Beyonce Knowles “If I Were a Boy”

         Culture can be a very vague term, because a culture consists of numerous elements that make up what it is. Fortunately, we live in a society where various forms of media are flourished around us that advertise, display, and teach us who we are, and what ‘our’ culture is. Popular music is a form of media that defines the dynamics of culture. For example, the multiple genres of music already show a variety aspect on our culture. Jazz and R&B are frequently considered as ‘black music’; rock songs belong to rebellious, independent artists; techno music aims for younger generations, etc. And such grouping of the artists, albums, or performances, attracts different groups of fans as well. It is likely that certain fans of certain genre were perceived to have those characteristics. I am a fan of R&B music; I enjoy the emotional, soulful, and rhythmic aspects in music. Speaking of R&B, everyone must know diva Beyonce Knowles. Her powerful vocals, stylish presence, and fifteen years of hard work have earned her 160 awards in various places. One of her top hits released in 2008 by Columbia Records, called If I Were a Boy, written by Britney Carlson and Toby Gad, has been one of her best-selling singles to date. However, this song differs from Beyonce’s other songs in that it is not her typical R&B, dance-floor track style which involve heavy drumming, rapping, or electric guitar. Instead, If I Were a Boy is a pop ballad with acoustic guitars, drums, and strings as background instruments. This song raises the issue of gender stereotypes, which helps audiences define our culture in another way through her music.

This song is popular not only because it dominated the top hits on music charts from different countries, but also because of the style change in Beyonce’s music through this song, which allowed her to temporarily step down from her glorious, pop-star figure. In the music video of this song, we can see that she took off her normal heavy make-up look, and made a light makeup, simple presence that represents the ‘everyday woman’ figure. As a result, her entire performance depicted her in a more anonymous way. The video itself was recorded in black and white, and the video shows a lot of different camera angles, displaying Beyonce’s internal progressions. Those strategies that presented the clear and underlying messages are additions to the text of the video which helps us better understand how music, as an art form, acts upon our culture. Her engaging, emotional act in the video, which is different from her other music videos, also further solidify her other title as an actress in addition to adding authenticity to the video.  Her emotions, that show the sentimental side of her, are truly transmitted through her expressions and singing in the video, which helped to connect with the audiences more. The intended audience for this song is most likely for young adults, who have just became mature enough to be in a relationship, but do not understand the values of love, and the idea of cherishment.

The song’s lyrics gave references to the stereotypes in men who are in relationships. Beyonce played out her interpretation of the typical “guy” behaviors by pretending if she were a boy. For example, in her video, she rolled out of bed, and threw some random shirt on; she drank beer with other men in a bar; flirted with her colleague; and intentionally ignored her phone calls and claimed that her phone has broken. Those are examples or the ‘privileges’ that Beyonce highlighted which she believed that the men in our society are accustomed to, but that women are not. Nevertheless, no matter how much things she tried to imitate as a guy, her point is that she would never hurt a girl as much as men do because she knows how girls can be fragile and sensitive. She took on the role of representing the majority women in the society, and raised the issue of why women feel undervalued by men in many ways. I believe this theme in the song contributes to Beyonce’s strong feminist beliefs and independent attitude as well, advocating women to fight for equality, and their own independence. Beyonce has successfully managed to present the multi-dimensionality of a growing woman. Her later songs Single Ladies, Run the World all reflect the themes of feminism and independence, which might also be the reason why she is still working so hard as a top pop star- to advocate feminism and independence, as well as showing her individuality.  Her image represents independence, intelligence, confidence, and beauty. She understands the importance of being flexible as an artist, as well as keeping her own personality. That’s probably why she brought this song into her album for a change of taste and a raise in her selling records.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyonc%C3%A9_Knowles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Were_a_Boy#Charts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWpsOqh8q0M

