Tag Archives: Beyoncé

Beyoncé – COWBOY CARTER (Nikhil’s Review)

18 Apr

Cowboy Carter starts on the wrong foot with “AMERIICAN REQUIEM”. I have never come across a music trend I dislike as much as pop music’s current fascination with mining out old hits. It made the last Ariana album unlistenable. There’s nothing clever about recognizing some of the most famous music of the past few decades and I’m insulted by pop musicians who think so little of me.

It’s further weakened by how thoughtless the samples are. If Beyoncé wanted to make an arena rock album, I would have found that exciting but the best thing I can say about adding Who samples to an ostensibly country album is that they just don’t fit.

This is the first question I run into when I try to be charitable to this album and I really want to be charitable to this album. I think Southern Beyoncé is her best version. I love “FORMATION”, I love her leaning into this identity, I love a lot of those pieces that come through in this album, even as I struggle with my dislike of the album as a whole.

This question is whether to approach the album as a country album or a Beyoncé album. I was really hoping for the former. I wanted her to further the shake-up of a moving but reactionary genre. I’m not going to fault her for choosing the latter though, especially when some of her Beyoncé music here is very good.

She sings well in “BODYGUARD” and the languorousness is so skillful. There’s no country in the track but good music is good music. “TYRANT” also doesn’t really fit in but is great pop. The beat is propulsive and giddy-up is a great call. it reminds me of “Savage” and I’d love to see her do more of this.

But even in her comfort zone, we start to see how overstuffed this album is. “II HANDS II HEAVEN” is too standard a ballad. “SPAGHETII” tries for a grit and menace that I know that Beyoncé has but cannot seem to bring to bear here. “LEVIIS JEANS” has just a touch of country but it’s too light to be interesting and the Post Malone feature is subpar and doesn’t fit with the album at all.

Too much of the country doesn’t hold up as well. “DESERT EAGLE” starts with a fantastic muddy blues guitar but it’s not allowed to grow over the course of the song and Beyoncé puts nothing interesting or fitting over it. The two parts don’t work together at all. It transitions very well into “RIIVERDANCE” though, which in turn takes an interesting concept but then doesn’t really do anything much with it. I needed less repetition from it. It’s fun guitar work but then the pop overwhelms it. Even ”16 CARRIAGES” is weak. It could have been interesting with Beyoncé’s voice over some simple instrumentation, it could have been what this album promised but there’s no evolution and so it runs out. She gets a lot of emotion into the ballad though

I really appreciate bringing Willie Jones in for “JUST FOR FUN”, but I would have liked him to have more space. It’s a good country track but his fragment stands out for being normal. I would have liked Beyoncé to try a bit of country singing herself. She was excellent in “Savage” for really leaning into triple-time and the album would have done better for a bit of the same here. This results in Miley outsinging her a bit on “II MOST WANTED”. Country always does well for some roughness in the vocals and Beyoncé is too smooth. I would like this track but the two voices jar against each other. I would have preferred just Miley on this.

There’s some solid music in the country turn though. “PROTECTOR” is what the album should have been, country elevated by Beyoncé many skills and a personal track to boot. It’s a great track and you feel the South in it. The rhyme of protector and projector is too flat but that’s a minor burr in a great song.

“DAUGHTER” is also quite good I really like the folk strings in the background and the personal story. Her flow is great and when she accelerates a minute in, that works very well. I see the opera turn as a poorly integrated swerve but the song does a lot of things well.

I also like the country twanging in “ALLIGATOR TEARS”. This is more of the sound that I was hoping for. She brings herself into it. The result is less modern than I expected, it feels like something off a Prince album more than anything, but that’s interesting in itself.

“TEXAS HOLD EM” is a standout and a great choice for a single. It’s a fun, modern take on country. It uses her voice very well. It’s not very complicated but it’s fun enough to forgive that and that fun is most of what is missing from this album. Early Beyoncé used to be fun and I really miss that. This album is largely far too serious and doesn’t justify it.

I’m glad then that she highlights “YA YA.” It rocks a lot more than the majority of the filler in this album. It’s unfortunate then that it’s music that Janelle Monáe did a decade earlier and did better. It’s a good song but overlong and overstuffed and the “Good Vibrations” interlude is unnecessary garbage.

