For the next several days, I'll be touching on stuff that happened and/or was released last year that I never got around to writing about. We all need ways to make our year-to-year transition easier -- this is mine.
Everything you need to know about my love of Beyoncé can be explained in the following gif:
OK? Stop reading this post now, because it gets no better than that, obviously. In fact, stop reading this blog now for the exact same reason.
Just kidding. Don't stop reading ever. I'm living my dreams, guys.
Can you tell how sincere I am by invoking Beyoncé's single tear that comes after uttering virtually the same sentence as above (as well as, "Why did God give me this life? Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Why did god give me my talent, my life, my family?”)? "Single Ladies" was a cultural phenomenon (as we're reminded in a montage of shitty fan-made videos of people doing that fucking dance), but I can't for the life of me figure out why this completely over-the-top confessional (a display first, and emotional outpouring second, if at all) didn't inspire dozens of copycat/parody videos of its own. The general public's doings continue to mystify me...
I really could have done an X Most Ridiculous Things in I Am...The World Tour, just as I did with The Beyoncé Experience and I Am...Yours. But I don't know, repeating myself tends to yield diminishing returns (though it takes just as much time), and plus I Am...The World Tour is so, so similar to I Am...Yours. The World Tour captivated me all the same, though, and was just as full of its own ridiculousness. To wit:
She is as wild-eyed as ever.
She walks like Oprah walking like Tina Turner.
She rocks an outfit that features giant brass nipples.
Sometimes, she rocks no nipples at all.
She rocks a wedding dress.
(In the bonus documentary on the DVD about the I Am...The World Tour film, which is basically a concert movie with plenty of behind-the-scenes footage interspliced, making it a documentary of sorts itself, she explains that she had "Ave Marie" played at her wedding. She's performing that song in this scene, so the wedding dress makes sense only after the fact. Before that, it just seems like she's playing Barbies with her own body.)
Instead of singing, "And are you thinkin' of me when you fuck her?" in her cover of Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know," she merely flips the bird:
So we get all the fun of a "fuck" without the air pollution. Such a fuckin' lady.
She wears shocking lipstick.
She loves her husband so much, it reduces her to nonsense.
I'm sorry. I mean nonsense-z.
She cries so much!
Even when she's a tiger!
But not when she's Spider-Woman, which she apparently is at times!
She has a way with her tongue:
She wears socks with heels and says it's a "diva tip 101." There should be a name for a string of words wherein each constituent makes less sense than the one that came before it. A phrasé perhaps?
She hits new levels of theatricality...
...seemingly when merely existing:
And you know what?
The over-the-top displays are infectious.
It's really bold of her to let everyone let their own freak flags fly (albeit, they are flying in a manner that is designated by her and/or one of her employees and obviously tailored so that they don't cast any shadow of hers). Her fans are apparently just as wild. The camera is never too far from them (as long as they are in reverent agony):
This is some Eastern-Europeans-in-the-presence-of-Michael Jackson-level hysteria.
All of this is to say that I Am...The World Tour is wondrously entertaining. It was launched in support of her last album, the mixed-bag double LP I Am...Sasha Fierce, and this is related -- how else? -- via coin in an interstitial:
But the fact that she is always Sasha Fierce onstage whips the rather drab material of the first disc into an live frenzy. She has all sorts of wiggles for all of her songs, regardless of their tempos or their middling instrumentation. It's as though she takes the lyrics from perennial concert opener "Crazy in Love" ("Got me lookin' so crazy right now!") not as a mere observation, but as a credo and makes it her business to provide evidence of her craziness in every second of the show.
The non-concert parts are pretty great, too, as she nonchalantly rattles off a series of exotic locations in a video-log montage ("So, I'm in Ethiopia..."). Check out the absolutely ridiculous photos that appear in the booklet that comes with the DVD:
She's so culturally matter of fact!
Beyoncé is among the most guarded of pop stars this side of the Jackson Family compound. While I wouldn't call this film revealing, per se, we do get more of a sense what it is to be her than we ever have before: she talks about taking a 25-hour plane ride for just 48 hours of time to be spent at home (ugh, can you imagine?) and how she feels obligated to wear a constant smile in public. “If I’m just normal and I walk around, someone might mistake me for a mean person," she explains. We see how irritating that must be when a particularly bratty fan moans about how she didn't look at him while out shopping. Someone off camera suggests that she probably didn't hear him calling to her, but he's not having it: "Oh she probably a bitch." Upon leaving the store, she shakes his hand, which seems like an unfair reward to him in a way, but is mostly just a triumph over some asshole's assumption. This is Beyoncé's world -- we're just humiliated in it.
Basically, every thread of this woman's being exists to entertain. She says as much as she bids her fans farewell at the end of her show. She punctuates her impassioned words with a completely silly, "Holla!"
That, people, is Beyoncé in a nutshell. She is in complete mastery of her crazy (it's basically her onstage aesthetic). This control means she'll never rank up quite as high with me as the less aware, true eccentrics in her field (like Mariah and Whitney). But it also means that she's plenty awe-inspiring in her own right. Holla!
(Doesn't she look like Ja Rule in this gif?)
Your first Beyonce Experience montage is still one of my favorite things ever on this blog. Or maybe it was the montage for the second video. Both such treasuries of gif-worthy moments.
Also, JC Chasez is that you in...wtf is Florianopolis? (apparently a smallish city in Southern Brazil.)
Posted by: Vanessa M | January 04, 2011 at 04:38 PM
I could watch her walk like Oprah walking like Tina Turner all day long.
Also, I am not sure if she does her own choreography (or her mom does) but she is such a spazzy dancer. The new Vizio commercial she is in is just frightening. Who comes up with this crap?
Posted by: kat | January 04, 2011 at 08:12 PM
Omg, cannot unsee the Ja Rule.
