BEYONCÉ: the discography rate ~ WINNER revealed!

to be or not to be... NAAAATT

























28

SCORE: 8.875
TOTAL POINTS: 266.25

2016: 28/113 (--) | 8.32 (+0.555)
HIGHEST SCORE: 11 x 1 ( @Dijah. ) | 10 x 11 ( @boombazookajoe, @Ana Raquel, @Phonetics Girl, @odyism, @Maria, @soratami, @Crisp X, @sesita, @TheOnlyOne, @klow, @TéléDex )
LOWEST SCORE: 5 x 1 ( @Aester )
MY SCORE: 8/10

A certified banger, Freakum Dress is truly a gem in Beyoncé’s discography. So much so that Billboard ranked it at No.1 on its '100 Best Deep Cuts by 21st Century Pop Stars' list… not every deep cut has that. Co-written with Rich Harrison and Makeba Riddick, Freakum Dress follows the narrative set by Ring The Alarm and Kitty Kat about a man not giving a woman the proper attention she deserves, so in this case, she can pull out that 'freakum dress' and remind him of what he’s missing. It’s a fun concept for a song, and was supposedly inspired by a Martin Laurence stand up bit where he talked about women being pissed off with their men so they put on a 'f*ckum dress' to make them jealous. At the time, it was hard to believe that Beyoncé would have to do anything else but be Beyoncé to have her man’s attention. The theme of women’s rage is real and runs through B’Day’s core, disguised in all these humongous bops.

From the start to finish, Freakum Dress is quintessential B’Day Beyoncé. It’s amusing, rambunctious and Beyoncé operating at HIGH CAMP levels. The crescendo pre-choruses amp up the song building up to an explosion by the time we get to the middle 8. Firing on all cylinders throughout, it’s fair to say Beyoncé gets the message across. I can't believe this was Beyoncé at just 25!!





@Dijah.

The best bridge ever recorded. Who else could serve the absolute rush of “WHEN YOU PUT IT ON IT’S AN INVITATION! WHEN THEY PLAY YO SONG GET ON UP AND SHAKE IT! WORK IT OUT YA BACK YOU DON’T HAVE TO WASTE IT! SPIN IT ALL AROUND AND TAKE IT TO THE GROUND AND—” like this? I’ll wait.





Directed by Ray Kay, the Freakum Dress video is where we finally find out what a freakum dress looks like in Beyoncé’s eyes and apparently they have to be metallic. Beyoncé switches dresses in a blink of an eye throughout the video while nailing the choreo, which must have been hell to shoot over and over and over. The video ends with Beyoncé putting on a pair of glasses and reciting the outro like it’s a news conference to all her fellow women.

Freakum Dress was first performed on The Beyoncé Experience Tour, and like with most performances on that tour, I get out of breath just watching it. Now I don’t think Freakum Dress has ever been performed completely live, but it’s understandable as the choreography is intense! Freakum Dress was then showcased at the 4 era’s Revel show, the 2013 version of The Mrs Carter World Tour and then was relegated to an interlude alongside Dangerously In Love’s Hip Hop Star for The Formation World Tour.

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It would be very PJ to do Pray You Catch Me dirty so I’m glad it’s getting it’s flowers in the top 30 here. It’s the perfect opener to Lemonade and one of her best.

 

let me make it hot like fire...

























27

SCORE: 8.881
TOTAL POINTS: 266.45

2016: 20/113 (-7) | 8.532 (+0.349)
HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 13 ( @allyshone, @theincredibleflipper, @boombazookajoe, @Ana Raquel, @Phonetics Girl, @Aester, @Dijah., @Maria, @soratami, @sesita, @klow, @Ramalama, @Robert )
LOWEST SCORE: 5 x 1 ( @Purple )
MY SCORE: 10/10

Boldly chosen as the second single in the United States from B’Day, Ring The Alarm was released in September 2006 and marked itself as an immediate standout amongst Beyoncé’s previous work. The song was co-written and co-produced with frequent B’Day collaborators Swizz Beatz and Sean Garrett and is a complete switch up from the songs that come before it in the tracklist. Ring The Alarm is hard, domineering and angry in all the best ways. The perfect song to voice a woman’s rage and describe someone who has been getting angry and paranoid over thoughts of "another woman benefiting from the lessons" she has taught her man. Rumour has it, Beyoncé was inspired by her role in Dreamgirls to write this song and never intended it to be so angry, however I would assume a lot of the fire probably came from her personal life at the time. B’Day is largely a breakup album after all.

