BIG POP GIRLS 2024
- Thread starter aux
- Start date
Suffer. There's nothing little about that billionaire kaiju lady. I'm little. And the only things scared of me are my Amex and Nina West! I don't really care about the pressures of being an extremely successful and beloved person. You don't see me complaining. And i'd love to know what asylum she was raised on. AOL chatrooms? chatrandom.com/gay? Float down my street - i dare you!
*opens curtains*
*opens curtains*
Subwaykid
Staff member
he/him
What a journey for my most underrated Wicked song, that I'd wish to do as a genderbent duet in the future. In my head, wondering where my key is, and who my singing partner could be, and if I have all the confidence to ask my blond tenor rival on my scene, next year. Cynthia is not croaking, it's a marvellous duet and it was a thrill watching the song both on stage, twice, and on film, and I'm so glad Wicked was nowhere near last place. They did not deserve to be out first at all.
Last edited:
Apropos of nothing as I don't care for most of the Taylor songs that have left so far, but outside of like three tracks I wouldn't call Dua's offerings this year particularly memorable or exciting either. It just has a higher BPM so gay brain go brrrbrrr!
Not surprised or even particularly upset at Wicked going early but What Is This Feeling before Popular was not in my green matcha fantasy. Let me be grateful Cynthia’s solos didn’t make the cut or I’d potentially be really devastated.
he/him
Her new solo song on For Good next year! Fingers crossed!
I get that a lot of people on here are averse to musical theatre, but as someone who played Boq in college (tsmadison.gif goes here), I can, and have, heard different versions of the sound track a million times over, so I think it's a testament to how strong these renditions are to steal feel fresh. Cynthia in particular performs it with a quiet seriousness that sets it apart from a lot of the previous versions, that I really like.
I'll just about accept this now, but so help anyone who gives their version of For Good a 1 next year...
I'll just about accept this now, but so help anyone who gives their version of For Good a 1 next year...
Not this
It’s a pop music rate. As if any of the Wicked songs stack up to the songs in the rate on a level viable enough to even be included. Corny shite.
Poor Miss Wicked being too musical theater for a pop rate when the criticism over the years from the musical theater community has been that it's way too pop. You truly can't win! Except for the 2+ billion dollars in grosses I guess.
HIGHEST:
10x4 (@Sprockrooster, @RetroPhysical, @Aidan, @eliminathan)
LOWEST:
0.5x1 (@Plethorya)
The more vocal members of the forum have been calling for its head since the very beginning, but the hussy with the indeterminate-but-not-auburn-but-presumably-good hair lasted a full 20 cuts before finally falling at #126. And this could very well be the single most out-of-step elimination of the entire rate in terms of the our average score vs. the wider rate. Possibly even across most BPG rates? Not to give away too many spoilers, but the average of the hosts would've taken this song right into the upper third of scores. Confused? Bewildered? Let's lift the veil on Jolene.
I think the discrepancy of scores across the board here (and there was a real mixture) is largely based on (but not exclusively limited to) two factors: 1) those who were able to detach their preconceptions on how a take on the original - perhaps one of the most covered pieces of music ever - should sound, and 2) those who were willing to accept Beyoncé's unique perspective as a necessary component of its parent album.
It would be very easy to dismiss Jolene's inclusion on Cowboy Carter as an offense to the listener's intelligence. One of the most well-known country songs of all-time? Slap it on my yee-haw instalment and call it a day! But given that Beyoncé's not particularly known for covers (or reimaginations), I was certainly curious when Dolly unsealed her luscious lips ahead of the album's release to heavily hint at the song's existence. Upon hearing it, at first, I found Beyoncé's take on the track to be a little predictable. She falls into fairly common territory here, for her, regarding themes of power and protectiveness, and most of the negative reactions to the track stem from the fact that it doesn't capture the essence of a large component of what made the original a classic, i.e. the vulnerability, poignancy, and compliance that I imagine made Dolly's version quite a fresh listen indeed at the time.
The thing is, a vulnerable take on Jolene just... absolutely would not have worked here. It would serve no place within the album's narrative, and would make no sense with what Beyoncé aimed to achieve with Cowboy Carter and the larger trilogy of records at hand. Connecting with her previous epic, Lemonade, Beyoncé draws a through-line on standing on business against Rita Or- Becky, and delivers a track that could've narratively served as an excellent prologue to her 2016 arguable-magnum opus. But any sense of luxuriating within traditional tropes largely dissipates within Cowboy Carter's middle section, or what many perceive to be as the 'modern' portion of the album - if you weren't aware of Cowboy Carter's aim to ruffle the genre's feathers before, then you've certainly been made aware of them with Bey's unveiled threats and quintessential growls.
What makes Jolene a success here within its parent album is viewing it through the lens of Black love, and what entails when expectations and stigma trigger a response pattern that derives from the fact that Beyoncé simply does not possess the same privileges Dolly has. Dolly doesn't have kids, nor has a proverbial lasso around her neck regarding how negatively she could be perceived should her man drift away. Here, Beyoncé bears the weight of modern society and fights to tooth-and-nail (see the subsequent track) to defend her kingdom, and in subverting the original sentiment of the track, actually asserts herself as a new face within the oft-white dominated trope of, well, dominance within country music.
Cowboy Carter has varying degrees of success when it comes to how well it pulls off subversiveness, but as my co-host @RJF mentioned in an earlier review of the track, Jolene showcases Beyoncé's ability to acutely apply herself and her craft to the genre, and what a way to do so by channeling one of its most famous children. Smarter than it's given credit for and executed with gusto, this unfairly vilified rework takes an early bow, but not without making its mark.
N.B. Fun fact, Stevie Wonder plays the harmonica on this!
Last edited:
Every rate I'm reminded that I just don't engage with music through the same...shall we say...lens of criticism that a lot of you do.
The girls: There is, undoubtedly, a profound vocal mastery on display—a display that dares to draw attention to itself at every turn. Yet, one might argue that in her attempt to envelop the listener in a cocoon of sumptuous vibratos, there is something lost: the visceral intimacy, the earthy rawness that Dolly Parton’s sparse delivery afforded the song. Beyoncé’s voice, an instrument of prodigious range and unyielding command, strives, perhaps too insistently, to evoke a form of vulnerability that feels at times somewhat contrived, as if the raw desperation of the original were subjected to the rigorous constraints of a studio-crafted performance rather than an authentic expression of grief.
Me: I like how this sounds in my ears :)
The girls: There is, undoubtedly, a profound vocal mastery on display—a display that dares to draw attention to itself at every turn. Yet, one might argue that in her attempt to envelop the listener in a cocoon of sumptuous vibratos, there is something lost: the visceral intimacy, the earthy rawness that Dolly Parton’s sparse delivery afforded the song. Beyoncé’s voice, an instrument of prodigious range and unyielding command, strives, perhaps too insistently, to evoke a form of vulnerability that feels at times somewhat contrived, as if the raw desperation of the original were subjected to the rigorous constraints of a studio-crafted performance rather than an authentic expression of grief.
Me: I like how this sounds in my ears :)