The 2014 VMAs: The Good and The Meh (Short Recap)

This year's VMAs was not one for the books. Questionable winners, Jay Pharoh effectively annoying the general public with his impressions and a performance list that didn't reflect the current trends of popular music. All that aside there were some good moments and some really meh moments. The meh outweighed the good so I kept the meh as short as possible.

Beyonce "Grown Woman"

After so so so much dicking around with the Pepsi commercial and the live concert premiere (almost two months worth of it) and amidst pregnancy rumours (I see what you did there),the full version of Beyonce's will it be the first single or not track "Grown Woman" has arrived in full. The song was penned by frequent collaborator Terius "The Dream" Nash and produced by Timbaland. It also samples "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)" by rapper Snoop Dogg/Lion. What do you think of the song? Was it worth the wait?

Beyonce "Grown Woman" (Live)

After trolling the world by teasing "Grown Woman" in her Pepsi commercial, Mrs.Carter (aka Beyonce) premiered the full track at her Mrs.Carter world tour stop in Paris. The quality of the video isn't the best, but the Timbaland-produced song sounds like a smash, now all we need is a studio version. Check the performance below! 

Beyonce "Bow Down/I've Been On"

New Bey! New Bey! New Bey! R&B queen Beyonce has been fairly quiet about new music and now she unexpectedly drops a track out of nowhere. The song (or songs) "Bow Down/I've Been On" are produced by Hit Boy ("Niggas In Paris", "Scream and Shout") where we hear Bey being pretty ratchet as all outdoors telling bitches (literally) to bow down, while "I've Been On" is a 2005 style chopped and screwed record where she talks about her hometown of Houston and does some serious boasting. This is interesting indeed, but I don't think will be the first single from her fifth studio album.

Graded Performance: Beyonce-Super Bowl Halftime Show

Beyonce is back!!! King B has been out of the game (not really) taking care of Blue Ivy, fending off rumours of a surrogate and snapping sexy pho. 2013 saw her lip sync  perform at the inauguration and now the moment we have been waiting for...halftime at Super Bowl 47! A 12 minute set of nothing but the best from the singer, even if she negleted to perform anything from B'Day. Bey started off with an intro of her amazing-yet-underrated single, "Run The World (Girls)" which was then cut short to show caricatures of her face and a large flaming silhouette on the stage while she sang "Love on Top", showing off the vocals that we should have heard a week or so ago. After that a high energy, hair-whipping, hip thrusting orgy with her first solo #1 "Crazy In Love". Then we get some Michael Jackson realness for the single that should have been "End of Time", complete with a live horn and sax section, but where were the Les twins?  She then proceeded to duplicate her 2011 Billboard Music awards stage and Dutty wined to "Baby Boy". Then we got a major surprise when Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams came out to perform a small medley of hits (Independent Women, Bootylicious). They even got to sing a small bit of "Single Ladies" before Bey booted them off stage to do her own thing. She closed the show by singing one of her crowing achievements as an artist, "Halo", commanding the audience to put their hands to the stage so she could feel their audience ala Dragonball-Z Spirit Bomb style.
The performance was all kinds of amazing, but I was disappointed with some things. Kinda pissed off that Beyonce did not premiere a new single from her upcoming album like we assumed was going to happen and she only did two DC songs when they have such a large discography. I would have loved them to do "Say My Name" and "Survivor".
Overall Grade:B+