Showing her fans just how wide her talents ranges, Beyoncé gave a performance at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards displaying the new direction she is taking her music. Her performance came right before she was awarded the Billboard Millennium Award, for which it is obvious from her performance that Beyoncé deserves the award. The song performed was the first single released from her upcoming album “4” entitled “Run the World (Girls).”
What made the performance so different, and special, for Beyoncé was that she used digital features that were incorporated into her choreography. At first, a digitized lion pops up on the screen and immediately following a digital version of Beyoncé appears out of the lion’s mouth. In an instant, the real Beyoncé pops up in the place of the digital image making her entrance and stunning the audience. Here, Beyoncé does what she does best. She begins to dance her butt off and sing simultaneously. However, as she dances, digital images are still popping up on the screen behind her. There are even cloned digitized images of Beyoncé that are dancing in sync behind the real Beyoncé. Therefore, it looks like there are several versions of Beyoncé performing for the audience. Moving towards the latter half of the song, Beyoncé stopped using the digital screen and brought out a large group of dancers to finish out the song with her. The dancing was enhanced and all of their moves were on point. It was highly entertaining whether you were in the audience or watching the show on television.
Being a huge Beyoncé fan I might be biased in my argument when I say this, but I also think that live performances are more captivating to both the eyes and the ears. Many artists use technology such as lights and videos to create a thrilling set to perform on. I have had the opportunity of seeing Beyoncé in concert a couple of times and I am not lying when I say her show is completely amazing. She also uses a lot of technology to make her concerts exciting and lively. However, what I love most about Beyoncé is that I love her live vocals better than her recorded vocals.
Beyoncé is, in my eyes, great at musical improvisation. From watching her in person, on YouTube, on her concert DVDs, or on live televised appearances, Beyoncé will sing the same song differently each time due to her emotion and improvisation skills. One of my favorite techniques, that can mean so little to some people, is Beyoncé’s use of adlibbing. She did it “Run the World (Girls)” a little bit, but sometimes she just goes off with her adlibs. It just shows that Beyoncé feels the power of the lyrics and she wants her audience to be inspired as well. One of the great things about Beyoncé is that she offers a live recording of her concerts on CD. Honestly, I would rather listen to those CDs than her original recordings because of the emotion and inspiration I feel when I listen to her sing live. Beyoncé will always be a great performer with her dancing and technological set designs, but her vocals skills are also very power and very influential for her fans.
This single, “Run the World (Girls)” has not been the most successful song Beyoncé has released; maybe because it is yet another femme-feminist empowerment song she has released. However, I think that she wanted to prove that it could be an entertaining song if people gave it chance. Since this performance, the song has climbed the iTunes charts and I have heard it several times being requested on local radio stations. Now, every time I hear the song, I immediately think of the creative and inventive performance Beyoncé gave on the awards show. I think that other performers will build off this performance and start incorporating digital technology into their own performers. Beyoncé is an innovator and is one of the best at her craft. People are meant to learn from her. Therefore, since Beyoncé is going in a new direction with her music, other artists will probably branch off and follow her path as well.
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