'Spirit'ed Leona Lewis

Most people who follow the British television series The X Factor would probably know or heard of the 2006 winner Leona Lewis. If you do not know her, you should probably know her most successful single “Bleeding Love” which reached number one in over thirty countries. She is one of my favorite R&B/ Pop singers not only because of her incredible vocal abilities, but also because of her soulful singing that fully expresses the joys and agonies of love and life. Her debut album Spirit included multiple songs that touch the audiences emotionally with her voice and lyrics. Such as the songs “A Moment like This”, “Better in Time”, “Footprints in the Sand” etc.  This album is the very first album that she released after winning on The X Factor. Leona worked with a variety of producers to come up with this album to showcase her voice and her journey to becoming a singer. Leona claimed that she named the album “Spirit” because “it is my heart and soul and the voice within that says everything is possible.” And that the album and lyrics “reflect things that I’m really passionate about. I have to be able to put myself in the song for it to ring true to me. If it doesn’t ring true to me, it’s not going to be believable to anyone else.” Therefore, this album displays a lot of Leona’s personal emotions and growth as well as her flexibility as a talented singer through using various producers and alternating between heavy-beat ballads and traditional adult contemporary style in her Spirit album. It took Leona and her producers about a year to produce this album because she wanted this album to exhibit high quality. Fans of hers also had high expectations for her debut album because of her similar voice to Mariah Carey and her champion status on the third series of The X Factor in 2006.

The Spirit album had successfully produced seven singles after the worldwide release. One of my favorite singles from her Spirit album is “A Moment like this”. Even though this is another song cover originally by Kelly Clarkson, I think this song truly connects with her audiences who have witnessed her growth and success as a singer. People who have followed her performances in The X Factor should feel emotionally touched by this song and its music video the most; Leona sang this song on the final stage on The X Factor, and she burst into tears after her last note. Her most famous song and her second single was the “Bleeding Love” in which she recorded in Los Angeles, California working with One Republic’s Ryan Tedder and pop singer and song writer Jesse McCartney. This song was originally written for Jesse McCartney’s Departure album; however, the song was rejected by Jesse’s record label. Tedder rearranged "Bleeding Love" for Leona and changed the key to suit her voice, and Leona made it a major hit song in 2007. When I first heard this song, I thought that this song lacked some kind of popular pop song elements, it sounded a little old fashioned to me; however, the song was so catchy that it grew on me and became my favorite song at one point. I realized that it was the mixture of her soulful voice and the heavy modish drum beats in the background that made the song so catchy and interesting. This song, like many other songs, talks about the pain of loving somebody who does not love you anymore. It takes us to Leona’s own interpretations of this song through her voice. She displayed the sorrowful, painful, and helpless experience of a ‘dead-end’ relationship. Much like many of her other songs, she does not write or sing about issues that are controversial, such as artists like Pink, Lady Gaga, or Lily Allen. She goes on the safer route of emphasizing on producing catchy songs that demonstrate her vocal capabilities. Another example of her ballad type track would be her third single from the album, “Better in Time”, written by J.R. Rotem and Andrea Martin, and was produced by Rotem. This is a pop and R&B song that is in a moderate tempo which talks about the heart-broken feeling of breaking up with someone, and the pain can only subside as time passes by.

If we look at most of the songs from Leona’s album Spirit, we see some covers and some songs that were originally written for other people. I think it was because at the time of her first album, she had just won the third series of The X Factor, a lot of people had the presumption that she would not be famous for long. In addition, I think that even though The X Factor has guaranteed Leona a steady group of audiences, her singing style was a little invariable, being R&B and Soul. Most of her songs were ballads, even in her album. It seemed like The X Factor has somehow shaped Leona’s singing style and her presence with simple makeup and clothing. I think that Leona needs a little more ‘personality’ in her songs and performances in order to maintain her crowd of audiences and her status as a famous singer. I believe her new album Glassheart will show the audiences other sides of her and her singing since she has already shown a more “Pop star” look in her newest single Collide, with heavier makeup and less clothing, which were stereotypes of the Pop culture.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_(Leona_Lewis_album)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Lewis

