Speaker 1: Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list.
Speaker 2: I'm Britney Spanis.
Speaker 3: And I'm Rob Sheffield and we're here to shed light
Speaker 3: on the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes
Speaker 3: them so great. This week, we're diving into Beyonce.
Speaker 1: So Beyonce has six entries on the list. She is
Speaker 1: the youngest artist with the most entries on the five
Speaker 1: hundred Greatest Songs of All Time list. She has Savage
Speaker 1: Remix with Megan Stallion at four thirty eight, Break My
Speaker 1: Souls at four twenty eight, Destiny's Child, Say My Name
Speaker 1: is at two eighty five, Single Ladies is at two
Speaker 1: twenty eight, Formation is at seventy three, and Crazy in Love,
Speaker 1: which is the song that we are going to be
Speaker 1: saying a lot of time talking about, and of course,
Speaker 1: the world's introduction to I mean well, proper introduction to
Speaker 1: Beyonce comes in at number sixteen on the list.
Speaker 3: Phenomenal, phenomenal song. Yeah, so unsurprising. Right from the start
Speaker 3: with Destiny's Child, it was clear that you know she
Speaker 3: was going to have this kind of epic run.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it feels like six is like a small number.
Speaker 1: I feel as we could add many more Beyonce songs
Speaker 1: to the list. I feel like, did you have any
Speaker 1: Beyonce on your ballot?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I had hold Up Yeah. Honestly, Lemonade is full
Speaker 3: of songs. I could see every song from Lemonade being
Speaker 3: on this list.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also had hold Up Online too, and I think
Speaker 1: I had I'm pretty sure I had single Ladies as
Speaker 1: well on my list, which is of course a classic,
Speaker 1: and Crazy and Love is of course. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the highest ranking on the list of the Beyonce songs
Speaker 1: and obviously encompasses so much of what we love about Beyonce.
Speaker 1: It helped debut her as her second solo single after
Speaker 1: work it out for the Austin Powers soundtrack, which I
Speaker 1: Love was her solo debut was to release a song
Speaker 1: for Austin Powers.
Speaker 3: It's so funny. I guess it could be argued whether
Speaker 3: that's canon or not.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do love also the grip that Austin
Speaker 1: Powers had on all the pop girls. But Crazy and Love.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time that you heard the song?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? It was Summer soundtrack New York City. At least
Speaker 3: thousand and three. Funny you mentioned Austin Powers. It's strange
Speaker 3: that sort of the last remnant of the pre Crazy
Speaker 3: and Love era was that Beyonce would be in a
Speaker 3: movie like that just as a supporting role. That was
Speaker 3: something that was clearly never going to happen again. After
Speaker 3: Crazy and Love launched her into solo superstardom, nobody was surprised.
Speaker 3: It was great. Yeah, everybody loved Destiny's Child. Everybody knew
Speaker 3: that she was going to have a solo career eventually,
Speaker 3: but it really launched her into the stratosphere.
Speaker 1: I think everyone knew that every member of this band
Speaker 1: was going to be doing well and that Beyonce herself
Speaker 1: was going to be a superstar no matter what she
Speaker 1: was doing solo or with Dustiny's Child. So when Crazy
Speaker 1: and Love came out, it was just like, obviously, this
Speaker 1: is perfect, this is a great song, Like it's just
Speaker 1: everything about it was built to be one of the
Speaker 1: biggest pop pits, biggest summer anthems of all time.
Speaker 3: Yes, in two thousand and three, which was such a
Speaker 3: phenomenal year for pop music, and it was big on
Speaker 3: songs that you could call universal songs that absolutely everybody liked.
Speaker 3: Earlier in the spring, there was the White Stripes Seven
Speaker 3: Nation Army, a song that a high school marching band
Speaker 3: is right this minute playing that song, and Crazy in
Speaker 3: Love for This Summer, and then Hey Yeah for the
Speaker 3: Fall by Outcast. Of course, these sort of across the board,
Speaker 3: crowd pleasing songs that you could tell you were going
Speaker 3: to be hearing for the rest of your life as
Speaker 3: soon as you heard him for.
Speaker 1: The first time, and Hey Ya with the Beyonce mentioned
Speaker 1: on the song too, another point of realizing that Beyonce
Speaker 1: is going to be even larger than life, more so
Speaker 1: than we could even imagine.
Speaker 3: It's true. The only way you could keep up with
Speaker 3: Beyonce was a hit that called all the Beyonces and
Speaker 3: Lucy Lou's to the dance floor.
