pampelmoose Dave Allen of Gang of Four’s Music and Media Blog

Growing up I loved grabbing the New Musical Express each week and reading the singles reviews. Singles back then were 45 RPM 7″ vinyl records and like today they were aimed at the charts; radio and the TV show Top of the Pops were the two big ones to crack. They were also aimed at the hearts and minds of the listeners too and it was the reviewers job to take the pulse of each single delivered and let us know if it was alive and well or D.O.A.; a lot would rest on those weekly reviews and no-one took them for granted.

Of course with the demise of the 7″ vinyl record, replaced by the 5″ shiny CD the invention that would save the music industry by having us all buy our record collections a second time this time digitized, the art of the singles review went the way of, well, where the CD’s going…

And now in a digital age where everyone can pile in with their opinions of what to love and what to hate, thumbs up or down, it’s hard to know who’s taking the pulse of the singles delivered to radio. Yet today I read Kelefa Sanneh’s review of Beyoncé’s new single ‘Irreplaceable’ and found that all is not lost. His review of the single is a perfect reminder to me of what I looked for each week in the paper. And it made me buy the album….

Here’s some excerpts - ““Irreplaceable�? is the payoff: it transforms all that mistrust and anguish into a glorious anthem of fed-up-ness. She sounds exuberant, especially as she delivers those now-famous break-up lines: “To the left, to the left/Everything you own in a box to the left.�? This isn’t just a sing-along; it’s a point-along.”

“Like lots of great pop songs, “Irreplaceable�? isn’t quite as resolute as it first seems. When Beyoncé sings, “Don’t you ever for a second get to thinking/You’re irreplaceable,�? it sounds like a warning, not a breakup. Elsewhere, she slips between the present tense (“I can have another you by tomorrow�?) and the conditional (“I could have another you in a minute�?). It sounds as if the guy might not be needing those boxes after all.”

“She is also breaking a cardinal rule of current R&B, which states that singers of love songs should portray themselves as regular people. That line, “You must not know ’bout me,�? forces listeners to remember that the wounded protagonist is also an A-list celebrity.”

Anyway, decide for yourself - click play. If you dig it buy it new for you and a friend….