This mining of music is at its worst in the two covers. “BLACKBIIRD” might have been something interesting when you take the civil rights history of the song and the collective singing but honestly the Beatles’ politics were always shallow and Beyoncé’s branded politics are not much deeper. More fatally though, she’s overproduced and overworked it. It’s a gentle song, it needs to be handled with delicacy and Beyoncé is clearly not in the mood for that with this album. Also, I still have no idea why there’s so much British rock in this album.

It’s “JOLENE” that’s unforgivable though. I hate “JOLENE” enough to ruin the whole album. To reframe the song in this manner is incredibly disrespectful and just incredibly dumb. The original was startling in its sincerity and its vulnerability. To convert it in the most trite girl-power framing possible is to miss the point. It would be unbelievable from the maker of the “Run the World (Girls)”, the pinnacle of the girl-power statement, were it not for the cynicism of the rest of this album.

Beyoncé’s goal with this album is not to push herself sonically or tune into her Southern roots or even to make great music. It is to consume country music with a look both to her legacy and to her bottom line. That’s why there’s a discourse-feeder like “JOLENE,” that’s why the Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton interludes are here, that’s why the album is overstuffed enough to game the charts and most damningly that’s why the album isn’t fun.

It largely succeeded at the goal too. It made a splash, it charted well and it might define an era for her. There’s even some solid music scattered here and there. I’d just like it if the music were the goal next time instead of merely the means to such an empty end.

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Beyonce – Cowboy Carter

7 Apr

In 2022, Beyonce released her seventh studio album Renaissance, an ode to dance music as seen through a Black lens. The singer referred to the critically- and commercially-acclaimed album as her Act I – the first of a planned three-album thematic trilogy all through a similar lens.

All that to say, Beyonce has just released a new album called Cowboy Carter (which she, naturally, calls Act II: Cowboy Carter) and boy, is it an all-encompassing ode to country music. There’s country legends aplenty – if off the very top of your head you thought of Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton, you’d be correct – and Beyonce runs through genres and sub-genres like no one’s business. The rollicking lead single, “Texas Hold Em”, which you’ve undoubtedly heard already through Spotify, radio, or wherever you get your music, topped country charts, making Beyonce the first Black woman (!) to do so.

If you find it impossible to not tap your feet to the real-life boogie and the real-life hoe-down on “Texas Hold Em”, rejoice – for the rest of the album packs a similar punch. The other single, “16 Carriages”, is a slower ballad that offers a perfect vehicle (no pun intended) for Beyonce’s gospel-tinged vocals – shining light on another important element of growing up in the South. And of course, there’s “Jolene” – her striking cover of the most iconic country song in the world, introduced by Dolly Parton herself on the short “Dolly P” interlude. Beyonce’s cover has proved to be a little controversial (although clearly blessed by Dolly), mostly for the way that she changes the lyrics to imply that she’d, well, fuck Jolene up if she actually came near her man.

Perhaps the most interesting choice on the album was to structure it as a playlist on the fictional country music radio station KNTRY Radio Texas. Willie Nelson himself “introduces” various tracks throughout the album through his “Smoke Hour” interludes, including once for his own tender duet with Beyonce called “Just for Fun”.

Of course, with the multitudes within Beyonce’s musical repertoire, this couldn’t just be a country album. “Blackbird” is a beautiful cover of the famous Beatles track, with Beyonce’s strong vocals supported by a gentle choir of up-and-coming Black artists. (It all fits so beautifully that Paul McCartney personally congratulated Beyonce on it, which is no surprise given he purportedly wrote the track about Black women during the Civil Rights movement.) “Protector”, which opens with a spoken snippet by her second daughter Rumi, is a lilting, hymn-like track about protecting your children; one side of a coin with “Daughter”, a speed-picked track about how she, Beyonce, is herself her father’s (potentially violent) daughter. That track ends with (why not?) Beyonce singing a chilling snippet of an Italian opera song. “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” says Black female country pioneer Linda Martell on “Spaghetti”, an on-the-nose comment considering that this tonal-shift track could fall right into Cardi B’s next album and you’d be none the wiser. 

If there’s anything that takes away from the Cowboy Carter experience, it’s that the album is a touch too long. With 27 tracks (of course including the interludes), it’s clear that Beyonce has a lot to say, but a little editing could have gone a long way with taking this album from great to instant-classic. There’s too much on here, to the point where could-be-notable features with Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, and so many others just get lost in the mix. 