Speaker 1: And I was reading about how the song came together
Speaker 1: and the producer Rich Harrison talked about how he had
Speaker 1: sampled the hook beat from this like seventy song called
Speaker 1: are You My Woman? Beyonce at first fear that is
Speaker 1: going to be too retro, that the horns and kind
Speaker 1: of that sound would be a little too too retro
Speaker 1: for the time, and then after she accepted the beat,
Speaker 1: he wrote it in like two hours, and then she
Speaker 1: came back and was talking about how she was like
Speaker 1: looking at herself in the mirror and was like, I
Speaker 1: look so crazy right now, and then wrote the bridge
Speaker 1: and so like just that the song, which I love,
Speaker 1: just like Beyonce getting inspiration from looking at herself in
Speaker 1: the mirror. It's just like beautiful and perfect for the song.
Speaker 1: And then the o's came together from both her and
Speaker 1: Rich after the song was written, and Jay did his
Speaker 1: verse in like ten minutes, and they spent like three
Speaker 1: months working on the rest of the recording of the song,
Speaker 1: which is I feel also like pretty.
Speaker 2: Emblematic of like Jay was like, okay, here's ten minutes
Speaker 2: and here's my verse.
Speaker 3: Rich Jarrison was so right about that horn fanfare. It's
Speaker 3: from a classic track by the Shylights, Legends of seventies
Speaker 3: soul Eugene Record, one of the best songwriters of the seventies.
Speaker 3: For a song like that where it was an already
Speaker 3: super mega famous star making her official solo debut, there
Speaker 3: was something so grand and formal about the horn intro.
Speaker 3: It was You've been waiting for years for this song.
Speaker 3: Here it is.
Speaker 1: It feels like so many people have tried to imitate
Speaker 1: that too. I feel like in the last two decades
Speaker 1: like that is something that I think people have been
Speaker 1: trying to continue to do in their own way, and
Speaker 1: obviously Beyonce's is going to be the best version of that.
Speaker 1: This sort of it doesn't feel retro at all, doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like it comes from any other era other than
Speaker 1: whatever era Beyonce wants it to be part of.
Speaker 2: It feels so current and fresh. Even if you hear
Speaker 2: it for the first time.
Speaker 3: Today, absolutely, and hearing Destiny's Child for the first time,
Speaker 3: it was very clear. The first hit was No No No,
Speaker 3: which I loved in it's welled. In nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 3: they were still being marketed as y Clef Proteges, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and the MTV version was in constant rotation, and No
Speaker 3: No No was just a absolutely phenomenal song.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There was a period in nineteen ninety nine where every
Speaker 3: single rock star interviewed brought up Destiny's Child because that's
Speaker 3: who everybody was obsessed with. It didn't matter what kind
Speaker 3: of music they made, whether they were, you know, a
Speaker 3: techno producer or you know, an English rock star, they
Speaker 3: were absolutely going to talk about how great Destiny's Child
Speaker 3: were That album just sounded so different. It had so
Speaker 3: much futuristic energy and also so much personality with the
Speaker 3: commandments between songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think even just thinking about the way
Speaker 1: that Beyonce presented herself in the group. They started off
Speaker 1: as a foursome. There's the very infamous firing of the
Speaker 1: first two girls, and then later a third girl that
Speaker 1: came in and she was fired, and then we finally
Speaker 1: get Michelle, and of course Beyonce and Kelly and Michelle
Speaker 1: are the iconic trio that we know and love and
Speaker 1: still sort of kind of coexist in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways as Destney's Child. But you know, Beyonce was always
Speaker 1: presented as the leader, as the person who was kind
Speaker 1: of the director of the group, as the lead singer,
Speaker 1: as the person who was sort of in charge.
Speaker 3: Jump and Jump In another absolutely iconic single from that album.
Speaker 3: I always think of the trilogy of hits from the
Speaker 3: year two thousand with Crazy and Love, jump and Jump In,
Speaker 3: and then Independent Women from Destiny's Child their song for
Speaker 3: the Charlie's Angels soundtrack. Another Lucy Lou reference. Lucy Lou
Speaker 3: was getting mentioned in so many classic songs at that time.
Speaker 3: It was a kind of thing where, even if you
Speaker 3: already knew all the songs from the album, it was
Speaker 3: always exciting when the latest tit would break. It felt
Speaker 3: like it was chapters of an ongoing story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned that collective, that sort of girlhood and
Speaker 1: that group being like these are you know, Kelly and
Speaker 1: Beyonce are basically sisters. I mean they consider each other's sisters.
Speaker 1: They've been with each other for their entire lives.
Speaker 2: There's all these.
