Wait, are we supposed to be taking this shit seriously?

[The Curmudgeon]

There was an NME article this week looking back at 1996, and the great albums that came out twenty years ago. RATM's "Evil Empire." Manic Street Preacher's "Everything Must Go." Weezer's "Pinkerton." Ash's "1977."

Thank God then, that the most talked about and seemingly important album of 2016.... is "Lemonade" by Beyonce.

I'm no pop snob. If it's good, it's good. Hell, I'm an unashamed Britney Spears fan, always have been. Difference being, of course, that there are albums that should be taken seriously (the records mentioned above, for example), and enjoyable pop fluff like Britney that should be taken as just that. And weirdly, that seems to have been forgotten.

So "Lemonade" is getting all kinds of critical acclaim, and there's nothing wrong with that as such. Like I said, good pop music is as valid and entertaining as anything else. But when the likes of NME and Rolling Stone start laying on ridiculous praise on Beyonce as this sole pioneering talent behind the music is when I start to get just a little bit pissed off. Maybe I'm still hurting from Prince dying, a guy who wrote, produced and played everything, but when the lyrics of the songs from Lemonade are being critiqued and praised as some brave voice of Black American Women everywhere we really need to hit the brakes a bit.

Check out some of this bullshit.

The Washington Post: "deeply personal, yet a bold social and political statement as well"
New York Times praised Beyoncé's vocals and her courage to talk about subjects that affect so many people.
And another review said the album was "yet another seismic step forward for Beyoncé as a musician."

A musician



Yeah, let's learn what that fucking word means before we go throwing it about, shall we?

And those deep and "personal" lyrics? Written by an army of songwriters. A quick glance on Wikipedia had one song written by EIGHT people. Eight fucking people. And we're supposed to believe its some bold and brave personal statement? And let's look at some of those songwriters, shall we?

Jack White, Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, musicians (actual musicians) from the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Father John Misty and Diplo, and that's just a small selection of the dozens of writers on this thing - all white males. That's about as much the voice of Black American Woman as the last Blur album was.

Hey, if this was some tabloid junk or idiot fan page saying all this stuff, I could laugh and move on. These are supposedly intelligent sources with integrity that are writing this drivel and expecting us to buy it.

What the fuck is going on?

[trashcanman]

We as music fans aren't meant to take it seriously, but in the internet age page views = money. That means that whatever stupid thing it is that people like right now; you need to be balls deep in that shit if you want to make money. And what's big right now is sexy, glamorous women (not a new thing) and white people pretending that praising anything a black woman does to the point where it becomes condescending is fighting racism and sexism as opposed to...you know...just treating people properly in general without regard to race or gender. If Beyonce was unattrctive and/or didn't have millions of dollars being spent on her at all times by corporate white men to put her in front of cameras and on the radio and internet constantly, not a person outside of her personal life would know her fucking name. And if you'd have ever told anybody that chanting "all the single ladies" a hundred times followed by "if you like it then you should have put a ring on it" a hundred times was amazing, empowering songwriting without the image of her T&A accompanying it, they'd laugh you out of town. Haven't heard the new album. Don't plan on it. If I'm missing out on something ,I guess I'll take that chance. There's just too much actual talent out there for me to waste another second on this woman.