’Day was recorded had a laminated sign that said ‘Horns, handclaps and cowbells please’.
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And whilst “Work It Out” wasn’t a huge hit, Columbia records had a soft spot for it because they liked how urban Beyoncé looked with an afro, so in came The Neptunes. “Say My Name” was Columbia records favourite Destiny’s Child song, so they called Rodney Jerkins. So with that, “Crazy in Love” and “1 Thing” producer was brought on to helm a couple of songs. Also, Amerie’s “1 Thing” was huge too, but we’re dropping her so *shrug*’. To surmise B’Day in a really basic way, but a situation that I strongly feel happened Columbia records turned around to Beyoncé and said ‘We loved Crazy in Love so much, and it was such a huge hit, that you should just do a whole album of songs like that. But it also happens to have some damn good songs. And if nothing else, this is what B’Day has in absolute spades. Where-as with B’Day we got the persona 2.0, who felt even bigger as a result of the confidence that Beyoncé had gained coming out of the gate with a globally successful album, and knowing that her solo career was fully secured. With Dangerously in Love it felt like there was Beyoncé and then the persona of Beyoncé. But on the other hand, B'Day also felt like a pivot and a soft reset for Beyoncé. On one hand B'Day felt like the album we were always going to get following the mammoth success of “Crazy In Love” and producer Rich Harrison being the new go-to for women in R&B. Even though many of the things that came out of B’Day would go on to not only be fixtures in how Beyoncé would approach certain aspects of her music and career, but standards in music (a whole bunch o’ music videos and a re-release) - it was difficult to see any vision of what B’Day was supposed to be at the time of its release, because every decision felt like a correction, and with the re-release, B'Day felt like a different thing entirely.īut just looking at the music on the original version alone, B’Day was still a bit of a strange beast at first. B’Day was a bit of a controversial album when it first came out, because the rollout was so damn messy, and made it seem like nobody at Columbia records knew what the hell they were doing.