Speaker 1: Amazing home videos of Kelly and Beyonce and Solange dancing
Speaker 1: in in the Knowle's home, and you know, it's such
Speaker 1: a part of their life, and even with Michelle kind
Speaker 1: of coming into their lives later, there is so much
Speaker 1: of that sisterhood and the fact that the band stays
Speaker 1: together even after, of course Crazy Love takes off. Beyonce's
Speaker 1: solo career takes off.
Speaker 2: She's kind of.
Speaker 1: Becoming larger than life in her own career, but the
Speaker 1: group is still there for years after. You know, they
Speaker 1: don't separate, for they still make more albums after all
Speaker 1: of this after Crazy Love breaks out, which I think
Speaker 1: is always such a special part of thinking about the
Speaker 1: Beyonce story, thinking of the Dusty Child story was so
Speaker 1: much more than just like this diva goes off and
Speaker 1: does her own thing like this was always a part
Speaker 1: of a bigger package and part of a bigger thing.
Speaker 3: I really love that aspect of it that she was
Speaker 3: able to take off in this new direction soloise, but
Speaker 3: the group still.
Speaker 1: Continued, Especially at this time. This was when all the
Speaker 1: pop groups are breaking up. Everyone sort of wanted to
Speaker 1: be the solo star of those groups, and it was
Speaker 1: super rare for the early two thousands to kind of
Speaker 1: let that group continue to prosper and also have your
Speaker 1: own solo hits on the side, and even just in
Speaker 1: the way that she sort of constructed her her solo career,
Speaker 1: thinking about the Crazy and Love performances with the Girls
Speaker 1: on the Side, or the single Ladies video of course
Speaker 1: being such like an iconic new version of that where
Speaker 1: she had like the two female dancers kind of in
Speaker 1: unison with her. It's still kind of a part of
Speaker 1: how she sees herself as a performer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, I love that Crazy in Love. It's so
Speaker 3: wild that it was such a different sound from Destiny's.
Speaker 3: When she's had a lot of solo work, especially on
Speaker 3: her first three solo albums that sounded very much Destiny's
Speaker 3: Childlike it's funny that single Ladies is one. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think of that as the most Destiny's Child sounding
Speaker 3: song of her solo career. And when she didn't do
Speaker 3: it on the Lemonade tour, I thought, you know what, like,
Speaker 3: I don't miss single Ladies at all, because she had
Speaker 3: the Destiny's Child interlude that really paid respects. I love
Speaker 3: how she put it in that tour. As you can tell,
Speaker 3: the Lemonade tour is a moment I revisit in my
Speaker 3: mind all the time. That is absolutely top live performance.
Speaker 3: It's at the very top of live performances I've ever
Speaker 3: seen or experienced. And the way she says, you know,
Speaker 3: the first time that most of you met me, I
Speaker 3: was in Destiny's Child about ten years ago, and I
Speaker 3: want to thank you all for allowing me to grow,
Speaker 3: and I want to thank you all for growing along
Speaker 3: with me. And then she does that absolutely insane Destiny's
Speaker 3: Child medlet. As you said, Beyonce's tour movies in themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when Beyonce's breaking, I always think of the
Speaker 1: New York Times article that was Beyonce She's no Ashanti.
Speaker 2: I think about that one constantly, you know.
Speaker 1: I guess like for my own sort of like history
Speaker 1: and thinking of it. Beyonce was just always she just
Speaker 1: always felt larger than life. She always felt like something
Speaker 1: that was like supernatural almost in the way that she
Speaker 1: she looked and performed, and she just felt like almost
Speaker 1: like this goddess of like pop music. But then seeing
Speaker 1: that article later in life always just like makes me
Speaker 1: laugh because I'm curious, like, was there did people were
Speaker 1: people not as sold on Beyonce as a solo performer
Speaker 1: when she first came out. If it was that sort
Speaker 1: of like a consensus or was that kind of like
Speaker 1: a rare opinion.
Speaker 2: In the Beyonce.
Speaker 3: Critical everybody was so into Beyonce, definitely critically, and in
Speaker 3: the Destiny's Child era, everybody would have been fine if
Speaker 3: it had continued really kind of being Beyonce's group. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that fascination with Beyonce that was so part of
Speaker 3: Destiny's Child, But nobody was in naysayer about that solo career.
Speaker 3: Chardonnay Sayer, I can refer the Great Horse Chardonnay her
Speaker 3: cover star, But for Beyonce, one of the least surprising
Speaker 3: solo blow ups ever.