It’s important to note throughout the entire album that Beyonce is country. Her roots are intermixed between the Southern strongholds of Houston and New Orleans, both of which she regularly mentions in her music. She’s literally performed at the Houston Rodeo multiple times, and spent her formative years listening to country music deep in Alabama. She’s not being pretentious or stealing culture by making a country album – this is who she really is. Perhaps that’s the reason that Cowboy Carter often feels like a more natural album for Beyonce than Renaissance was – which was good, undoubtedly, but often felt like her setting out trying to make a Club Album™. So, for all the petty haters who didn’t want Beyonce on country music stations: in the bless-your-heart words of Willie Nelson, “go to the good place your mind likes to wander off to / and if you don’t wanna go, go find yourself a jukebox”.

Rating: 9/10

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Beyoncé – RENAISSANCE

22 Aug

Whenever Beyoncé releases new music, it’s an Event™ – especially as she has a penchant for dropping music out of the blue. RENAISSANCE, her seventh album, was actually released on July 29th with a heads’ up by way of an announcement on July 16th. Expectations were high, and the first single “BREAK MY SOUL” raised them even further.

So how good is RENAISSANCE? Does it best Lemonade, her acclaimed sixth album from 2016? Probably not. But there are more than enough highlights on this album – not to mention an exciting new turn for Queen Bey – that makes this one well worth the listen.

By and large, RENAISSANCE celebrates the disco and house sounds of the 1970s, especially from Black America. We’ve already written about “BREAK MY SOUL”, a raucous Afropop-tinged disco track seemingly soundtracking the Great Resignation. “ALIEN SUPERSTAR” is another early stand-out with club-ready beats against Beyoncé’s sweetly-sung vocals. “CUFF IT” offers a funky disco sound with the unmistakable Chic touch – and no wonder, because Nile Rogers himself was involved on the track. “VIRGO’S GROOVE” is another disco-funk classic: a seamless, six-minute ode to the desire that Beyoncé still feels for her husband. 

When we looked back at these standout tracks, what jumped out was that all except “BREAK MY SOUL” come courtesy of a production & songwriting duo Nova Wav, consisting of Brittany “Chi” Coney and Denisia “Blu” Andrews. Chi and Blu first worked with Beyoncé on her Grammy-winning “BLACK PARADE” track in 2020. On RENAISSANCE, they have contributed to eight of the best tracks from this album. “MOVE” featuring Grace Jones and Tems is sparse and dramatic with an opening section reminiscent of “Tokyo Drift”, while “PURE / HONEY” is an irresistible track that brings to mind early-90s dance-pop hit “I’m Too Sexy”. “SUMMER RENAISSANCE” is a classic disco / house song that samples none other than Donna Summer’s iconic disco hit “I Feel Love”. It’s not a stretch to say that Nova Wav is the actual powerhouse behind the marketing & vocal genius of the Beyoncé brand on this album.

The other thing that really strikes you about RENAISSANCE is the sheer perfection of the song transitions. They are beautifully done in a way that makes the entire album feel like one cohesive whole, with different sections corresponding to different moods and tracks. In particular, the entire stretch from “CUFF IT” to “ENERGY” (featuring Jamaican rapper Beam) to “BREAK MY SOUL” is a kaleidoscopic ten-minute ride with no discernible stitch whatsoever.

Apart from the core tenets of disco and house, Beyoncé does a good job of highlighting other sub-genres – for example, the dancehall vibes on the aforementioned “ENERGY” and on “HEATED”. Gospel and trap intersect on the Megan thee Stallion-like “CHURCH GIRL” with its insistent drumline and a lot of quotable lyrics, while “PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA” is the closest thing to sweet pop on this album that’s otherwise aggressively sensual.

While there are definite weak points on RENAISSANCE (for example, the tryhard “THIQUE” and the forgettable “ALL UP IN YOUR MIND”), it’s clear that Beyoncé has spent considerable time, energy, and skills in creating the distinctive throwback sounds on this album. The production values are sharp and her vocals are as on point as ever. RENAISSANCE doesn’t have the emotional range of Lemonade (and to be honest, people like Jessie Ware have already made better disco albums in recent years), but Beyoncé’s seventh album is certainly worth a listen. 