Posted by: Ness | January 04, 2011 at 11:03 PM
this photo must have been edited in the photoshop...
Posted by: south beach java | January 05, 2011 at 01:06 AM
Floripa isn't a smallish city, it's a big capital it's just that Rio eclipses the whole continent.
Posted by: Syrax | January 05, 2011 at 11:03 AM
I feel like she took the Mariah and Whitney thing and professionalized the shit out of it. And so it's just, um, professional.
But I did learn some things I didn't know from this, like the fact that Beyonce covers You Oughta Know (the ramifications of which are so mediocre as to not merit any further discussion but good to know as a fact in my brain) and the fact that Beyonce, is, in fact, Aslan.
Posted by: J Sweet | January 05, 2011 at 02:35 PM
I'm not buying her tears.
They're falling straight down from the middle of her eye, whereas whenever I see somebody cry they come out of the inside corner of the eye.
Still love her though, and hoping for a Destiny's Child reunion album.
Posted by: Marty | January 05, 2011 at 03:42 PM
I didn't like this concert or DVD as much as the previous one. She didn't mix up the older songs enough and frankly, there were too many ballads and not enough of those smokin' hot male back up dancers wearing next to nothing.
Posted by: Ben | January 06, 2011 at 10:24 AM
I totally agree with kat about the vizio commercial. Her dance moves look like some kind of karate move. Like, she's about to knock your head off with her damn abdomen.
Posted by: La_chica | January 06, 2011 at 02:33 PM
Yeah, she's obviously going for that apparent Michael Jackson-level of manic worship, meaning that's how she wants us to perceive her. I feel like those segments of the overzealous stans are the results of precise editing, whereas you know for a fact those people were really out there in droves with Michael. I spoze it's just a matter of time before the industry gets the press release instructing everybody to refer to her as The King Of Pop.
Posted by: chikochevere | January 06, 2011 at 08:39 PM
I doubt that's just editing. In saw her concert in Seoul, and, believe me, the hysteria was real.
Posted by: moodring54 | January 09, 2011 at 06:44 AM
That is not a tiger eye, that is the eye of horus, it's pure evil, along with the triangle that she is throwing up courtesy of her handler camel z, all of her fools, I mean following idiots, look like they are in hell, look at the one idiot with the shirt on that she has of the devil, with the motorcycle bike plate on it, she is as fake and plastic, and evil as they come, you all need to stop listening to her music and looking at her music videos, she is not a real person, she is a satanic devil sent here to help send you to hell, a very real place, where it's hot, and there won't be no water, you better get right and go to church get saved and pray.
Posted by: Not into devil worshiping b | January 09, 2011 at 05:02 PM
Can you do a Pot Psychology/interview with the commenter above me? Thank you. Great post.
Posted by: SJ | January 10, 2011 at 11:38 AM
To sj, you are the one who is lost, the information is out there on your girl bey, I ain't falling for her bs you can worship her and let her lead you straight to hell, all you got to do if you don't believe me go these websites right here:1)the vigilant citizen, in the know 7, mk ultra pseudoccultmedia.blogspot.com the industry exposed, type in rapper bizzle on your precious bey and her handler, if you sj don't like what someone has to say about your girl not mine find out why they are saying what they are saying about her, find out exactly what the eye of horus means, find out why she does what she does to cause reactions like mine, if anyone needs a psychology interview honey it is you. your lost thinking that every litttle thing she does is great when it's not.
Posted by: Not into devil worshiping b | January 11, 2011 at 01:00 PM
she looks like a over the top evil cartoon character throwing up an evil triangle, sj you better learn how to recognize evil when you see it, I did, I use to be like you,I had to learn, I had to be shown and proven what was extreme evil, I was never a stan of hers like you, but, I did like 1 or 2 of her songs, I found out all of this on her just last january 2010, I have gone to all of those websites I posted for you to look at and quite a few more, especially www.theindustryexposed.com, and read this on this website http://ww.fununzip.com/the-illuminati-symbolism-inmusic-society-part-3/. open up your mind and learn something when somebody tells you and shows you the truth, of this evil world, you will be the type to fall for the nwo=new world order, that your girl harpo is into.
Posted by: Not into devil worshiping b | January 11, 2011 at 01:28 PM
Oh my GOD, please be real, "Not into devil worshiping b," and not just some performance art stunt.
Posted by: Richard | January 14, 2011 at 07:43 AM
lil richard it's obvious you don't believe in the truth of what your beloved beyonce is, she is evil in a pretty package, but can her pretty package save your soul?, from going straight to hell.Believe in her all you want. If you want to be a dummy when the truth is out there about your girl, then be my guest, I can't think for you, and I can't force you to face the truth about her, so keep on stanning for her, but does she care about you no, keep on buying her music, clothes, perfume, tickets to her concerts throw your money away on your idol.
Posted by: don't want to be like b | January 17, 2011 at 10:49 AM
Neglected in '10: Satanic conspiracies for all the single ladies.
Posted by: Vanessa M | January 17, 2011 at 07:53 PM
Those tears doesn't become her
Posted by: kate welsh | April 06, 2011 at 11:13 PM
@not into devil worshiping b
========================
Tx for shoutout! Yes she's mesmerizing, yrs of ritual abuse (Mind Kontrolle Prog'mg)creates this ability. Bey's not alone, most of your fav pop stars/Hollywood celebs are Mind Kontrolle slaves, under command of sadistic controllers eg Clive Davis (Whitney Houston) -- just because your not aware, doesn't mean it's not true -- they've been created/presented for our distraction/amusement/entertainment. See how deep the rabbit hole goes...
http://intheknow7.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/50yrs-of-mk-ultra-beta-sex-slaves-graphic-wvideos/
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