I think Beyonce has spoilt me with her exceptional past performances. She has set the bar so high (for herself) that anything less than perfection leaves me slightly underwhelmed. Case in point, her rendition of XO at the 2014 Brit Awards.
Beyonce reportedly only touched down in the UK today, so lord knows she wouldn't have had much time to put this showing together. It actually goes some way to explaining why she chose to go down the Mariah Carey route- ie tight dress and not doing much on stage BAR singing. However, with so little else going on, I was expecting the vocals to be as flawless as Bey herself was (and boy did she look FLAW-LESS).
Unfortunately that wasn't the case. Particularly noticeable was the problem she was having with her head voice at the end, potentially hinting at issues with her stamina or breathing. But overall, the voice just didn't soar as it usually does, with it constantly feeling that Bey was being careful with how high she took her voice.
Even still, Yonce managed to sing better than 99% of the Divas out there- and that was on a "bad" day!
Thoughts?
It scares me that this is Beyonce's voice on a bad day.
ReplyDeleteHow could she breathe in that tight ass dress? On a different note, this is not a song to sing live. It sounded near terrible in the studio and was one of the weakest songs on her album vocally but live its not doing it for me at all. This is just a song she should avoid at all costs. Still a very good performance.
ReplyDeleteThis is my only favorite song from the album. The song itself relied more on lyrical meaning more than her technique and range. This performance is decent. I like it, I guess.
ReplyDeleteConsidering her tour kick starts again tomorrow night in Scotland I'm not too surprised she kept the vocal restrained, although what this performance really needed to fly was for her to just let go and belt her heart out! Even if she can't quite belt as effortlessly as she used to, she can still blow the roof off when she gives it her all! For that reason I also found it a bit underwhelming, that and this is probably my least favourite song on the album, a part of me was hoping she would pick a new song to perform and then release it as a single!
ReplyDeleteBut at the end of the day, it was still a good performance and it might grow on me like the Grammy's Drunk in love performance did. I think I have a similar issue with holding her to very high standards!
Ahah I think u are crazy! Vocals were perfect!! But the song is soo boring, so the performance can't be that good. It's clear that this is not a Beyoncé sono, is too simple
ReplyDeleteAs agreed upon, although it was quite an underwhelming performance (by Beyonce's standards), it still towered above every other performance by a Female artist that night - Katy Perry, Lorde' etc. Nonetheless, It's true; she has proven herself to be such a praise-worthy [live] performer that we oft set the bar to high to for her but that's a GOOD thing, it just ever more showcases how extremely talented she is - many did the same with M.J, Tina Turner & Janet Jackson in their primes.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I seriously cannot wait for her to finally perform 'Blow, Yonce', Rocket, Flawless, Partition & Superpower' live - hopefully she will when I see her March 5th & 6th. : - D
This song was never one that contained big belts or impressive technique. And even though we've seen so much better from her, that was still worth applause from me. She's one of the hardest working divas out there right now, she's allowed to have some bad okay days.
ReplyDeleteShe always leaves me underwhelmed. One of those singers who to me seems more about ego than anything else. I mean, that talking directed at the audience seems devoid of any realness.
ReplyDeleteGenerally I get a sense of an emptiness from her.
But yeah, I am sure she did a hell of a lot better than the others if they others were people like Katy Perry LOL
i agree this was ehhhh
ReplyDeletebut really? beyonce is probably the best live performer out right now the only one who can dance her butt off while belting out notes like its effortless
i mean i can see where you're coming with "emptiness" as i feel as shes too rehearsed sometimes but her physical and vocal stamina is matched by no other mainstream diva
seriously haha this would probably be the highlight vocal performance for most of the divas out right now
ReplyDeletei think beyonce's voice changed after her pregnancy. Her voice somewhat got uglier.. at least to my ears. i find the performance lackluster mainly because the song itself is dull and i dont really like bey's darker tone.... anyway i think sooner her voice will sound better
ReplyDeleteI'm working on a vocal battle between them :)
ReplyDeleteIt sounded overtly restrained to me. She really needed to BELT. It got monotonous after a bit (The song itself is a tad monotonous). However, it was not bad, not bad at all.
ReplyDeleteI'm not that surprised, I don't think a great deal of Country artists are popular outside of the U.S. Carrie Underwood sort of is, and Shania Twain was a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteYou'd be surprised. Some of them are popular in all sorts of places. ;-)
ReplyDeleteChina for instance seems to have quite the liking for Country music. As does Japan. Germans are also rather fond of Country music.
Forget Samsung or iphone, this is what I feel represents the blog most of the time ...http://www.eventprophire.com/_images/products/large/20080515173202_s_mobile_phone_prop_01.jpg
ReplyDeleteLOL Aaaaw! Another cute gif for me to steal.
ReplyDeleteAHHH!! I did not know this! (I feel like I'm saying that an awful lot of late!)
ReplyDeletehttps://24.media.tumblr.com/ad378c3a13ddcecaf68495a999220662/tumblr_mv9wqq1AVA1s1efqyo1_250.gif
ReplyDeleteOops, gif isn't working. :-(
ReplyDeleteSorry about that.
Sounds so much less whiny when Adele and Darius sing this tune. Nice find DD!
ReplyDeleteI feel the exact same way in regards to Adele. I miss her.
ReplyDeleteThis Woman was a 'Bonafide Phenomenon' between 2010-2012; '21', more or less, revitalized the Music Industry's (Commercial) Status after lagging for several years - the last album to sell over 33+ Million Copies WW was the Beatles' '1' compilation and that was back in 2000/01. She truly did have a BLOCKBUSTER era.
Anyway, this was a beautiful performance. (I love Darius Rucker by the way)