Rating: 7/10

Best tracks: “BREAK MY SOUL”, “VIRGO’S GROOVE”, “CUFF IT”

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The Carters – EVERYTHING IS LOVE

2 Jul

For an album like this, the music is always going to be overshadowed by the event and the story behind it. There’s a lot going for the music though. Beyoncé indulging in triplet raps is worth the price of admission alone and Jay manages to sustain this second wind of his career. This really comes together in things like the fantastic “APESHIT”. It’s a high energy song with a stunning video and Migos ad-libbing beautifully in the background.

While that song is the clear standout, but there’s quite a lot of solid work besides it. “NICE”, for instance, also sees Beyoncé with some interesting bars. She’s spent a lot of time in this area before and after they finish mining their relationship, I hope Beyoncé takes an album to give her rapping the space it deserves.

Jay-Z does some work of his own, if seemingly the smaller share. The strong “713” is all him and is all about her. His verses on “FRIENDS” make the song, but Beyonce’s singing is excellent here and her bout of vocalization is extremely good. This interplay is reversed a little on “BOSS”, which is completely run by her singing but Jay still gets an interesting verse in there with an intriguingly skewed flow.

It’s an unquestionably solid album and it’s good to see the Carters both acknowledge their flaws and their recent history as well as stunt all over everyone. An album like this was guaranteed to be a hit no matter what, it’s good to see it back that up with something of the excellence you would expect.

– @murthynikhil

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The Top Five Albums of 2016

1 Jan

2016 has not been a kind year for musicians. We lost many greats this year, starting with David Bowie in January, to Prince in April, to the double-whammy of Leonard Cohen in November and George Michael on Christmas Day. However, a year that has seen the death of so many singer-songwriters has also been a year that has let loose some of the greatest solo music in recent years: a silver lining, if any. Without further ado, we present below our top five albums of the year.

5. Sept. 5th: dvsn

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dvsn have been shrouded in mystery from the start. When the band first signed on to Drake’s OVO Sound record label, it wasn’t even revealed who the singer was. Since then, they’ve lifted the shroud a little – the voice belongs to Daniel Daley and the beats and words belong to Nineteen85 (real name Anthony Paul Jefferies). The mysterious nature suits them, creating an allure that perfectly compliments their sparse, lusty R&B.

And lusty it is. Sept. 5th is essentially about doing the deed with your significant other. Popular music is rife with this topic, but dvsn takes a very respectful approach to the subject matter. “In + Out” (yep, it’s exactly about what you’re thinking it’s about) refers to the partner’s body in royal terms: thrones, highnesses and crowns. On “With Me”, Daley respectfully asks his partner to come over to quench his lust.And on the titular track, Daley knows he messed up and pleads to make it up through – yep, you guessed it – sex.

Beyond the tone of their lyrics, dvsn really excel at creating music that’s sparse and dense at the same time. On “Too Deep”, Nineteen85 layers subtle handclaps, funk sounds, downtempo beats and Daley’s lusty croon, with enough space to co-exist and build off of each other. “Hallucinations” also features just a handful of sounds, but there’s also immense gravity in the negative space – in what isn’t said or heard. It’s almost like dvsn have taken a leaf out of the xx’s book.

Sept. 5th is a highly enjoyable R&B album from a mysterious and highly talented duo. We’re definitely looking forward to hearing more from them.

Best tracks: “With Me”, “Too Deep”

4. Blonde: Frank Ocean

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Frank Ocean’s efforts to release Blonde are nothing short of a drama. The story begins in 2009, when the soft-natured, velvet-voiced Ocean – then inexplicably part of the violent rap crew Odd Future – signed with Def Jam Records. In 2011, Ocean released his critically-acclaimed mix-tape, Nostalgia, Ultra. Although its follow-up album Channel Orange was well-received, it was not comparable to the quality and cult following of Nostalgia.

Ocean seemed to have lost his mojo for a couple of years after Channel Orange, although rumors of a follow-up have been surfacing since 2014. Finally, on August 18th and 19th of this year, Ocean streamed a visual album called Endless, effectively completing his recording contract with Def Jam. The very next day – August 20th, 2016 – free of a record label’s controlling hand, he released his real offering: Blonde.

