An interesting thing about Beyonce I picked up reading one of these impossibly dreary and virtuous pieces on this new record - and it's something I sort of knew just through noticing that you never heard her songs on the radio, like, maybe once in a blue moon you'll hear something, but generally she's not played on the commercial rap / R&B stations here - but she continues to be the biggest thing in pop (so it's said) but she has not had a number one single in about a dozen years. I forget the exact number but it's a really really long time, and it's very striking because before that, from Destiny's child through to i don't know which song, virtually ever Beyonce-connected song was a number one. So she's remained this enormous Pop Figure, based on something other than radio plays or track sales or singles chart positions. A free-floating eminence has been achieved, based on things like the Serious Statements, doing that video album, and the sheer critical acreage of coverage those gleaned, and then stuff like the Superbowl performance.
