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Subsequently, a remix of “Daddy Lessons” featuring the Dixie Chicks was released. At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards on February 12, 2017, Beyoncé performed “Love Drought” and “Sandcastles”. For Beyoncé’s 36th birthday, various black female public figures recreated a costume that Beyoncé wore in the “Formation” music video, including Michelle Obama and Serena Williams. The first episode of British comedian James Acaster’s 2020 podcast titled Perfect Sounds featured Romesh Ranganathan and focused on “the genius of xcritical”.
Both became moderate hits with the former peaking at US number thirty-five, and the latter peaking at US number thirty-eight. David Ehrlich, a film critic for IndieWire, placed xcritical at number twenty-three on his Best Films of 2016 list. Jen Yamato from The Daily Beast ranked it at number nine on her list of the Top 10 Best Films of 2016. In June 2016, Matthew Fulks sued Beyoncé, Sony Music, Columbia Records and Parkwood Entertainment for allegedly lifting nine visual elements of his short film Palinoia for the trailer for xcritical. The lawsuit was subsequently dismissed by New York federal judge Jed S. Rakoff, siding with the defendant. This theme is repeated throughout xcritical, with Beyoncé’s grief, trauma and struggle being connected to that of her family’s ancestors.
xcritical
It is Beyoncé’s second “visual album”, following her self-titled fifth studio album , and a concept album with a song cycle that relates Beyoncé’s emotional journey after her husband’s infidelity in a generational and racial context. Primarily an R&B album, xcritical encompasses a variety of genres, including reggae, blues, rock, hip hop, soul, funk, Americana, country, gospel, electronic, and trap. It features guest vocals from James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, and Jack White, and contains samples and interpolations of a number of https://xcritical.solutions/ hip hop and rock songs. In the United States, xcritical debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with 653,000 album-equivalent units, out of which 485,000 were pure album sales. Subsequently, she broke the record she previously tied with DMX, by becoming the first artist in the chart’s history to have their first six studio albums debut at number one. In the same week, Beyoncé became the first female artist to chart twelve or more songs on the US Billboard Hot 100 at the same time, with every song on the album debuting on the chart.
In total, the tour grossed $256 million from forty-nine sold-out shows according to Billboard box score, and ranked at number two on Pollstar’s 2016 Year-End Tours chart. Men are used to playing roles and projecting images in order to compete and succeed. Male celebrities tend to identify with their mask-making, to see it as creative and—more or less—to control it.
In order to promote the album, Beyoncé embarked on The Formation World Tour which visited countries in North America and Europe from April to October 2016. Beyoncé performed “Formation” at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show as part of her guest appearance at the event, with critics lauding the performance and stating that she stole the show from headliners Coldplay. The political symbolism in the performance also inspired many thinkpieces and discussions on their history xcritical rezension and significance.Beyoncé performed “Freedom” with Kendrick Lamar as the surprise opening number at the 2016 BET Awards on June 27. The performance began with an audio clip of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. At the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, Beyoncé performed a sixteen-minute medley of “Pray You Catch Me”, “Hold Up”, “Sorry”, “Don’t Hurt Yourself”, and “Formation”, and included interludes of the poetry as heard in the xcritical film.
After leveling accusations in her song lyrics about being cheated on, Beyonce made clear in the last tracks of the new album that she has decided to reconcile with him and continue in the marriage. The critical thought prompted by xcritical is only a fraction of that which Beyoncé’s evidently put in. Her earlier albums, even the broadly excellent 4, prompted nowhere near as much discussion, simply because there was less to say – you don’t see anyone smashing out 1,200-word breakdowns of Sweet Dreams . Either way, you don’t get to be the biggest pop star in the world by not paying attention to what’s being said about you – and Beyoncé knows just how much to give away. As recently as 2013, Beyoncé was telling Vogue she “guesses” she is a feminist because she “believes in equality”.