“Smoking good, rolling solo / Solo, solo” incites Ocean on “Solo”, yet another example of the endless battle between creative artists and corporate labels. The freedom suits him, though.

Blonde on the whole is more mellow and meditative than his previous two offerings. Moreover, although Channel Orange and Nostalgia had gospel tinges, Blonde is drenched in them. Nowhere is it more apparent than on “White Ferrari”, a dreamy R&B classic with psychedelic nods to the Beatles. The serenity of the white car offers a nice contrast to the orange Lamb on his mixtape, providing a clue into the singer’s growth since those days. “Sweet 16, how was I supposed to know anything?” he incites, perhaps speaking of the fame that was to follow Nostalgia.

On Blonde, Ocean uses minimalist, introspective music to frame his chocolate-smooth voice and troubled thoughts. Great for rainy, moody evenings.

Best tracks: “Nikes”, “White Ferrari”, “Close to You”

3. “Awaken, My Love!”: Childish Gambino

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Donald Glover challenges the very idea of a triple-threat, a term usually reserved for singer-dancer-actors like Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Lopez. Glover, however, spreads his creative talents far further. He got his first break as a writer for Tina Fey on the legendary “30 Rock”. After whittling his comedic talents behind the scenes, Glover moved to the other side as Troy on the equally-legendary show “Community”. As if that weren’t enough, Glover released a critically-acclaimed album, Camp, in 2011. Whatever the Donald does, he does it to perfection (well, this Donald at least).

It seemed for a while that Glover would continue in a mildly-hipster route in music, as he did with writing and television. After Camp (and in between his myriad other creative commitments), Glover released Because the Internet, a Grammy-nominated ode to the World Wide Web – fitting of the world that Troy and his friends resides in. And thus it comes as a true surprise that “Awaken, My Love!” is, at its core, a thoroughly accessible album.

The creative impetus behind the album seems to be the recent birth of Glover’s first child, with a woman that the world knows next to nothing about. The baby seems to have mellowed out Glover, replacing the smug references with feelings and emotions. The deliberate and intense “Me and Your Mama” is a weed-infused love song for his baby mama, sung with the same passion that created his baby boy (“Girl you really got a hold on me / so this isn’t just puppy love”). At the same time, he seems to understand that his days with the baby mama are limited. On “Baby Boy”, Glover speaks alternately to his baby and to his baby mama.  (“I’ve never lied about us / we were never supposed to be together”), but expresses permanent, unconditional love for his child.

Apart from songs written for his baby, the other key notable theme on this album is Glover’s formidable tribute to old-school funk. On album stand-out “Redbone”, plucked staccato notes support Glover’s surprisingly adept falsetto. His lyrics, too, are top-notch. Redbone is slang for someone with mixed African, Creole and Native American ancestry, characterized by the reddish undertones in their skin. Glover calls his redbone woman a “peanut butter chocolate cake with Kool-Aid”: metaphorical, funnily accessible and sweet at the same time. “Boogieman” is a perfectly-named double-entendre: a musical homage to the Boogie but a lyrical homage to the Bogeyman.

Overall, “Awaken, My Love!” is a great new direction for Donald Glover the Musician. Glover’s other personas are doing incredibly well – he’s slated to star in a new Star Wars movie and play a part in the new Spiderman movie – so let’s hope he can still spend some time on his music. Because we love what we’re hearing.

Best tracks: “Redbone”, “Me and Your Mama”

2. Lemonade: Beyoncé

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you’ve heard of the elevator incident. In May 2014 at the Met Ball, Beyonce’s sister Solange physically assaulted Jay-Z with almost inexplicable rage. Few things seemed to explain the intensity of her rage, but the most plausible explanation was that Jay had cheated on her sister.

Beyonce and Jay-Z largely kept mum about the elevator incident. All seemed well in the household of the second-most powerful black couple on the planet (at least by omission). On April 23, 2016 – days shy of the two-year anniversary of the elevator incident – Beyonce broke her silence with a record heard around the world. Lemonade was born.

Accompanied by an HBO film of the same name, the visual album is an exploration of Beyonce and Jay-Z’s extremely high-profile and lucrative relationship. It’s unclear whether the album is a state-of-the-nation report or an “inspired-by-real-life” relationship drama. Whichever it is, Lemonade has got us hooked from start to finish.

