It took me a while to figure out what happened. But I think this is it.
Beyonce put out a vinyl version of her universally acclaimed musical/video project this week. It’s on yellow vinyl!
The problem? Side A doesn’t include Side A of Beyonce’s album. Somehow the pressing plant instead injected a side of a Canadian punk rock band called Zex’s songs onto that Beyonce A Side.
Good for Zex, though it’s hard to see where the audiences overlap. But the mishap got me listening to a few Zex tracks. (Frankly, I’ll listen to anything Canadian.)
My evaluation? Zex has a dynamic singer and decent chops, but the songs? Yeah, I know. Try this:
And you know, after listening to so much crap fake punk rock for a long time, this stuff seems pretty heartfelt, which is nice. Songwise? Maybe not all the way there, but the heart and head are in the right place.
I hope the mistake helps them. Here is an interview about the whole fiasco.
Beyoncé? I’m glad this happened. What does the face of “fierce” (for all our daughters to look up to) do when her sleazeball husband cheats? Takes him right back. Oooh, but she wrote an album about it. . .wow. Please. Drop the fierce and croon “Stand By Your Man” if you wanna be honest.
Zex? Nice try. Sorry, but my first thought is, for maximum entertainment value, cease your sub Joan Jett vocal stylings ASAP and go back to stripping. Compare this to that live Husker video a couple posts back for a study in real punk rock versus real contrived corporate fake punk rock.
But Zex over Beyoncé, for sure, one to nothing.
I know very little about Beyonce. I’ve heard snippets of her songs and seen bits of her “act,” and everything sucked so why pursue it? But I saw this movie and she did a helluva job on “I’d Rather Go Blind.” Not as good good as Etta James but right up there with Rod Stewart. Beyonce also did a damn good job acting Etta James.
Zex zucks.