Waterbender

Yeah the self-sabotaging is frustrating and doesn't make sense from a commercial, charts, revenue, or legacy perspective. That was the most exciting aspect of B'Day 20 for me, as it signalled a potential change on how she perceives her catalogue and archives. But even that was met with backlash from people so idk, it seems that she always gets backlash no matter what she does which would demotivate anyone.

It's been freefalling so much the past couple days

But they've barely touched on the re-release itself. "Daddy" and "Move Your Body" were talked about more than any of the new tracks, while Lost Yo Mind, Back Up and Creole didn't get any mention. "That's the tension at play on this reissue: the burning hunger of 25-year-old Beyoncé's mission to leave her mark and the necessity of 45-year-old Beyoncé having something new to sell. It's nowhere near an offensive butchering, but it is a little cold to treat one of her most inspired albums like just another product to bundle with a new merch collection—including a $948.01 (before shipping) "Bey Keeper's Collector Box" that is "inspired by the beauty of traditional beekeeper crates" to hold your Beyoncé vinyl—vinyl sold separately." They alluded to it being a cash grab which isn't true because it's obvious that a lot of work went into remastering the tracks, re-recording some, plus adding new ones. I'm more annoyed with the review than the score itself. They just seemed to jump on the negative social media convos about the release instead of checking out and reviewing the album.

The Pitchfork review is a bit weird. It spends more time talking about Dangerously in Love and Destiny's Child than B'Day itself. It fully ignores the remastering and the b-sides being on streaming for the first time, only makes a passing comment on the new tracks, and calls all Spanish versions inessential even though they are part of the album's legacy and CUERPO (TUMBAO) is an obvious highlight.

Incredible! How far off is it from #1 on Rhythmic?

I had hoped for a greater streaming uplift from the B'Day deluxe release. A new peak for the single would've been nice.

I can see her retiring and becoming a producer for her children to be honest, if any of them show an interest in following her footsteps. I hope not anytime soon though.

I doubt it. She's already said that she retired from the popstar formula. She's older and has a family to take care of, so her priorities have also changed. She also seems to be getting backlash with every single thing she does, including this re-release, which is why she's become so elusive. If she wasn't as talented and creative in what she does she probably would've taken a backseat and turned into a legacy act like her contemporaries.

She would've had another #1 album if she cared, 40k sales with zero effort is wild. Also no one is going to convince me that an artist who's been vocally anti-AI is using AI instead of Photoshop. We're talking about the same person who had multiple pages on her tour book against it, and who most recently hired a whole orchestra for background production on two deluxe tracks of an anniversary re-release. She obviously doesn't care about cutting costs.

1000% yes to this. Morning Dew -> Can I Watch You -> A Woman Like Me would've flowed so well. I still don't understand what My First Time is doing here over If and WWW.

I'm sad that this isn't doing better commercially. The remaster is excellent and, besides some questionable decisions, deserves exposure. But you can say that with every project of hers. It's such a shame that she's so anti-promotion. In a different world the album and Morning Dew would've been on a race to #1 and multiple tracks would've been debuting too.

She does look younger somehow, and so does Jay Z. Whatever they're doing is working

Noooo she had signed vinyl at a record store near me and I missed out! I am gutted.

Confirmed that the listening party is at the same time as the gig tonight. So weird to have it clashing, especially when other markets have it next week.

Still annoyed about Welcome To Hollywood. The second verse sounds like a demo with the background vocals excluded, and her bridge was the highlight of the song for me.