Speaker 1: She especially because we're talking about this as we're in
Speaker 1: act two of Beyonce's kind of you know, I think
Speaker 1: three act musical sort of reclamation project that she's in,
Speaker 1: reading about how she was fearful of the kind of
Speaker 1: maybe too retro sound of the hook for Crazy and Love,
Speaker 1: and thinking about everything she's done since then, and how
Speaker 1: so much of her career and her music has been
Speaker 1: about reclaiming black female music history, about kind of being
Speaker 1: a teacher of this history in so many ways, thinking
Speaker 1: about the centering of New Orleans on both like Deja
Speaker 1: Vu and in the Formation video, or thinking about you know,
Speaker 1: the sampling of when the Levee breaks on Don't Hurt Yourself,
Speaker 1: and of course the country project that she has Cowboy
Speaker 1: Carter and having a song about Linda Martel and obviously
Speaker 1: renaissance in the black queer disco history that she puts.
Speaker 2: To the forefront.
Speaker 3: Have a great coming out moment for her and jay Z.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this was right after O three, Body
Speaker 1: and Clyde, which was their first collaboration together. Back to back,
Speaker 1: like two excellent songs, but obviously Crazy in Love is
Speaker 1: just Chef's Kiss perfect.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, It's really just kind of great that this was
Speaker 3: a song, like you said, like along with Bonnie and
Speaker 3: Clyde where it was still really new and they were
Speaker 3: being so discreet. I always remember after the Dangerously in
Speaker 3: Love album that the VMA's where jay Z won an
Speaker 3: award early in the night and just at the end
Speaker 3: of his speech said what up be And then Beyonce
Speaker 3: at the end of her speech later and then I
Speaker 3: just said what up Jay and was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: the coolest way to do this.
Speaker 2: And I mean, it's so funny now.
Speaker 1: I feel like the Beehive kind of always gets annoyed
Speaker 1: when there's a jay feature now, And of course, I
Speaker 1: mean this was such a cool thing, you know, at
Speaker 1: this time in her career, obviously jay Z being jay
Speaker 1: Z and like, you know, the biggest rapper in the
Speaker 1: game at that point, Like you know, it's just like
Speaker 1: this was such a big deal for them to come
Speaker 1: together and work on this music together.
Speaker 2: It's so funny. Just like I feel like, whatever, there's like.
Speaker 1: A hint of a jay Z feature now before like
Speaker 1: please just let Beyonce be Beyonce.
Speaker 3: Absolutely very understandable. Also like soon after Dangerously in Love
Speaker 3: and Crazy in Love, you have jay Z putting out
Speaker 3: the Black album, which has such awesome Beyonce presence on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I enjoy a lot of their stuff together. I
Speaker 1: always I love her appearance and watch the Throne. I
Speaker 1: think she has like obviously just such a good one.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think I think they're collaborations are really fun.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: I always remember the moment hearing for the first time
Speaker 3: when he says, you know, I've got the hottest star
Speaker 3: in the game wearing my chain. Yeah, And it was
Speaker 3: so funny because that was such that was the beginning
Speaker 3: of a holy story in the Yeah, and the Beyonce
Speaker 3: and jay Z era.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think also the fact that he's at that time, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think people anticipated how much Heat stepped back
Speaker 1: from releasing music and over the course of his career
Speaker 1: and kind of go more into the business angle and
Speaker 1: kind of seeing how Beyonce has shifted, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone could have predicted kind of where they would
Speaker 1: both be at this point obviously still two of the
Speaker 1: most famous and successful people ever, but like, I think
Speaker 1: no one could have predicted sort of the paths and
Speaker 1: directions that they would have e taken creatively and professionally.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is just the beginning, just the beginning.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so fascinating to kind of see how
Speaker 1: she's grown as an artist from that and how important
Speaker 1: it has been for her to not only center the
Speaker 1: history but modernize it in a lot of ways. Like
Speaker 1: it's almost like Crazy in Love kind of unlocked something
Speaker 1: for her and unlocked kind of a new way of
Speaker 1: viewing herself as an artist or as a curator, as
Speaker 1: someone who can sort of be that vehicle in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. I don't know if you kind of
Speaker 1: see that as a similarity and how she's presented herself.
