Beyonce - Why Don't You Love Me?

I was disappointed in just about every video off of Beyonce's Sasha Fierce album. Every single video seemed to be an odd cut and paste job reusing old concept in a new way. The video for the first single off of the album was an obvious rip off of Jennifer Lopez's movie Angel Eyes. The song itself is supposedly a rip off from another artist. The video for Halo was cool, but the song had a beat that was written for Kelly Clarkson.

With Why Don't You Love Me, it is a bit different. The video pays homage to pin up stars from an earlier era and looks as though it could have been filmed in the sixties. It has that Super 8 feel to it, along with the horrific editing of films from that era. In the video Beyonce is a desperate housewife who just wants to know why her husband does not love her. In the song she talks about everything she does for him and how easy she makes it for her to be loved. As usual though the song strikes a chord with women throughout America because Beyonce is talking about something that a lot of women are going through.

When you consider the vast amount of women that are either single or have never been married, or the women that are in unhealthy relationships this song is for them. The irony of this release is that the song was actually on the Sasha Fierce album. It was written two years ago by her, her sister and her cousin. It is more of a dance track that would have been forgotten except for the fact that dance music is what is in right now, so the timing could not have been better.

One thing I do like about Beyonce is that she does experiment and attempt to think outside of the box. She will take on film roles, write songs, and music videos that do not make any sense to anyone but herself but can sell you onto her work because of her enthusiasm for the project. The only concern that I have about this video is that Beyonce is still stuck in provocative poses and is still selling hyper-sexualized images of herself to her audience. As good as this video is there it falls short of its full potential.

In fact the video feels a bit like a rip off of Britney Spears video for If You Seek Amy absent the musical and theatrical feel that video had to it. It reminds us that one of the primary reasons we love Beyonce is not her originality, but her salesmanship. Often we are hustled and bamboozled, but we want to be and are looking forward to the experience. Some would be critical of the fact that Beyonce decided to release yet another single off of Sasha Fierce, considering that album already had 7 singles, but Beyonce is actually right on schedule. Beyonce only drops a record every other year anyway, there was a significant break between her first and second albums as she took five years then but even if she were to wait until 2011 to come out it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Beyonce does not sell as much as she used to in the US but she has only dropped one million with each album. Her first record sold 4 million in the US and her last still went double platinum. However she actually is matching her old records in the US internationally; I Am ... Sasha Fierce sold 4 million in the UK. In fact the only thing you can really say about Beyonce's sales is that her former group Destiny's Child sold 8 million on their sophomore release. However that was back in 1999 when everyone was doing a lot better than they are now. A lot of the artists that can't sell 100,000 now were going double platinum back then, and when you consider that Beyonce's solo career didn't jump off until 2003 after album sales for the industry in general had tanked from their all time highs of around 2001. I would say that Beyonce has done very well for herself, and even if she only goes platinum on this album if she increases her sales overseas she would be in the exact same place that she was on her last record ...