Ring The Alarm fittingly starts with alarm before descending into screams, "RING THE ALARM! I BEEN THROUGH THIS TOO LONG! BUT I’D BE DAMNED IF I SEE ANOTHER CHICK ON YOUR ARM!" I am still not over this being picked as the second single. Now, I have to be in the right mood to listen to Ring The Alarm, it’s not going to be the first Beyoncé song I think of when I’m taking the dog for a walk, for example. However, when the mood is right, Ring The Alarm fucking hits and it slaps and annihilates you throughout its entire 3 minute running time. You think you’re getting a breather in the bridge only to hear the sadness in Beyoncé’s voice as she sings, "But this is my show and I won’t let you go, all it’s been paid for and it’s mineeeeeeeee". Critics and fans were divided at the time over the song, but today I can officially say that if you still hate on Ring The Alarm, you just don’t get it.

The video, directed by Sophie Muller who had worked with Beyoncé on lead single Deja Vu, is a ball of ferocity that matches the song. Of course it got similar criticisms to the Deja Vu video at the time with misogynistic and I would say racially motivated complaints about Beyoncé looking too crazy and aggressive. The video is a showstopper. There is a scene where Beyoncé is being dragged down a hallway by cops, then going mental on a table with flashing lights, then in an interrogation room dressed as Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. It’s chaotic and encompasses every emotion in the song. A then 16-year-old Teyana Taylor was credited as choreographer for the video. Queen!

The song peaked at No.11 on the Billboard Hot 100, which was at the time Beyoncé’s lowest peaking single, but I just don’t think the world was ready for it and maybe they still aren’t. It was eventually certified gold, sold over 1.5m copies worldwide and currently has 40m streams on Spotify.

Luckily for the Hive, Ring The Alarm got a primetime spot at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé recreated some of the elements from the video, which is really what you should be doing at the VMAs. It was also the premiere of the famous Ring The Alarm breakdown, which Beyoncé would go onto use in performances for years to come. Another performance of the song where Beyoncé fell down a flight of stairs on The Beyoncé Experience tour went viral and she requested for fans to not put the footage on YouTube, which obviously didn’t happen. The song perfectly fit into the narrative on the On The Run Tours and was used alongside it’s companion song Don’t Hurt Yourself on The Formation World Tour.

All performances of this are killer!

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The starting the engine choreo for the Ring The Alarm performances was ICONIC. My younger teen self was absolutely gagged at how she could do that.

 

"Pray You Catch Me" is a lovely ballad and such a great opener for the album. Don't know why I was stingy and gave it only an 8.5 - I remember hearing the beautiful harmonies and details in the production back in 2016 and kept replaying parts of it.

I was going to say "Green Light" is the correct last standing "B'Day" album track but I forgot it was a single. Glad to see it's still around though.

 

Damn, I have to keep on reminding myself of the quality we're dealing with here cause Pray You Catch Me and Ring The Alarm were top 10 material. Can't say that I agree with the top B'Day choices, though..

 

a bit of an album bloodbath happening...

























26

SCORE: 8.891
TOTAL POINTS: 266.75

2016: 39/113 (+13) | 7.911 (+0.980)
HIGHEST SCORE: 11 x 1 ( @TheOnlyOne ) | 10 x 9 ( @boombazookajoe, @Daniel_O, @odyism, @Dijah., @Remorque, @Purple, @sesita, @klow, @Music Is Death )
LOWEST SCORE: 6 x 1 ( @Epic Chocolat )
MY SCORE: 8.5/10

By the time we get to Green Light on the B’Day tracklist, and I’m talking about the standard edition by the way, because I do like to think there was some method behind the track placements before the deluxe edition came and ruined my theory. Anyway, by the time we get to Green Light it’s clear that the Beyoncé at the start of the album who was still in love, having fun in the club with her girls and singing about being a suga mama has long gone. She is angry and fed up with her man. And how does she channel her frustrations on B’Day? She manifests bop after bop. And Green Light is a flat out bop, plain and simple. B’Day really is Lemonade’s more messy, more immature little sister and I live for it. In terms of the album, I always saw Freakum Dress and Green Light as a two package deal of ferocious boppery, which is especially felt towards the end of both songs.