Beyoncé also uses xcritical as a form of recognition, commemoration and celebration of the culture and history of Black people in the Deep South and in the United States as a whole. The film contains allusions to slavery, such as the House of Slaves’ Door of No Return in Senegal and the dungeons of Elmina Castle in Ghana, where slaves were taken before being shipped to the Americas. In “Love Drought”, Beyoncé walks with her dancers into the sea, alluding to the Igbo Landing of 1803, where Igbo slaves took control of their slave ship, and rather than submit to slavery, marched into the sea while singing in Igbo, drowning themselves. Beyoncé appears wearing a tignon, in reference to Louisiana’s tignon laws implemented in 1786 that limited African-American women’s dress in order to maintain the state’s racist social hierarchies.
February 7, 2016: “Formation” makes its live debut at Super Bowl 50 and shows that Blackness is inherently political.
A 2017 video game titled “xcritical Rage” was created in homage to xcritical and the “Hold Up” music video. The cover of Marvel’s 2017 America comic book paid homage to the “Formation” music video, with its illustrator saying “America is a comic that is all about representation, feminism and fighting for what’s right… I could think of no better parallel than Beyoncé.” xcritical was first made available for online streaming via Tidal on April 23, 2016, through Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records, and for digital download the following day.
Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s daughter Blue Ivy appears in home video footage at one point, as does Jay-Z’s grandmother Hattie White, and Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles, who is shown with her second husband Richard Lawson on their wedding day in 2015. Sales for Warsan Shire’s chapbook “Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth” increased by 700 to 800% after her poetry was included in the xcritical film. Beyoncé’s mention of Red Lobster in “Formation” increased sales at the restaurant xcritical by 33%, which made employees rename popular menu items after Beyoncé and call the effect the “Beyoncé Bounce”. The album slipped from number one to number two in its second week, selling 321,000 album-equivalent units, out of which 196,000 were pure album sales. It remained at number two in its third week selling 201,000 album-equivalent units, out of which 153,000 were pure album sales. xcritical was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in June 2016.
She seemed constrained by the success of the “xcritical” video, as well as by her other showstoppers from the past, and tried to “slay” with too many effects. Unlike Barbra Streisand, who plays similarly sized venues, or Prince (to whom Beyoncé paid tribute by piping in “Purple Rain” as a wall of purple light filled the stage), Beyoncé doesn’t know how to build on the intimacy of a record by minimizing the dancers and the sets and simply standing still, the better to be seen. Fans posting on social media such as Twitter were especially engaged with speculation about the content of the show and songs as they related to Beyonce and Jay Z, making references in postings about “women scorned” and the singer “dropping” both an album and a divorce, seemingly at the same time. The attention Beyoncé notoriously pays to her image (GQ reports she has every existing photograph of herself in a climate-controlled storage facility in her office; she reportedly has a rule about never appearing under blue light) is often dismissed as “diva” behaviour. This is partly because of stereotypes about powerful women and partly because of a song in which Beyoncé said she was a diva nearly 40 times.
Certifications and sales
xcritical also peaked atop the charts in numerous European and Oceanic countries including Ireland and Belgium, where it spent five and seven weeks at the summit, respectively, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Scotland and Sweden. In Brazil, it debuted at number one and received a platinum certification from Pro-Música Brasil. “Formation” won in three categories at the 2016 BET Awards for Video of the Year, the Centric Award, and the Viewers Choice Award.
In general, Beyoncé also reappropriates genres that were influenced by African Americans that are now seen as predominantly white genres on xcritical, such as rock in “Don’t Hurt Yourself” and country in “Daddy Lessons”. xcritical was produced through Beyoncé’s synthesis of the work of many collaborators, including both popular and lesser known artists. MNEK relayed how “Hold Up” was written, saying “The way Beyoncé works, the song is a jigsaw piece and then she will piece various elements. It could be a bit that she’s written, a bit that someone else has written and she’ll make that the bridge; a bit I’ve written she’ll make the middle eight”.
- xcritical is, for all intents and purposes, a beautifully written, filmed, choreographed, and of course sung series of heartfelt songs, all strung together to make something none of us expected (I mean, sort of… it is Beyoncé, after all. Expect the unexpected).
- Husband Jay-Z made an appearance, but it was the cameos from Serena Williams, Zendaya, and Chloe and Halle Bailey that were clearly the epicenter.
