One law of pop physics we have learned this week: for every person who adores the music of Beyoncé, there is another experiencing an equal and opposite reaction. The Guardian was able to conduct a double-blind test of this thesis last week, with Alexis Petridis writing a glowing review of her Glastonbury show for the Guardian's music site, while offering a rather more lukewarm assessment of her latest album, 4, for Film&Music. In both cases, those who approved did so volubly, and those who didn't were equally vocal.
So, naysayers, what's your problem with 4? "It sounds just like all her other albums. Overproduced, over-hyped, generically ghostwritten and entirely forgettable," said reelhighgrade. "This is a sell-out R&B artist here, not the Aphex Twin or Burial," offered Chunkyrice (though we're not sure Beyoncé has ever claimed to be part of the UK electronic underground). "Generic female pop star releases generic, run of the mill album. She still gets three stars though, because it's apparently taboo to point out people like Beyoncé are just run-of-the-mill singers aimed at 12-year-old girls," said a rather cynical Silversunpickup, despite the small proportion of 12-year-old girls cheering her at Glastonbury.
Perhaps the most damning assessment came from Addicks123: "My guess is that this generic radio- and MTV-friendly pap won't be listened to in 50/60 days time, let alone in a year. The kids who like this stuff will rush out and buy it, listen to it and then quickly grow bored with it. As much as anything the music is painful to listen to – over-produced with every studio gimmick you can think of and a few more you haven't heard of to strain every note above and beyond its natural life. By the end of the year you'll be buying it at car boot sales."
"A lot of pointless snobbery in this thread. I've not heard this whole record yet, but anything that veers away from the David Guetta aesthetic in R&B/whatever is such a good thing. I don't think the genre needs a 'game changer', just a reminder, as [Alexis] pointed out with Aaliyah and Brandy, that this kind of stuff used to be absolutely brilliant and challenging," countered euanisalefty.
"I think this just about her best record, and there are some tremendous tracks on there, and I really love 1+1," reckoned daveportivo. "But … I still think 4 suffers from the same problem every Beyonce album struggles with: Beyonce is such a good singer, she's a bad singer." Less might be more for Beyoncé, daveportivo suggested.
Bobko wondered what Peter Bradshaw had been up to at the Cannes film festival in May – suggesting there must be some reason for Peter's apparent good cheer in his reviews since his return. That good cheer was made evident in last week's four-star review for Bridesmaids. "It is the women's relationship with each other, and not with men, that is central. So what is dramatised in these characters is not the traditional single-girl qualities of vivacity or demureness, comically flavoured with man-pleasing sexiness or anxious self-doubt, but the bridesmaids' competitive sense of themselves as successful or otherwise," Peter wrote, approvingly.
Mandragola balanced the film's merits and drawbacks: "For: It's a funny comedy told from a female perspective with lots of jokes that anyone would find funny, written and performed by women. For: It's about relationships between women, not between women and men … mostly. Getting married is obviously a big part of the film but Annie [the protagonist] is more affected by problems with her business and friends, so she has more going on than trying to net a husband … Against: There's an argument you could make that this is an attempt to copy a male genre for a female audience, which isn't particularly original. Personally I think that's a bit harsh."
