swissman

After spending too much time arguing with people who can't or won't even meet you at what you've actually said to them, I think I'll set a Beyoncé Birthday Intention. Despite being generally unbothered by her antics, and thus existing as a fan with a relaxed relationship towards Beyoncé herself, I do let negative opinions or discussions get to me. I love to debate. I love presenting a reasoned point. I only joined this forum in 2012 after seeing Beyoncé get dragged so much for 4 and wishing here was someone saying what I was thinking, and loving when I did see people defend her. BUT this does add up to stress that I do no want nor wish to engage with, especially when people on both sides are set in their ways and won't budge anyway, it's just a circular nothing of a conversation where everyone gets further riled up. SO the intention shall be: chuckle at the haters' ignorance or silliness, clapback once or twice perhaps but generally leave it alone. Basically: be more like Beyoncé... focus on the positive, and let the rest fade away, as it always does.

She's enjoying her birthday!

Beyoncé's 2016 VMAs Medley is probably one of the the greatest performances ever, and certainly one of my faves. But Déja Vu on Tyra always has a soft spot for me as it's so stripped back and totally about her performance skills.

My "essays" must be too long to read because there's no way you can't understand what I'm saying.

A question asked by a person whose first post in this thread was 7 hours ago and is still here with over 10 posts and reactions in between. Also there is no correlation between me saying the box is an unserious move and me talking about it here to other people who also continue to talk about it here. You are yet again twisting words to create a narrative that is otherwise not present. Beyoncé is my fave. Of course I'm interested in discussing topics about her. What's your excuse for being here? EDIT (even though I have a post below this) I, in fact, was over this thread a while ago but the quotes kept bringing me back. I'm definitely over it now. Enjoy!

Yes like @Lovett said... TEXAS HOLD 'EM is one of her least artsy songs of her entire catalogue, and is catchy af.

We always talk about how you had to be there to experience the surprise release/visual album, but I was thinking last night that we rarely talk about the feeling of having all the video anthology mvs leaking steadily for like 1-2 weeks, with a new video "coming out" every few days... like, that was unheard of. it didn't make the cultural dent of the 2013 visual album but for the fans it really WAS something special, and totally unlike anything we had experienced before. especially since this was still very much the "mtv" era, albeit the last years of it with YouTube on the rise, it was still entirely new for us to be getting so much content from a popstar so quickly even if it was in the form of "leaked" videos and in that way, she still was leading us into the digital age, a new time for music/video consumption... her mind!

Even if it were $150 I don't think anyone really needs it. It doesn't become a more interesting product the cheaper it is. But if people want to spend it, and they can, they can go ahead.

"If I gave two fucks about streaming numbers I'd have put B'Day 20 Year Anniversary Deluxe Edition up on Instagram"

The only vanguard on the list is Madonna and she's already one. They need to rename this though because we can all look up the word "vanguard" in the dictionary and the more they award people who don't fit it, the more we can tell this is just a "who's PR should we partner with this year?" award.

But that's the thing. Beyoncé isn't serious about it either. That's why we're mentioning the birthday-price. It's an inherently unserious price.

I think the key difference is that people were mad at Taylor's variants because in addition to their absurdity, they seemed to be weaponized to block other artists from #1 (allegedly) and were assumed to be a way of gaming the charts, inflating sales by encouraging fans they need to collect all items through various tactics (like a "collect them all!" sort of thing). While there is similarities here, I don't think it's entirely fair to say it's the "same arguments" because most people were mad at Taylor not for deciding her own price or pricing something too high but for what the intention behind her products were, not just money but for supposed chart-positions and whatnot.

I'm not trolling though. You are confused. I've been pretty consistent with my thoughts on this, each and every time there was uproar about what she chose to price her items for.

are you?

Her vocals on this one are soooo good.

You seem to have still glazed over my point which is just that the price is so specific for a reason and so changing it to just $2 more is an odd choice. I'm not saying that they were doing some crazy scheme to inflate the cost so she looks worse. It was an observation. and yes I agree with you. They could have worded it as "$1k+". That would have made sense. That would have been accurate. Adding $2 is silly.

did you read what I said or just react? what you're quoting has nothing to do with justifying its price.

You don't seem to have understood. Let me put it in context for you. It would be like if Katy Perry were re-releasing 143 and was selling some item for $143 dollars and someone made a thread about how she is selling it for $145. Would you not think it's odd that they didn't use the clearly intentional price but made up one instead? Maybe it's not clear but I'm not trying to accuse them of inflating it for sensationalism, I'm just saying the price is an obvious tie-in to the album so changing it on your own is an odd choice.

there's no way these boxes were produced for as cheap as you think they were. surely, they weren't anything close to $948.01, but it's a custom wooden box with engraving in two places, finished with beeswax, lined with velvet with a faux-alligator-embossed leather strap with gold hardware and there are only 500 produced. they are very likely not $19 to produce each. that's not to say it's not overpriced, or that it's worth the price, but that it's not going to be as cheap as when everyone says "it's an empty wooden box," because the box alone is not going to be inherently cheap for a limited run but it also has several finishings that would cost extra too.

The price is intentionally a tie-in to the album itself by being the intro words to Get Me Bodied. It seems like an odd and arbitrary change made in the title.

Let's seek someone who was forced into purchasing this box and then we can complain on their behalf. Otherwise you are just complaining to complain.

Everyone knows how shopping works yet everyone is mad? Okay. People are acting like she's a store in the mall they shop at every month and rely on, not her OWN branded website selling novelty items for the fun of it.

Yes! This is what I meant a while back when I said that we were not ready for a Beyoncé rock era yet... that the previous two acts were released into a culture that required them in some way, and that (without knowing what act iii is about conceptually, mind you) it didn't seem that May 2026 was really a moment that needed a Beyoncé rock album. BUT as more artists start teasing it, putting out their own, and with Beyoncé's next album already expected to be rock, she can come in when there is that moment without looking like she's following trends.

This would assume that Beyoncé thinks of her unreleased tracks as "belonging" to an era when we know she has included THIQUE and YAYA on new albums despite being unreleased works from albums prior. All the "new" tracks don't sound very B'Day at all and I think that just adds to the "special edition" of it all. But I also agree that anniversary editions for her other albums are less likely. I think that's why she didn't do it for DIL, because then we would expect to see a pattern. Her doing it in random order as she pleases seems more likely, and probably with different anniversary numbers attached to them.

I am so happy with this re-release!!! it sounds SO good, and to have those previously "unreleased" songs on streaming feels AMAZING. I've already added them to playlists. AND the new songsss the Celia sample omg!