The album starts off with a two-level prayer: Beyonce prays she can peep into Jay’s cheating world, and also prays that Jay understands that she knows he’s cheating. The first half of the album fleshes out these ideas. On “Hold Up”, she warns Jay that she’s the best he’s going to get – braggodocio and a plea at the same time. On “Don’t Hurt Yourself” and “Sorry”, the braggodocio takes over. In the former song (which features Jack White), Beyonce sneers at Jay as a weak man who had to cheat and in the latter, she goes full Queen Bey (“Middle fingers up, put them hands high / Wave it in his face, tell him, boy, bye”).

After the rage and fury of finding out about a cheating husband, Beyonce comes back to her family-centered values on the second half of Lemonade. On “Sandcastles”, she is willing to break her promise to leave him. “All Night” is a cease-fire: Beyonce has come to terms with Jay-Z and is willing to take him back, because she knows their love is deeper than that.

Lemonade is an exceptionally well-produced concept album that articulates complex feelings like few pop albums have. Its hooks are irresistible, and its lyrics are well-crafted. Clearly, Lemonade is what Beyonce made after life gave her lemons.

Best tracks: “Hold Up”, “Sorry”, “Formation”

1. The Life of Pablo: Kanye West

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In popular culture today, Kanye West is many things. First, he is a famed rapper, producing beats and albums that are way ahead of the rap game at the time. Second, he is the husband of the woman who is by far the most famous in the entire glittering category of women who are famous for being famous. Third, he is a budding designer, whose shoes and clothes capture the fine line between madness and genius: a line that is basically his home address.

In short, Kanye West is famous. Really famous.

Where does all that fame land him?

It lands him in bed (literally) with a host of other really famous people: Kim Kardashian, Taylor Swift, and Donald Trump to name a few. These are the world’s foremost leaders at running the hype and fame game. (See: 2016 presidential elections.)

It gives him a fascination with several incarnations of Paul. Pablo Escobar, famed druglord with an alter-ego as a Robin Hood for Colombia’s poor. Paul the Apostle, carrying forth Jesus’ words and, in essence, his fame.

It provides him a deep, undying love for the thing that matters most: family. Even if that family includes a woman whose claim to fame is a sex tape with another black man. Kanye loves Kim and Nori and baby Saint very, very much – no matter what the naysayers may say.

It also shows him the underbelly of fame: cousins stealing laptops as ransom, acquaintances fronting as friends, friends fronting as real friends.

Life of Pablo is about all of these things. It is a greatly stripped-down album compared to the flamboyance of his previous albums. Much like Childish Gambino, Yeezy has been changed by the birth of his children. But in essence, Life of Pablo is a highly accurate painting of Kanye West as he is right now. It’s a masterpiece, as always.

Best tracks: “Famous”, “Real Friends”, “No More Parties in LA”

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Beyoncé: Beyoncé

21 Jan

Beyoncé, the album is Beyoncé the singer, not Beyoncé distilled or Beyoncé as an album. This is very simply Beyoncé the person. Skilled, varied, confident and astoundingly explicit, Beyoncé may not be for everyone, but she certainly rewards those who are willing to work for her.

This is an exceedingly personal album, with topics ranging from feminism to motherhood to her sex life and so you should expect your enjoyment to be tempered by who exactly you are. An identity message this strong can be alienating. However, it is rare to hear a voice as clear as Beyoncé’s and the album feels fresh in its unapologetic statement of self. Despite the freedom, the album never comes off as particularly deep but that was probably never its intention.

The music itself is highly impressive electro-R&B, even by Beyoncé’s standards. It feels clear, when listening to her, that many of her contemporaries simply do not have the voice to run half of her songs. The production is nothing novel but serves the purpose. The focus is as ever Beyoncé herself though. Even the guest spots, featuring no less than Jay-Z, Frank Ocean and Drake, firmly remain guest spots. She is at her best in the faster numbers, and the middle of the album feels mostly like filler, but the entirety is quite good.

It can be easy with this album to be distracted by the lack of hype before the album was dropped or the visual album experiment (incidentally, watching the album definitely improves it) or the debates around it. However, even when all of that fades, Beyoncé is still going to hold up as one of the career highlights of one of the few true pop superstars.

– @murthynikhil

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