Speaker 3: It's so amazing what a huge part of her work
Speaker 3: that is is her sense of history, which is just
Speaker 3: mind blowing. Her deep saturation in music and in music history,
Speaker 3: which was something that I think people were not fully
Speaker 3: cognizant of until relatively later in her solo career, when
Speaker 3: it was obvious from the beginning that she was somebody
Speaker 3: who had studied who knew everything about music history. Really
Speaker 3: from the beginning, she was always a scholar of different
Speaker 3: types of music and different eras of music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially with the self titled there was so much
Speaker 1: of that that shift in giving her her do and
Speaker 1: giving her respect for her artistry. I think that in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, in the same way that a
Speaker 1: lot of pop artists, especially from the early two thousands
Speaker 1: late nineties, who were seen as manufacturers, seen as you know,
Speaker 1: like especially having someone who was like a kind of
Speaker 1: a father manager who was overseeing so much of her
Speaker 1: career for so long, and coming from a pop group
Speaker 1: and coming from this very specific time and place of music,
Speaker 1: was seen as sort of inauthentic in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: or seen as someone who, you know, there was all
Speaker 1: these writers at her songs, Like you know, when people
Speaker 1: do the comparison of like it's just Freddie Mercury who
Speaker 1: wrote this song, and then there's like ten people on
Speaker 1: on this, like it's like, okay, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: more complicated than that. You know, it's artistry is it's
Speaker 1: not just like it has to be one person writing
Speaker 1: a song and that's you know, authenticity. But you know,
Speaker 1: she's always been such like a huge music nerd. To me,
Speaker 1: I always talk about this in the Taylor Switch classroom,
Speaker 1: like they're the two biggest nerds in music, Like, I
Speaker 1: think both of them have gone as far as they have,
Speaker 1: and the reason why we compare them so much and
Speaker 1: why we look at those two artists right now and
Speaker 1: why they still continue to have such big careers is
Speaker 1: because they're huge nerds.
Speaker 2: Like they love music history.
Speaker 1: Even just like the Grammys after Crazy Love came out,
Speaker 1: Beyonce's on stage performing a medley with Prince.
Speaker 2: There's so much prints.
Speaker 1: In the Dangerously in Love album, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a perfect combination of her sort of pain homage,
Speaker 1: but also showing kind of this like this connection musically
Speaker 1: to who she is and what she's done. Thinking of
Speaker 1: all the tributes she's paid to Tina Turner and Donna
Speaker 1: Summer and Eda James, whether Eda James likes it or not,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like all these and Aretha, whether or
Speaker 1: not Aretha likes it, you know. It's like and just
Speaker 1: kind of seeing the way that that's developed in her career,
Speaker 1: Like she is such a student of music history, and
Speaker 1: I think that is so undervalued in the way that
Speaker 1: she had been very undervalued for way too long. I
Speaker 1: think now people are really like, oh, yes, she is
Speaker 1: like so knowledgeable about this because it's she's making it
Speaker 1: clearer than ever for people who didn't.
Speaker 2: Get it before.
Speaker 3: Totally. I hope it's okay to say, Brittany, but the
Speaker 3: way that you've written about Beyonce's music, nerdom and her
Speaker 3: sense of history is always such a revelation anybody who
Speaker 3: hasn't read Brittany's essay on the song Don't Hurt Yourself,
Speaker 3: which she wrote, you know, the day after everybody heard
Speaker 3: it for the first time. Brittany wrote this incredibly mind blowing,
Speaker 3: still mind blowing to read with everything we know about
Speaker 3: Beyonce and what she's done since then, but about Beyonce
Speaker 3: and led Zeppelin and Memphis Mini and the whole history
Speaker 3: of when the Levy Breaks, just one of my favorite
Speaker 3: things ever written about pop music in the English language
Speaker 3: in terms of her sense of history. A moment that
Speaker 3: was totally mind blowing from the Lemonade tour, a tour
Speaker 3: that was nothing but mind blowing moments, but where she
Speaker 3: had the interlude in honor of Prince because of course,
Speaker 3: Beyonce released Lemonade the weekend the Prince died, and everybody
Speaker 3: was looking forward to the album. They thought it would
Speaker 3: be released sometime that weekend. But when Prince died on
Speaker 3: Thursday afternoon. People thought, well, maybe Beyonce will hold back
Speaker 3: the album just out of respect or even just having
Speaker 3: the moment to herself. But Beyonce being very in touch
Speaker 3: with Prince and his spirit, you know, having worked together
Speaker 3: while he was alive, but also carrying that torch the
Speaker 3: Lemonade tour. The moment where she does her Prince tribute.
Speaker 3: It's funny because when she starts, people think, oh, she's
Speaker 3: gonna do maybe Purple Rain, because you could do a
Speaker 3: couple verses of Purple Rain. It's a hit, it's a
Speaker 3: power ballad, and she does the beautiful ones, which is
Speaker 3: impossible to sing. It's impossible to excerpt. Once you start
Speaker 3: singing the song, you have to go all the way through,
Speaker 3: extremely long. This is a moment in her solo show.
