August 1, 20222 yr Eh??? A lot of the fanbase consider I Am… Sasha Fierce to be her weakest album, and it’s also her critically worst received album (but with a reasonable-ish Metacritic score of 62).
August 1, 20222 yr Parts of Sasha Fierce are shocking, but surely Dangerously In Love is her worst album?
August 1, 20222 yr Author Pitchfork gives it a 9: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/beyonce-renaissance/
August 1, 20222 yr Sasha Fierce is banger and bop after banger and bop. Clearly her best! Beyoncé is also great. Lemonade and Dsngerously in Love are her worst.
August 1, 20222 yr Sasha Fierce is banger and bop after banger and bop. Clearly her best! Which tracks in particular do you feel support it as being her best effort over her others? Funnily enough I feel like that album is actually let down by not being banger and bop after banger and bop! Tracks such as Diva, Video Phone and Ego are really not to my tastes, they're a strange mix of bland and obnoxious. Radio is very of its time, I don't think it's aged so well. Scared of Lonely is quite nice but I wouldn't exactly consider it as being a banger or bop. I find Hello to be an earache. So that only really leaves me with Sweet Dreams (now this IS a bop) and Single Ladies (I'm accutely aware that this song isn't generally liked on BuzzJack, but I've always found it to be a great, clever pop song which deservedly captured the zeitgeist). The other half of the album is ballads and they're mostly all... fine. Nothing is horrible but they're pretty safe and unadventurous. Halo is definitely a moment and I do love If I Were a Boy, but otherwise I don't think that set of songs is very memorable. Sorry, I know this is the Renaissance thread! :lol: I need more time with that album, I've only heard it once so far - but I did really enjoy that first listen and it feels like I've only just scratched the surface with it... very much looking forward to my next listen.
August 1, 20222 yr Why is somebody not allowed to have an opinion that they enjoy an album because Metacritic and some other fans said so? :lol: Christ. As for Renaissance, I need more listens too, like I appreciate it's good and very very cohesive, a great body of work, but I am not someone who is a huge album person so I don't often go back to albums in full. This is 100% an album where you kind of need to do that, so I can't say it's bad just because of my own listening habits. You really need to pay attention and take things in and I expect it will be an album where you keep finding little joys in all of the songs.
August 1, 20222 yr Why is somebody not allowed to have an opinion that they enjoy an album because Metacritic and some other fans said so? :lol: Christ. I don't think anyone is saying you can't enjoy something — it's a music discussion forum! It's all in good fun.
August 1, 20222 yr Why is somebody not allowed to have an opinion that they enjoy an album because Metacritic and some other fans said so? :lol: Christ. Your interpretation of this discussion point is completely off base. Nowhere has it been said that the Metacritic score and the taste of certain fans therefore means that somebody isn’t allowed their opinion in thinking that I Am... Sasha Fierce is her best album. Of course they’re allowed to think that. Everyone is entitled to their taste and opinions, including me… without you coming in here to be snarky. I provided some context that it’s generally not a fan favourite and as a related note referenced how it was received by critics. I’ve not said they’re right, or that I’m right. It’s simply a discussion. So don’t “Christ” in my direction, please, it’s really uncalled for. I have the right to discuss Beyoncé albums with people, without receiving that tone of post.
August 1, 20222 yr I think the thing about this is, he's the sort of person who spouts these sorts of opinions willy nilly despite blatantly never having even listened to it. Like he claimed on an album rate the other day an album was "the worst album ever" and didn't even rate most of the tracks, because he obviously hadn't even heard it. That's probably why it's a bit hard to take it seriously.
August 1, 20222 yr Dangerously in Love and Sasha are easily her least focused and least thought out albums. I love some songs from them, but I get a sense of passion from all of the rest of them. B-Day is a bit more shallow than the others in the top tier but its rate of great songs is very high.