Green Light was co-written with Pharrell Williams and Sean Garrett. It was released as the fifth single in the UK, and seventh overall from B’Day. It was the Freemasons remix of the song that ended up getting a tonne of airplay in the UK, making it reach a respectable peak of No.12. The song has just over 20 million streams on Spotify, which actually makes this an underrated Beyoncé banger. I thought it'd have way more!





@TheOnlyOne

Is that a threat? What’s another threat? YUP that’s another threat! Has become one of my favorite lines in pop herstory. SPEAK ON IT Bey! A triple threat from day one. The pivotal Beyonce song for me and doubt that will ever change





The video was shot by Melina Matsoukas during that crazy two week period where Beyoncé was shooting videos left, right and centre and it’s probably one of the best from the B’Day album. We need to start a campaign to get Beyoncé’s team to remaster all of the B’Day videos on YouTube and actually complete the Kitty Kat video. Anyway, the video is a feast for the eyes in all its simplicity. Immediately we see that this is an homage to Robert Palmer’s iconic Addicted To Love video with Beyoncé with her dancers all dressed up in tight latex freakum dresses. Beyoncé claimed that Green Light was the toughest B’Day video to shoot, and you can understand why from the latex to the ballet-pointed heels. We get to see the full female band again and Beyoncé living her best rockstar life. One of the campest moments in the video is Beyoncé delivering the bridge whilst laying over the song title.

Green Light received a few morning television performances. What a wake up call! Again, it probably feels redundant at this point because this is a Beyoncé rate, and 99% of her performances are fire, but she really does give it her all in Green Light! If you haven’t seen the performance from The Beyoncé Experience Tour then I would suggest you watch it and witness the stamina! Unfortunately, since then, the song has only been used briefly here and there either as part of an encore as Beyoncé says her thanks or tacked onto the end of other songs.

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The ‘Hip-Hop Star vs. Freakum Dress’ interlude was one of my absolute favourite moments of the Formation World Tour. When she flipped the switch on everyone at the final hurdle by leading it into ‘6 Inch’ instead of ‘Daddy Lessons’, it was game over.

 

I'm ashamed to be the low scorer for "Freakum Dress." I found it annoying for many, many years, but it finally clicked and now there's really nothing but high after high on the standard edition of B'Day for me. It's hard to see so much of it leave now, especially "Ring The Alarm," a truly wild single choice for the time. That video is still in my top five across all her releases. The way she commits!

 

"Get Me Bodied", "Upgrade U", "Schoolin' Life" and "Telephone" are looking out of their depth at this point (only one of them is my lowest remaining score though).

 

the words don't ever seem to come out right, but i still mean 'em. why is that?

























25

SCORE: 8.901
TOTAL POINTS: 267.05

2016: 25/113 (--) | 8.383 (+0.518)
HIGHEST SCORE: 11 x 1 ( @theincredibleflipper ) | 10 x 11 ( @allyshone, @lalaclairi_, @boombazookajoe, @Daniel_O, @Phonetics Girl, @Maria, @eatyourself, @sesita, @godspeed, @klow, @Ramalama )
LOWEST SCORE: 6 x 2 ( @Sprockrooster, @Ana Raquel )
MY SCORE: 10/10

The third track from the standard edition of Beyoncé’s fourth studio album, 4, I Miss You is co-written with Frank Ocean and Shea Taylor. Ocean even gets in on the intro here with a little line. In a perfect world, we would get a Beyoncé and Frank Ocean joint album. I mean, between this, Superpower and Pink + White, the absolute slayage it would be! I Miss You is a simple, mid-tempo R&B ballad where Beyoncé sings about being in love with someone who she’s not currently with. The reason why is kept from us, which only adds to the overall vibe.

The beauty in I Miss You comes from its subtlety and minimalism. The start of 4 is not all too different from the beginning of I Am… Sasha Fierce, we get two huge powerful ballads before stripping everything back for track three. 4 clearly has the better run of the two though. I Miss You is another track with an intimate feeling, combined with her expertise in vocal arrangements and layering with the contrasting soft and punchy vocals makes for a compelling listen. This is really a masterpiece and just a fucking vibe. I believe both Love Drought and I Miss You share similar soundscapes, in terms of vibes, and I adore it for her. Both songs are like the cool, chill, melancholic kids in Beyoncé’s discography.





