4.
| Beyonce
4.
4 is the fourth solo studio album by American singer Beyoncé. It was released on June 24, 2011, by Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records. Following a career hiatus that reignited her creativity, Beyoncé was inspired to create a record with a basis in traditional rhythm and blues that stood apart from contemporary popular music. Her collaborations with songwriters and record producers The-Dream, Tricky Stewart and Shea Taylor produced a mellower tone, developing diverse vocal styles and influences from funk, hip hop, and soul music. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
It's a more mature album with songs about the intricacies of relationships, but 4 has its share of stunning tracks, many co-written by The-Dream.
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Rolling Stone
4 might be her strangest record. It’s a big-budget megapop album with an A list of guest stars (Kanye West, André 3000) and songwriter-producers (Tricky Stewart, the-Dream, Diplo, Ryan Tedder, Diane Warren). Yet it’s as eccentric – as unmistakably personal and quirky – as anything that Sufjan Stevens ever cooked up in his bedroom.
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NME
She's dangerously in love with boring ballads.
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Consequence of Sound
Between doing more of the same old goodness and boiling everything down to its most essential lethality, Beyoncé also makes room on the album for more grandiose tracks that would sound right at home in Broadway musicals, like the marching band-fueled funk/operatic space ballad “End of Time”. Both of these directions show that in the steel cage match that is modern-day female pop music, the champion from here on out is Beyoncé.
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The Guardian
This isn't by any means a bad album. There's nothing wrong with a song such as Love on Top, which is well written, has a great vocal and will doubtless help ensure Knowles doesn't have to manage on a mere $35m in the next 12 months. It's just that it isn't the album you might have been led to expect. The highpoints offer hints of what it might have been: it's hard not to feel that what it might have been sounds better than what it is.
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AV Club
Beyoncé’s artistic maturation on 4 features some growing pains, but the album’s polish and her poise go a long way toward masking those flaws.
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Slant Magazine
The predominately intimate, ballad-heavy 4 sees her fertile and ready; I wouldn’t be surprised if, someday down the line, she described this set as the one closest to her heart. It’s certainly going to dilate the cervixes of the demographic among B’s fanbase who can’t hold it in whenever she howls out a slow-burning torch song. In 46 minutes and 12 tracks, 4 suggests a full-term nine months.
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All Music
No one but one of the most talented and accomplished singers -- one with 16 Grammys, nothing left to prove, and every desired collaborator at her disposal -- could have made this album.
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MuuMuse
While the album is nearly guaranteed to go down as the first major misfire in Beyoncé’s otherwise unshakable career track record–the dreaded “artistic attempt”–it’s as much of a guarantee that future listeners will re-visit this record in time to discover that it is, in fact, a gem.
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Beats Per Minute
Beyoncé Knowles is growing up and she wants you to know it. Her voice is the best it has ever been. Her music is the best it has ever been. She looks the best she ever has. With so many accomplishments evident on what she is so keen to remind us is only her fourth solo album, it would seem that all Beyoncé wants now is to lay back, enjoy a mid-tempo groove with her husband, and maybe, if this critic is not reading a bit too deeply, start a family of her own.
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BritEvents
In conclusion, 4 - having received mixed reviews within the media - is unfortunately an album that does not match up to its predecessors, yet it is a prime example of Beyonce's vocal abilities and will appeal to fans who are passionate about soul, groove and pop from eras gone by.
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BBC
Beyoncé slips from flirty to fragile to fabulous, and is in terrific voice throughout, reminding us that when she opens up there's no-one else in the game.
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Pretty Much Amazing
Their aim, to create a “mature” pop album, is no doubt praiseworthy. But by not delivering on the promise of a “1+1,” they only invite us to imagine the beginning-to-end classic 4 could have been. We’re left to get by with a little help from our friend: the skip butto
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Black Boy Bulletin
With 4, Beyoncé carried the entire genre on her back through a wave of music that nearly killed it. Furthermore, the record cemented Beyoncé as more than a pop star, she was (and is) an artist with a keen sense of self and purpose. So, here’s to 4, an album that continues to age like a fine wine.
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CNN
It's exactly the kind of genre-busting risk that few other current pop stars would even attempt, let alone pull off flawlessly with a no-big-thing shrug. With more moments like that, "4" might have been an album fully worthy of her talent. As it is, though, even star students get the occasional B.
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The M Report
The prevalent theme of girl power wasn't dismissed with this album and I don't think it ever will. You can't be mad at that because Beyoncé Knowles will always know how to unite the ladies (and the gentlemen) who know how to dance like there's no tomorrow. Only three words remain: You Go Girl.
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SFGATE
"4," a straightforward collection of sleek R&B ballads dealing exclusively with heartbreak, underachieving men and the unbreakable women who fall for them.
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Glamour Magazine
Fans of Beyoncé's livelier, more club-accessible tracks may find the majority down-tempo numbers on this record to be a little lack-lustre for their liking. But we urge them to have patience - this is a record that builds and gathers, changing mood and tempo before culminating in an explosive finale. Definitely worth the wait!
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A Separate State of Mind
4 is an album with many influences, the most prominent of which is an 80s RnB sound. It feels to be a natural evolutionary step for an artist who made her career by walking across genre lines. 4 is a great album that could be considered as Beyonce’s best.
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