Speaker 3: There's eighty thousand people in Cityfield who want nothing more
Speaker 3: than more Beyonce songs, and yet she does this honestly
Speaker 3: physically impossible to sing tribute to Prince that is coming
Speaker 3: so straight from the heart, but also the level of
Speaker 3: artistry that goes into that performance and just really amazing.
Speaker 3: Being grounded in that moment was so important to her
Speaker 3: and her solo show and her Lemonade show that that
Speaker 3: connection to history was something that she wanted to make
Speaker 3: such a centerpiece of that show. Any song she does,
Speaker 3: she really beyonceizes it. You know, there's no way for
Speaker 3: her to sort of gesture at a song without stepping
Speaker 3: in as a major part of its history. And her
Speaker 3: performance of Alanis You Want to Know was a key
Speaker 3: moment for her in terms of her solo artistry, as
Speaker 3: as you said, reclaiming pieces of music and taking them
Speaker 3: somewhere new. A version of You Ought to Know is
Speaker 3: really phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Her version of Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon
Speaker 1: also incredible. Doesn't have to reclaim anything. I just really
Speaker 1: like it, like, yeah, it's very good. And next we'll
Speaker 1: be joined by our colleague, Rolling Stone staff writer Manka Perconte.
Speaker 1: We are now joined by Rolling Stone staffire Manca Percante.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, a legend, true, true legend.
Speaker 3: Oh stop legends discussing legends.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I know you were a huge Beyonce fan.
Speaker 2: We are as well. I mean, tell me what you think.
Speaker 1: Crazy and Love's set up for Beyonce as an artist
Speaker 1: and kind of what was the tone that it's set
Speaker 1: as a as a song and as a video for
Speaker 1: who Beyonce would be outside of Dustiny's Child.
Speaker 4: It was our first taste of her ability to really
Speaker 4: create moments, Like I think the thing that's incredible about
Speaker 4: Beyonce is that there's so much world building, And it's
Speaker 4: so funny because when you look at Crazy and Love
Speaker 4: compared to the things that she's done since, it feels
Speaker 4: so interestingtory because she's built out these like crazy musical
Speaker 4: and visual landscapes. But like the fact that even though
Speaker 4: it's just dance routines and outfits and setting, that it
Speaker 4: can still be so seared into our memory that like,
Speaker 4: she was also able to do it to a song
Speaker 4: that I can't imagine sounded like anything else at the time,
Speaker 4: Like you know, like we've written on the on Rolling
Speaker 4: Stone or in Rolling Stone that like richeris and the
Speaker 4: producer couldn't get anybody to really believe in the beat,
Speaker 4: and you know Beyonce being like, oh, this sample is dope,
Speaker 4: and yeah, I understand why we have these apprehensions, but
Speaker 4: I hear something here that's so classic, so important, and
Speaker 4: that I can shift into something modern and timely, and
Speaker 4: I think she's always done that, Like I think Beyonce.
Speaker 4: One of the most exciting things about her as an
Speaker 4: artist too, is like she's such a historian, you know,
Speaker 4: like she's she's so so schooled in pop culture, music,
Speaker 4: black icons, history, Like I just I think that the
Speaker 4: way that she's able to pull that into and create
Speaker 4: very singular pop moments is really really dope.
Speaker 5: And I think that The Crazy and Love was like
Speaker 5: the start of that.
Speaker 3: We were talking about her as a historian. Are you
Speaker 3: that being just so crucial to her artistry from the beginning, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, and I think that Renaissance really sealed that
Speaker 4: in for me as like another point of respect for her,
Speaker 4: because it's like you just go through the credits and
Speaker 4: you look at what's been sampled and who she pulled
Speaker 4: in to make sure that like she's not just like
Speaker 4: touching the past, but like incorporating them into the present.
Speaker 4: It was so fun, Like it's so fun to like
Speaker 4: it's like a textbook kind of going through her work.
