I suppose I’d prefer if this was a full-on ballad, rather than a soulful pop song. Rebecca Toennessen: I appreciate the sentiment of the song, but I feel like Beyoncé is pulling it back rather than belting it all out like she’s capable of. And somehow the sweetness of the tune and the acid of the lyric end up providing more of a bellyache than a clever contrast. But it’s mostly about her voice, enough about her voice, that nothing else matters.Īl Shipley: B’s overbearing growl here is one of the only times on 4 that her scenery-chewing vocal style is more of a drag than a thrill.
That said, she sings the hell out of this, and it could be about anything. It was an interesting argument for how random a lot of the choices on 4 are. Still, like everything on the album, it’s beautifully arranged, those cascading piano figures and pumping strings over the squalling guitar and clattering rhythm a gorgeous mix of head and heart, classicism and funk.Īnthony Easton: Nitsuh Abebe’s review in New York Magazine is a smart discussion about how this new album is about the nature of domesticity and is not the diva meltdown we expect of her. This was the first one that got to me, although now that I’ve spent more time with the album it’s definitely one of the shallower cuts, more bluster than force and more practical in a narrowcast sort of way - you kind of have to be in a specific emotional place to really embrace it - than generally useful. Jonathan Bogart: I think I’ve teared up to every song on 4 at this point. B emotes the hell out of it, but while this would have fit nicely as B’Day‘s token ballad or on the Beyonce disc of her double album, it feels a little safe on an album of barnburning R&B, especially in contrast to the three ballads immediately preceding it. “Best Thing I Never Had” is the lone exception, a radio-friendly kiss-off built on top of a swirling piano line that sounds like pop radio c. A solid album track, in other words as a single it lacks the masochism that Beyoncé fans go for.Īlex Ostroff: As wonderful as they are, few of the songs on 4 scream Top 40, especially as pop radio has moved further from R&B towards dance.
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“Best Thing I Never Had” needed to be that hit, but all that remained after the drums thrashed and the piano rattled and Beyoncé belted was the quasi-mooning joke of “you showed your ass.” Any other on 4, bonus or official, would have made a better single all this track could accomplish was a lot of avoidable rumors.Īlfred Soto: This chapter in Beyoncé’s Reassurance Series (“Ha ha, see, I was only kidding: almost loved you!”) comes with a cute piano hook and the star’s voice at its most plush protecting the line “You shoved your ass.” Good bridge too. Before a note was heard, it’d already become a referendum on 4, previously represented by the bombastic but barely-charting “Run the World (Girls),” the galvanizing but unofficial “End of Time” and the towering but slow “1+1,” which was sorta, kinda, almost a single. The track also couldn’t help being a referendum on Babyface, who hadn’t had a hit in years. Katherine St Asaph: “Best Thing I Never Had” came with colossal expectations. There isn’t the worldbeating chorus that she’s so often given us, nor have the squadron of producers made so much of the music. It’s OK, and she sings it with plenty of gusto, but it feels like familiar territory. Martin Skidmore: A new Beyoncé feels less of an event these days, and I don’t really see this medium-pace number changing that a great deal. For extra credit, look for the remix, which grafts the “La-Di-Da-Di” beat to soporific acoustic guitar and the keyboards from Phil Collins’ “One More Night”. Marshalling the orchestra and a Bruce Hornsby impersonator could be construed as protesting too much, but this gets a bonus tick for “you showed your ass,” which is demanding a transfer to everyday speech. Pharrell Williamsīrad Shoup: No slight to our current pop overlords, and I’m aware how old this makes me sound, but it’s always super nice to have Beyoncé bring her estimable class to the charts. Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment.I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES.Email (song suggestions/writer enquiries).
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