August 1, 20222 yr Parts of Sasha Fierce are shocking, but surely Dangerously In Love is her worst album?I actually found 'B-Day' to be her worst, personally! Oops. I had a listen through all her studio albums right before BMS was released and those 2 albums were very "the hits were big, but everything else was either boring or didn't hit much at all" to me. My ranking: 01. Beyoncé 02. RENAISSANCE 03. I Am... Sasha Fierce 04. Lemonade 05. 4 06. Dangerously In Love 07. B-Day Self-titled snatches #1 because the highs are higher for me. But 'RENAISSANCE' is definitely the better "album" (in terms of it working more if you were listening to it as an album and not individual tracks). 'I Am...' I know the fans aren't big fans of this, but this was the first era I was completely on board with her and saw myself becoming more of a fan. Isn't it also her biggest era? So I don't think it's out of the realms of possibility that people would prefer this album the most. It was a huge era for her and I assume a lot of people have a lot of attachment to this. However, it is the home to some of her absolute worst tracks in her entire discography! But if you ignore those 5 or 6 tracks, then it's a very solid and fun album, imo. Lemonade and 4 are decent. But lack the highs that her other albums have for me. They're very "nothing hits more than an 8.5 but nothing is really below a 7" kinda album. (The listen-through before BMS was my first listens to both DIL and B-Day though, so if I was to listen more... who knows - actually I think I heard B-Day before but around time of release and never went back to it)
August 1, 20222 yr Which tracks in particular do you feel support it as being her best effort over her others? Funnily enough I feel like that album is actually let down by not being banger and bop after banger and bop! Tracks such as Diva, Video Phone and Ego are really not to my tastes, they're a strange mix of bland and obnoxious. Radio is very of its time, I don't think it's aged so well. Scared of Lonely is quite nice but I wouldn't exactly consider it as being a banger or bop. I find Hello to be an earache. So that only really leaves me with Sweet Dreams (now this IS a bop) and Single Ladies (I'm accutely aware that this song isn't generally liked on BuzzJack, but I've always found it to be a great, clever pop song which deservedly captured the zeitgeist). The other half of the album is ballads and they're mostly all... fine. Nothing is horrible but they're pretty safe and unadventurous. Halo is definitely a moment and I do love If I Were a Boy, but otherwise I don't think that set of songs is very memorable. Sorry, I know this is the Renaissance thread! :lol: I need more time with that album, I've only heard it once so far - but I did really enjoy that first listen and it feels like I've only just scratched the surface with it... very much looking forward to my next listen. My two fave album tracks are DIVA and Hello, but Satellites, Run Into You are great, too. Ave Maria is one of rhe best ever covers of the song, Disappear is okay, VIDEO PHONE!!!, and uff there is another one I love, a bop!! Umm On The Radio I think it's called? For me, there's barely a single dud on the album. Bop after bop and full of mid-tempo, FULL OF SOUL, songs, too!! And that's without even MENTIONING the bop singles!! That's why, for me, it is the best, AND it is the first proper Beyoncé album, the first which felt like her from start to finish.
August 1, 20222 yr I know this isn't helping rn but Sasha Fierce is my favourite Beyoncé album too :kink: that's really based on nostalgia though, it soundtracked my childhood so I'll always enjoy going back to it even if I can recognise she's done better elsewhere. With Renaissance I've had to listen quite a few times for some early favourites to stand out but I think I'm starting to appreciate it properly now - Alien Superstar, Pure/Honey and Summer Renaissance are all incredible. Also really liking Church Girl despite it being a bit unpopular on here. Definitely gonna keep listening to this, I'm loving the depth and callbacks all the way through :heart:
August 1, 20222 yr I suppose if you don't like brash pop and rnb, you won't like Sasha Fierce, but that is who Sasha Fierce IS - her full of energy stage alter ego!!! Lemonade meanwhile is just boring, basic, monotonous, trundling rbn, ala Forever by the Spixe Girls, which was one of the worst albums EVER.
August 1, 20222 yr I suppose if you don't like brash pop and rnb, you won't like Sasha Fierce, but that is who Sasha Fierce IS - her full of energy stage alter ego!!! Lemonade meanwhile is just boring, basic, monotonous, trundling, ala Forever by the Spixe Girls, which was one of the worst albums EVER. Quite a fitting description for the 'I Am...' side of 'I Am... Sasha Fierce' tbh
August 1, 20222 yr I Am... Sasha Fierce always felt to me like it could have been an album of songs penned for X Factor winners. I can imagine Simon Cowell thought it was one of the best albums ever made. Single Ladies and Sweet Dreams were the main keepers for me and even then I have to be in the right mood for the former. The other singles aren't bad but they just wouldn't rank among my favourites of hers.
August 2, 20222 yr 'I Am...' I know the fans aren't big fans of this, but this was the first era I was completely on board with her and saw myself becoming more of a fan. Isn't it also her biggest era? So I don't think it's out of the realms of possibility that people would prefer this album the most. It was a huge era for her and I assume a lot of people have a lot of attachment to this. However, it is the home to some of her absolute worst tracks in her entire discography! But if you ignore those 5 or 6 tracks, then it's a very solid and fun album, imo. Yeah in the UK it is by far her biggest selling album! 6xPlatinum as of August 2021 which is 1,800,000 sales. Second is Dangerously in Love, 4xPlatinum - 1,200,000+ sales. I do have very fond memories of the I Am…Sasha Fierce era. The major one is that I went to see her on tour, and I was stood at the very front. :wub: It was an incredible show. Also she would always go the front row during Halo to touch people’s hands, so I can say that I’ve briefly had my hand held by Beyoncé! :drama: !! ). I definitely don’t think the album is bad by any means. Definitely Beyoncé at her most commercial and that worked out incredibly well for her! One of these days I’ll be interested to hear that album in the Platinum Edition order. I’ve only heard it in the “Disc 1 & Disc 2” way. Renaissance - there’s 0 vinyl sales and the CD sales are quite low (2.2k), so it seems that a lot of her sales are effectively lost because they’re via her US store. It’s still comfortably midweek #1 here though!
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