Speaker 4: And I love that we all get to sit in
Speaker 4: like her cultural class together when she releases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're kind of discussing that and how she kind
Speaker 1: of carries that that legacy and also that history in
Speaker 1: every album, and I'm curious, you know, obviously again like
Speaker 1: self titled Lemonade and now Renaissance and Cowboy Carter are
Speaker 1: such like very specific in how she's addressing that and
Speaker 1: how she's making sure that it's very very clear that
Speaker 1: like this history is so ingrained into the way that
Speaker 1: she's producing the music, where she's performing, where she's singing.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious kind of as you sort of developed
Speaker 1: in your own relationship and listening to Beyonce's music, like,
Speaker 1: what are there moments from pre Seltile, pre Lemonade that
Speaker 1: made you kind of that you've re listened to and
Speaker 1: sort of appreciated that you know, or maybe noticed for
Speaker 1: the first time that history that she was carrying in
Speaker 1: the way that she was performing and writing and producing
Speaker 1: this music.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that I think about Deja Vu a
Speaker 4: lot because even so, you know, I helped spearhead our
Speaker 4: Beyonce's Greatest Songs list ahead of Renaissance, and we collectively
Speaker 4: decided Deja Voo.
Speaker 5: We've had that as our number one.
Speaker 4: I think that you know, it has that big horn
Speaker 4: sound just like crazy in Love, but it was so
Speaker 4: unique and that it wasn't sample driven, it was her
Speaker 4: taking the influences rather than just like taking a piece
Speaker 4: of the work and creating something new for herself on
Speaker 4: a blanker slate. And then thinking about the video too,
Speaker 4: it's like there's African dance but this Southern Gothic imagery
Speaker 4: that ties back to, you know, her cre all upbringing.
Speaker 4: And I think that like that is one of my
Speaker 4: earliest encounters with her, showcasing that part of her. So
Speaker 4: I think DejaVu is also like very like seminal for
Speaker 4: me and like my understanding of Beyonce. And it's also
Speaker 4: like it's a song that I would rather listen to more.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think that maybe because Crazy in
Speaker 4: Love like has I guess pop like lore to it.
Speaker 4: I think that like there's something a little more refreshing
Speaker 4: about each time.
Speaker 5: I hear Daja we probably cause we heard it less,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: But I think that's another moment where I was like,
Speaker 4: oh wow, she is like really putting a lot of
Speaker 4: stuff together that people aren't really touching.
Speaker 5: And that are also deeply a part of her, you know.
Speaker 4: And like jay Z's also on that song, and I
Speaker 4: think that even her incorporating him into her work, is
Speaker 4: her showcasing a deep part of herself as well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, touching on what you said about her connection to
Speaker 3: global blackness, what do you see as her international sort
Speaker 3: of impact or the impact of global blackness and her work.
Speaker 4: I think that like it's really important to portray blackness
Speaker 4: like outside of like a monolith. And I think that
Speaker 4: even you know, and I think that as we've seen
Speaker 4: her do it, you know, it hasn't been without controversy, right,
Speaker 4: like Black is King, people were like, Okay, what was
Speaker 4: the impact and contribution of African artists to it? What
Speaker 4: is Beyonce's relationship even performing on the continent. Why hasn't
Speaker 4: she done a lot of that? Like it raises questions,
Speaker 4: But I think that she like takes the step to
Speaker 4: be like I can do all types of music and
Speaker 4: all so much of our popular music comes back to
Speaker 4: black traditions. I think that that is the thing that
Speaker 4: she's always like putting forth in her music.
Speaker 5: You know, we've seen her do it with dance music.
Speaker 4: I think it showcases like just like how expansive like
Speaker 4: we are as a people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love thinking about how much of Beyonce's development
Speaker 1: and not to say it's like the entirety of it,
Speaker 1: but it does feel like a kind of an undercurrent.
Speaker 1: Is this kind of like middle finger to a lot
Speaker 1: of the expectations of her or where she's allowed to
Speaker 1: be thinking even just like you mentioned Deja vous and Bide,
Speaker 1: and I kind of vaguely remember a lot of the
Speaker 1: conversation around the New Orleans imagery post Hurri Kane Katrina
Speaker 1: that was happening on on this album versus like, you know,
Speaker 1: when we sort of had a lot more kind of
Speaker 1: of that respect for her in Lemonade and Information when
Speaker 1: she was you know, also kind of HARKing back to
Speaker 1: that or thinking about Cowboy Carder and how much of
Speaker 1: the you know, how much of that is built off
Speaker 1: of the experience she had the CMA Awards and how
Speaker 1: unwelcome Beyonce was as Beyonce in like a space, which
Speaker 1: is like crazy to think that Beyonce would enter a
Speaker 1: room and anyone would be want to be chilly towards her.