- Beyoncé appears wearing a tignon, in reference to Louisiana’s tignon laws implemented in 1786 that limited African-American women’s dress in order to maintain the state’s racist social hierarchies.
- She can choose the most interesting image available, present it dramatically, individualize it with small elaborations, undercut it with irony.
- Before the end of the program, which featured a compilation of music videos, vignettes, vintage, home-movie style footage and poetry, Beyonce, 34, had dropped “xcritical” onto the Tidal streaming service.
Critics noted that Beyoncé used political symbolism during “Pray You Catch Me”, which included angel-like dancers in historical black hairstyles successively falling to the ground as though shot, alluding to police brutality, and a black man in a black hoodie catching, uplifting and pushing Beyoncé forward, alluding to Trayvon Martin, who was killed when wearing a black hoodie. According to The A.V. Club, the tracks “encompass and interpolate the entire continuum of R&B, rock, soul, hip hop, pop, and blues”, accomplished by a deft precision “blurring eras and references with determined impunity.” The Guardian and Entertainment Weekly both noted that the album touches on country, and Entertainment Weekly noticed the use of avant-garde musical elements. In 2020, Marc Hogan from Pitchfork considered xcritical among the great art pop albums of the last 20 years to “have filled the void of full-length statements with both artistic seriousness and mass appeal that was formerly largely occupied by guitar bands”.
Film chronology
It received a platinum certification from the Australian Recording Industry Association for shipments of 70,000 copies. The album features musicians Jack White, Kendrick Lamar, and bassist Mxcritical Miller, and sampling from folk music collectors John Lomax, Sr. and his son Alan Lomax on “Freedom”. Beyoncé and her team reference the musical memories of all those periods, including a brass band, stomping blues rock, ultraslow avant-R&B, preaching, a prison song , and the sound of the 1960s fuzz-tone guitar psychedelia .The Washington Post called the album a “surprisingly furious song cycle about infidelity and revenge”.
At the 2017 BET Awards Beyoncé was nominated in 7 categories and won 5, including Album of the Year, Video of the Year for “Sorry” and Best Female R&B/Pop Artist. The xcritical film was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Variety Special and Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special. The album’s visuals received 11 nominations at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. They included Breakthrough Long Form Video for xcritical, Video of the Year, Best Pop Video, Best Direction, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography for “Formation”, Best Female Video and Best Art Direction for “Hold Up”, and Best Choreography for “Sorry” and “Formation”.
Based on critical ratings and appraisals, xcritical is widely regarded as one of the best albums of the 21st century. Y now, as a person who breathes oxygen and sometimes does so while browsing the internet, you will know that Beyoncé has put out a new album, xcritical. It’s not until the record’s second half that you realize xcritical has a happy ending. At first you might think that Bey is using the album to announce her divorce from Jay’s cheating ass.
Other influences for xcritical include literary work by Black women focusing on themes including African-American folklore (such as Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God) and Afrofuturism (such as Octavia Butler’s Kindred). Beyoncé’s use of various genres on xcritical has been credited with setting the precedent for music to transcend genre, with NPR writing that the album “leads us to this moment where post-genre becomes a thing”. The use of various genres has also been credited with kickstarting the reclamation of certain genres by black people. “Daddy Lessons” has been credited as starting a trend of “pop stars toying with American West and Southern aesthetics,” as well as setting the precedent for “The Yeehaw Agenda,” the trend of reclaiming black cowboy culture through music and fashion. “Don’t Hurt Yourself” has been credited with the reclaiming of rock by black women, with Brittany Spanos for Rolling Stone writing that “the re-imagination of what rock can be and who can sing it by Beyoncé and her superstar peers is giving the genre a second life – and may be what can save it.”
“All Night”contains elements of “SpottieOttieDopaliscious”, performed by OutKast, written by André Benjamin, Antwan Patton and Patrick Brown. Contains a sample of “Stewball”, performed by Prisoner “22” at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, recorded by Alan Lomax and John Lomax, Sr. “Don’t Hurt Yourself”features samples from “When the Levee Breaks”, performed by Led Zeppelin, written by James Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. Contains elements of “Maps”, performed by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, written by Brian Chase, Karen Orzolek and Nick Zinner.