by Spence D.

First of all, I'm not a huge fan of misleading the public. As such, I ain't gonna front. The bottom line is that I'm not the biggest fan of modern R&B.; To tell you the truth, I've always found the bulk of contemporary R&B; to be way, way, way too slick and contrived, lacking any real soul, if you will. And don't even get me started on the whole R&B;/rap crossover sub-genre in which hardcore heads wax thuggish while a hot lady croons lovely in the background. Personally, I think that exercise in appealing to disparate genres is not only a crass marketing ploy, but more importantly it just ends up diluting the purity of both mediums.

Nope, gimme OG R&B; by the likes of Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Bill Withers, Otis Redding, and vintage Tina Turner (back when she was with Ike). Yet while my tastes lie with the Old School of Rhythm and Blues, I still keep an ear tuned to the new stuff in the hopes that some young buck will step up and change the game (D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, folks like that).

Now, when it comes to somebody like Beyoncé, you can't ignore her. For one, Destiny's Child were veritable media darlings, saturating both the power station airwaves and the MTV spotlight. Then Beyoncé made that impressive big screen push in Austin Powers: Goldmember channeling her youthful exuberance into a wonderful homage/parody of the classic Pam Grier/Tamara Dobson badass blaxploitation chicks of the '70s. Toss in Ms. Knowles rather public connection with the king of NY bling, Jay-Z, and well, you can't very well ignore her at all, can you?

Beyoncé's first full-fledged solo outing starts off with a bang as "Crazy In Love" percolates incredibly thanks to some hype man activity from Jay-Z and an upbeat samba infused neo disco burble extrapolation of the classic Chi-Lites' joint "Are You My Woman." Beyoncé rides the infectious rhythm with grace and mid-range seductively. And as can be expected, the track bumps when Jay drops his distinctive uptown flavor. While other rap-meet-R&B; tracks often fall flat, this one works well as Beyoncé and Jay's verbals play nicely against one another.

From this auspicious beginning the album remains on full-tilt thanks to the bouncy and sultry faux Middle Eastern bump that saturates the next track, "Naughty Girl." The squiggling synth grooves weave and caress Beyoncé's waif-like vocals creating a brief aura of aural hypnotism, especially when she croons "I feel sexy..." and then her voice gets layered to sound like a harem of Beyoncé's warbling for the affections of some sultan of swing. This track is guaranteed to have even the most staid of folks slithering across the dance floor.

The seductive Middle Eastern tinge continues on "Baby Boy," which benefits from Sean Paul's slick patois, which rides alongside and underneath Beyoncé's infectious vocal drift as she sings about the "so damn fine" baby boy that she thinks about all the time. With "Hip Hop Star" Beyoncé takes something of a back seat as Big Boi and Sleepy Brown bust out on the track first over a low, lumbering, burble beat. Then Beyoncé slides in with her voice tucked into a sultry wisp asking the almost rhetorical question: "Are you infatuated with me?"

While the first four tracks serve up some coolly infectious post-millennial R&B;, the next track falls victim to Old School retrofit as Beyoncé uncovers the slow grind classic "Be With You." Believe it or not, this song borrows not from one, but two (!) classic jams (Shuggie Otis' "Strawberry Letter 23" and the George Clinton penned "Freak Like Me"). Despite the silky groove running underneath Beyoncé's girlish vocals, this song actually signals the downfall of the album, as from here on out it drifts into slow tempo ballad territory.