Speaker 1: But I mean, people in country music really hated Daddy Lessons,
Speaker 1: and people in rock music really hated don't hurt yourself
Speaker 1: and or really hypercritical of these moments when she was
Speaker 1: experimenting with that, And I'm kind of curious, like how
Speaker 1: you sort of see her fighting back against people who
Speaker 1: won't welcome her in or won't let her sort of
Speaker 1: enter a space in sort of any sort of simple
Speaker 1: way or kind of let her experiment with her music
Speaker 1: in that way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think it's like because in the world
Speaker 4: that I most immediately live in, like she's so obviously
Speaker 4: like an icon, and it's like I kind of feel
Speaker 4: like I find out about these things when she's like
Speaker 4: I felt pushed out or terrible or like condemned, you.
Speaker 5: Know, like like the CMAS.
Speaker 4: I remember watching it, and I don't even remember perceiving
Speaker 4: like I know that they had the audience shots, but
Speaker 4: I don't even remember perceiving the like CHILEI responses. All
Speaker 4: I have in my memories of that is thinking it
Speaker 4: was so incredible, so incredible that she was working with
Speaker 4: the Dixie Chicks, like thinking it sounded great.
Speaker 5: So I think that, like, I don't know, I think
Speaker 5: that a lot of the work that I think.
Speaker 4: Is interesting, even that we do as music journalists with
Speaker 4: these people who are big and a lot of respects
Speaker 4: have everything is to kind of come back and see
Speaker 4: these like very universal struggles, whether it be race, gender
Speaker 4: that like aren't some of the most powerful people in
Speaker 4: the world like also experienced. I think I probably more
Speaker 4: actively think about her as making music for her people
Speaker 4: who she sees as her people, then as as like
Speaker 4: in response or like against critics. And it's like because
Speaker 4: of just like the social spaces I inhabit, like it
Speaker 4: takes a little bit more work.
Speaker 5: To think about it that way, you know.
Speaker 4: I think that also can be where some some of
Speaker 4: the like more difficult conversations about Beyonce come from, right,
Speaker 4: Like when we think.
Speaker 5: About Cowboy Carter and the flag, it's.
Speaker 4: Like this is like, you know, it's been such a
Speaker 4: topic online, like this is a reclamation of her black
Speaker 4: textan identity.
Speaker 5: But also like we're situated in.
Speaker 4: A global context and there's more to all of us
Speaker 4: than just like the the individual places where we're from,
Speaker 4: you know. So yeah, I mean, I like, I like
Speaker 4: thinking about Beyonce when she's like actively doing something for
Speaker 4: a people than against it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were talking a bit about specific songs that
Speaker 3: she's done covers of or tributes to, or that she's
Speaker 3: interpolated into her work. What are some of your favorites
Speaker 3: from that aspect of what she does.
Speaker 5: We were actually just talking about this.
Speaker 4: I love her cover of You Out to Know Violance
Speaker 4: That is my I love it so so much. I've
Speaker 4: always loved that song, like growing up listening to like
Speaker 4: alt rock radio with like my dad in like the nineties.
Speaker 4: Hearing her saying it and making it feel like it
Speaker 4: made it feel like closer to me. I don't know,
Speaker 4: like it's just like it made it feel like it
Speaker 4: made me feel more connected to the song. So that's
Speaker 4: like when I think about covers, that's something that I
Speaker 4: really really love.
Speaker 3: It's phenomenal. Yet that's one of the ones we talked about.
Speaker 1: And I have one final question for you, which is
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, especially with Act two on our minds,
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think Act three is gonna be.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's obviously part of a reclamation series. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of and I know the prevalent theory
Speaker 1: is a rock album, but I'm curious if you think
Speaker 1: it's gonna be that or something different from her for
Speaker 1: Act three of this three acting musical project.
Speaker 4: No, that's where my head is at too, especially with
Speaker 4: the I think it was a cr fashion book photo shoot.
Speaker 4: People thought that that was maybe like an inkling towards
Speaker 4: what she might be doing next. Like I think when
Speaker 4: we think about like American pop music and like black
Speaker 4: contribution it and the way they either have been like
Speaker 4: erased or like uplifted like rock and roll, I think
Speaker 4: is at like the center. And so that's what I'm
Speaker 4: thinking will be next. But I would love to be surprised.
Speaker 4: I mean, and I'm also trying to think, like what
Speaker 4: hasn't she done? You know, So that's kind of where
Speaker 4: my head is at too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we'll get Alanis in Kings of Leon.
Speaker 2: On the album.
Speaker 3: That would be phenomenal.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much, Marcopher. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred
Speaker 1: Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone and iHeartMedia Britten. Hosted by Me Britney Spanos and
Speaker 1: Rob Sheffield. Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine, Alex Dale,
Speaker 1: and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon with music
Speaker 1: supervision by Eric Zeiler.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening