Filed under: design of a decade, lists, music | Tags: 2003, beyonce, crazy in love, design of a decade
[My second-favorite song of 2003.]
2. Beyonce feat. Jay-Z, Crazy In Love
Beyonce is problematic.
With Destiny’s Child, she had a #1 hit singing about independent women. But from the very beginning, the career of Matthew Knowles’ elder daughter has been almost Victorian in its emphasis on female dependency: Knowles was led into the music industry at the age of nine by her show business parents; her dad managed her career and her mom made her skimpy yet ersatz outfits. Then, when she outgrew her group and opted for a solo career, Beyonce immediately fled into the thuggish arms of Jay-Z, with whom she would duet on two of 2003′s biggest singles.
Jay and Beyonce first announced themselves as the new Bobby and Whitney on the Prince-interpolating ’03 Bonnie and Clyde, from his album The Blueprint 2. The Sex And The City-loving pair followed that up with Crazy In Love, the big stomping lead single from her oddly-titled Dangerously In Love album. (The title’s weird because the album’s named after a song on Destiny’s Child’s Survivor album from 2001.)
Crazy In Love is a good song. A really good song. But still, it’s troublesome. Beyonce’s totally gaga over her man, but when we get to Jay-Z’s verse he doesn’t mention her even once (though he does namecheck Tony Soprano and Ringo Starr and talk about himself a lot.) Worse, in the Jake Nava-directed video, Jay-Z picks the start of his verse to torch the car that Beyonce’s writhing around in, even though there is absolutely no narrative reason to justify this. It’s pretty psychotic, actually.
But then there’s that horn sample. Derived from the Chi-Lites’ Are You My Woman (Tell Me So), the trumpets make Crazy In Love sound forceful and cheery (but not forcefully cheery), and Beyonce sounds so ecstatic that it’s almost impossible not to be excited for her. It’s a very lovable song. Even NME, the magazine that might as well change its name to Lists Of Gangly White Dudes Monthly, called it the best single of the decade.
Just today, Amanda Hess at the Washington City Paper included Beyonce’s Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) on her list of the Top 5 Pseudo-Feminist Anthems. ”The sheer awesomeness of this song is almost enough to make me overlook the anti-feminist weirdness,” she says. The same could be said for Beyonce’s entire career.
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