Category: Music

  • “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” by Beyoncé

    Reviewed by Ramona Prioleau

    Shot entirely in black and white, the 2009 music video for “Single Ladies” by Beyoncé is without a doubt one of the most recognizable pop music images of the last 20 years. Featuring Beyoncé accompanied by two dancers, the video is a 3:00 minute masterpiece. The entire length of it is one extended, choreographed dance number, performed to perfection by Knowles, Ebony Williams, and Ashley Everett. The video was directed by Jake Nava and choreographed by Frank Gatson Jr. and JaQuel Knight, who incorporated J-Setting choreography to the video, a style of dance popularized in the late 1970s by African-Americans in the Jackson, Mississippi area.

    The video focuses on Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé’s sensual and more aggressive onstage alter-ego. Wearing high heels and an all black leotard, Knowles performs the choreography with sharp and aggressive passion. She and her backup dancers’ movements are precisive, exacting and powerful. There are moments of grace interspersed in between, but the majority of “Single Ladies” choreography is powerful and commanding.

    This is greatly enhanced by the video’s editing as well. The first half of the video is shot in long, full takes, but the second half is energetic and decisive in its editing. The camera cuts on the dancers’ swiping movements, and the colors are inverted and accented in dramatic ways. All of the art then—the song, the video, the editing—heats up near the end. It grows more and more quick, more and more full, more and more invigorating.

    It all culminates in a video that feels a lot longer than 3 minutes and 18 seconds. Make no mistake though—there’s more talent and care in this single music video than there is in 100 others combined. It’s so iconic and so ubiquitous for a reason. It’s striking, undeniably impressive, and impossible to look away from. It’s one of the best music videos of recent years, and likely of all time.M

    January 2024

     

  • Channeling the Pain of Chinese Immigrants, in Music and Verse

    “Angel Island,” an oratorio by Huang Ruo, brings to life the stark poetry of Chinese detained on the California island in the first part of the 20th century.

  • Former Mr. Bungle Rocker, Theo Lengyel, Charged With Murder in Girlfriend’s Death

    Theobald Lengyel, a saxophonist, helped form the experimental rock band in Northern California in the mid-1980s. His girlfriend had been missing since early December.

  • Review: The Philharmonic’s Maestro Revels in the Classics

    Jaap van Zweden returned to the orchestra for the first time since October with a conservative lineup of works by Wagner, Beethoven and Brahms.

  • In a Downtown New York Tradition, Cleansing the New Year With Poetry

    On the first day of the year, over a thousand devotees passed through the old church where the Poetry Project has held its annual 12-hour marathon for the last half-century.

  • Willa Cather and Yehudi Menuhin: An Unlikely, Unwavering Friendship

    These two titans of 20th-century literature and music formed a profound, yearslong relationship across generations and backgrounds.

  • Willa Cather and Yehudi Menuhin: An Unlikely, Unwavering Friendship

    These two titans of 20th-century literature and music formed a profound, yearslong relationship across generations and backgrounds.

  • Rage Against the Machine Won’t Tour Again, Says Brad Wilk

    A staple of 1990s rock music, Rage has disbanded before, including when its frontman quit in 2000. His recent leg injury forced the band to cancel its latest tour.

  • 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Strata-East Records

    This label founded in 1971 gave Afrocentric and psychedelic jazz a home, and found a breakout hit with Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. Take a guided tour through its deep catalog.

  • As Mikaela Shiffrin Considers How to Top Herself, She Studies Taylor Swift

    Shiffrin, the champion American ski racer, is an unabashed Swiftie, and has long seen the pop culture force as a textbook guide for navigating fame, adversity and unprecedented success.

  • The Metropolitan Opera Moves Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ to America

    Starring a magnetic Aigul Akhmetshina, Carrie Cracknell’s lethargic staging updates Bizet’s opera to present-day America.

  • Willie Ruff, Jazz Missionary and Professor, Dies at 92

    A master of the French horn, a rarity in jazz, he toured the world with the pianist Dwike Mitchell and taught music at Yale.