@theincredibleflipper

It is just stunning.





Beyoncé performed I Miss You at the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. The song then made an appearance on the ITV Special, A Night with Beyoncé and was included on the setlist for the Revel shows after she had given birth to Blue Ivy. Also, she included the song on the first leg of The Mrs Carter World Tour, which I missed because I was waiting for the new music. This was an error on my part though, because despite seeing Beyoncé live over five times now, I’ve never seen her perform I Miss You. The song has a respectable 45m streams on Spotify, even though I believe it deserves a lot more. Beyoncé, resurrect this for the next tour please! Frank performed the song during his small Channel Orange Tour in the US in 2012. The xx also covered the song which was praised by critics and fans alike.

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I almost got mad at I Miss You leaving already but we’re at Top 25 territory already. But damn it if it’s not absolutely beautiful. I almost like that it’s not one of Bey’s signature ballads to the public, it feels like it’s for us melancholic girls, YES I’m gatekeeping.

This is quite random, but Taeyang (from the KPop band BIGBANG - 2012 was LIT!) has a gorgeous acoustic cover of I Miss You.

 

Not "I Miss You" leaving now... Everyone who scored it below a 9 is soulless.

 

I Miss You is in my Top 10. Stunning.

Upgrade U better than Green Light and Freakum Dress? No ma’am.

 

Green Light just fucking slaps so hard.

 

"Green Light" (8.75) was definitely one of my fave rediscoveries of this rate. I knew it was good, but it's such a bop that just keeps building and adding new elements (the middle-8, the trumpet solo, the ad-libs etc.) that I totally forgot about, which some of the "B'Day" songs don't utilize well enough. "Get Me Bodied" and "Upgrade U" could've easily left instead of this one.

 

I knew you'd take all my honey...

























24

SCORE: 8.908
TOTAL POINTS: 267.25

2016: N/A
HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 13 ( @Sprockrooster, @theincredibleflipper, @lalaclairi_, @Phonetics Girl, @BubblegumBoy, @Remorque, @Maria, @soratami, @Purple, @sesita, @TéléDex, @Music Is Death, @Robert )
LOWEST SCORE: 5 x 1 ( @TheOnlyOne )
MY SCORE: 8/10

THIS was a moment!

A day after the release of Beyoncé and Lady Gaga's first collaboration for the remix of Video Phone, Gaga dropped her monumental album, The Fame Monster. Out of the eight tracks, only one had a feature and that was Telephone featuring Beyoncé. As I previously mentioned in Video Phone's elimination, it seemed like the perfect time for these two to work together. One at the top of her game in the mainstream and the other on a meteoric rise switching up the entire pop music landscape. A demo was recorded by Britney, however the song ended up back in Gaga's hands and while she has previously mentioned how finishing the song was "stressful" for her, the end product was ultimately a huge pop moment.

On The Fame Monster, I would definitely rank Telephone near the bottom, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. That album was insanely good and holds a dear place in my heart, as it does many on this forum. I would say, as we were getting to know Gaga, her ferocity and uniqueness didn't quite shine as much as it did on album's other tracks. However, Beyoncé's addition to the song saves it from being anything but mediocre. Her verse is packed with personality and punchy vocals which immediately grab your attention. It's always been exciting to listen to Beyoncé, but during the I Am... Sasha Fierce era, my excitement had slightly waned... Telephone put an end to all that. A banger! The song ended up being a gigantic hit worldwide and it currently has over 460m streams on Spotify.

So much has already been said about the video, directed by Jonas Akerlund, who would later go onto direct Haunted, Superpower and Hold Up, as well as the On The Run Tour special. Gaga wanted to bring the era back where music videos releases were an event and Telephone really felt like an event. Coming in at 9m30s, the video is a continuation from Paparazzi and sees Beyoncé release Gaga from prison as they go on to poison Beyoncé's boyfriend and a whole diner of people. The storyline doesn't really make sense, but it doesn't have to. It's ridiculous and camp and it made a massive stamp on pop culture. Job done.

Unfortunately, as we all know, Beyoncé and Gaga have never performed the song live together. In fact, it's ridiculous Beyoncé and Gaga have never been on the same stage together, despite remaining friends after all these years. I actually hate them! Beyoncé first performed the song for her Glastonbury set and it was interesting to see her take on the choreography.
Gaga stays performing it all the time... without Beyoncé.