Lady Gaga “Born This Way” (Grammy Awards Live Performance)

`           Known for her eccentricity, incredible vocal abilities, and eye-popping costumes, Lady Gaga is one of the most popular female pop singers in recent years. She has never failed to amaze the audiences with original and unique costumes and performances; and she has always written songs that are so catchy that they are popular worldwide. Lady Gaga respects her career by being a true artist, whether her sense of artistry is the same or different from ours, she has certainly convinced us about her interpretation of beauty, art, and what it is mean to be the ‘Lady Gaga’.  There is always something interesting about her for people to talk about, because she is always so unpredictable. For example, she always has a different theme in every single one of her concerts. One of her most popular songs “Born this way”, from her second studio album “Born this way”, was the top song on Billboard chart; it was also on the top list of the songs in Japan, South Korea, Australia, Hungary, etc. Therefore, she has performed this song worldwide. Of course, she was also on the 53^rd Grammy Awards for her first performance of the new single “Born this way” in 2011.

        

          “Born this way” was mainly written and produced by Lady Gaga as her freedom song. It was inspired by the 1990s empowering music for women and the gay community. During the performance, she emerged on stage with an illuminated gigantic egg with her dancers pushing it to the center of the stage. She came out from the egg, dressed in a golden hat, long golden jacket, golden bra top, golden semi-transparent long skirt, high pony tail, and heavy golden and black makeup with pointed horns coming out from the sides of her cheeks and forehead. Earlier from the performance that day, Lady Gaga appeared on the red carpet with a giant egg, and the egg has hatched onstage with Lady Gaga “born this way.” It was certainly a very eye-catching and entertaining way of entering the stage as well as making an entrance down the red carpet, considering that no other celebrities has ever done that before. This choreography involving the egg connects with her music video in which she was born as the ‘mother monster’, and gave birth to a new race. In her performance on stage, the illuminated egg represented the most powerful object, and it was pushed by other people that wore the same golden costumes. Perhaps those people were the people that she has ‘given birth to’ in the music video. Lady Gaga also had pointy horns coming out from her shoulder, cheek and forehead in the music video which connects with the live performance. This indicates that she has made an attempt to bring the story from her music video onto the stage. However, I think her live performance was much more powerful compared to her music video. In her music video, Lady Gaga and her dancers were all dressed in black, and the background was black as well. On the stage, however, her and her dancers’ costumes were shiny, golden, and light, which emphasized more on unity, visual entertainment, as well as catching audiences’ attentions. Lady Gaga also changed some of her dance moves from her video to create a fresh experience for the audiences; she included a lot of powerful hair whippings, snake movements, and some dance moves that looked like improvisations. Above that, the powerful dances connected with her lyrics on her belief of being confident as a person; although she seemed different from a lot of artists, she believed that ‘eccentricity’ is who she is, and what her interpretation of beauty is.

             In the middle of the song, Lady Gaga surprised the audiences with an organ that was surrounded by mannequin heads submerged in gel, and sang a portion of the song as a ballad. This portion showed a difference from her music video or her CD, and it also served the purpose of showing off her vocal talents to further persuade the audiences her talent and musical ability as a famous pop singer. At the end of the song, the background dancers all stripped off their golden tops, and danced with even more enthusiasm than before, bringing the song to its end. All those visual components from this performance will never touch the audience if he or she only listens to her song from the CD. It is the overall choreography, costumes, dance, improvisations, and other new elements from the live performance that truly reflects a singer’s ability as an artist. Lady Gaga’s songs are different not because they’re just catchy, but because we have seen her music videos or live performances that have convinced us her uniqueness as an artist. Her performances have shown that she is one of the most powerful, creative, and confident singer which brought her to the status she is in today.  


Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_This_Way