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I agree. "Telephone" is obviously one of the biggest moments of that era and the video is so iconic, but the song itself has never been among my faves from that album. I think it mostly because it's reminiscent of demos that Gaga did for other artist during that time and doesn't have that special signature spark that pretty much all of the songs from "The Fame Monster" do. Still, it's a great song - it got an 8.5 from me in Gaga's rate and now an 8 here, since Bey is just a feature. It would've definitely seemed out of place if it reached top 20.

And any excuse to post this hilarious parody which marked my elementary school days:

 

who am i to disagree?

























23

SCORE: 8.958
TOTAL POINTS: 268.75

2016: 30/113 (+7) | 8.19 (+0.768)
HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 11 ( @theincredibleflipper, @Daniel_O, @Phonetics Girl, @Epic Chocolat, @Remorque, @eatyourself, @soratami, @TheOnlyOne, @TéléDex, @Maki, @Robert )
LOWEST SCORE: 7 x 2 ( @Aester, @klow )
MY SCORE: 9/10
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Co-written with James Scheffer, Rico Love and Wayne Wilkins, Sweet Dreams was released as the sixth single from Beyoncé’s third studio album, I Am… Sasha Fierce. Known as one of Beyoncé’s more "poppier" songs, Sweet Dreams is about "a relationship that seems too good to be true. You don’t know if it’s a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare", which she said when explaining the concept. A demo for Sweet Dreams actually leaked in March 2008 with its initial name, Beautiful Nightmare, apparently one day after Beyoncé recorded it! The fan response was hugely positive and Beyoncé being the sweetheart she is, posted a message to fans on her website, thanking them for the great response to the demo but for them to check out Kelly, Michelle and Solange’s new material instead.

As Radio falls short and the rest of the second half of Sasha Fierce dips into more hip-hop and R&B influenced sounds, Sweet Dreams is the album’s quintessential pop track. Although, it could be argued that Sweet Dreams has the dated sound which haunts the majority of I Am… Sasha Fierce, it transcends those thoughts in my mind, because it’s still such a tune. The chorus soars, the subject matter has a tint of darkness, Beyoncé’s vocals are great throughout and we get that lovely pulled back bridge before a final blast of synthpop.

The song was a significant hit for Beyoncé, especially coming as the sixth single. The song reached Top 5 in the UK, Australia and most other European markets. Additionally, it reached No.10 on the Billboard Hot 100. It would go on to sell over 4 million copies worldwide and is sitting pretty on Spotify with over 170 million streams. This was all with little promotion from Beyoncé herself.

As a single, Sweet Dreams did receive a music video, directed by Adria Petty. The video is very amateur greenscreen in places. It begins with Beyoncé having a nightmare before being levitated out of bed like an exorcism as she ascends into a dream guided by a dove. Unsurprisingly, we discover she dreams about doing choreo in a CGI desert, wearing a high fashion gold robot suit worth over $35,000 and smashing mirrors to pieces.

Normally for Beyoncé’s singles we used to get a fuck load of performances, used being the appropriate word (a Renaissance performance please?!). However, Sweet Dreams kind of got the Check On It treatment. Beyoncé performed a small part of the song at the iconic 2009 MTV Video Music Awards as an intro to her Single Ladies performance. Fans then got treated to a fuller performance of the song at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, and it’s one of Bey’s weirdest award show performances to me. Some people adore this performance, but it always felt a little unfinished? The song gets properly going and I’m bopping along, ready for the chorus… then the music is turned right down and we’re left with Beyoncé’s recorded vocals on the chorus before Beyoncé stops the music again, does a little dance breakdown and finishes the song mid sentence. It’s bizarre. Maybe there was a reference that I’m not getting. Still better than what most of the girls are doing these days though.

The song was performed on a few dates of the I Am… World Tour, but even then it was only the first verse and chorus. She went on to include a slowed down version of the song on the setlist for her I Am… Yours shows in Las Vegas, and a mashup version with the Eurythmics song of the same title for her headlining Glastonbury performance in 2011. The final outing for Sweet Dreams would come on the opening night of The Formation World Tour, where Beyoncé performed it again as a mashup with the Eurythmics song. This section was cut by the time of the next show.

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