None of them are touching “Get Me Bodied,” a Beyoncé all-timer. “The idea of ‘getting me bodied’ was basically Beyoncé loving New York guys,” Sean Garrett said in an interview about writing this track. “In New York, they say, ‘Imma body this nigga when I see him,’ and this was the flip of that.” You can sense that energy on the sexed-up hook, where she sounds so loose while keeping that Aretha-raised soul intact. Swizz, fresh off yelling all over singles like Remy Ma’s “Whuteva,” is more in DJ Webstar hypeman mode, which gives the track an almost mix-CD vibe. I have a feeling Beyoncé is similarly high on “Get Me Bodied,” given that there are three different Spanish remixes on the reissue. Too bad all of them stink, because her interest in Latin music seems to be a lot more surface level—very ’90s-sounding reggaeton dependent on familiar samples—than her plunge into East Coast street shit. At least she didn’t include the English version of “Move Your Body,” the 2011 edit of “Get Me Bodied” produced for a Michelle Obama childhood obesity campaign.
That’s the tension at play on this reissue: the burning hunger of 25-year-old Beyoncé’s mission to leave her mark and the necessity of 45-year-old Beyoncé having something new to sell. It’s nowhere near an offensive butchering, but it is a little cold to treat one of her most inspired albums like just another product to bundle with a new merch collection—including a $948.01 (before shipping) “Bey Keeper’s Collector Box” that is “inspired by the beauty of traditional beekeeper crates” to hold your Beyoncé vinyl—vinyl sold separately.
Well, good thing the songs still hit. “Deja Vu” whips ass: the live horns, the Off the Wall-style bent to her impassioned grunt-wails, Jay proving himself to be the last mainstream rapper with serious baseball references. The Rich Harrison go-go band feel of “Freakum Dress” might just sound like “Crazy in Love” again, but I like the club play-by-play in the verses more. “Kitty Kat,” produced by the Neptunes at their airiest, is some of her tightest writing to this day. It’s as if she’s sealing a goodbye letter to an ungrateful man with a lipsticked kiss, as if this is the relationship from which she must regretfully move on to fulfill her purpose.
There is an old Neptunes cut (“My First Time”) and a couple of P-assisted throwaways (“Morning Dew (Donk)” and “Can I Watch You”) on here, too; hard to complain about that, but none of them are as heartfelt as “Kitty Kat.” If there is a compromise on the original B’Day, it is the Ne-Yo penned “Irreplaceable,” with its Nashville-influenced structure and straightforward vocal balladry. Of course, this song became the hit and is still one of the biggest singles she’s ever put out. Corny but I get it—that “to the left, to the left” refrain is still catchy as hell. The drums are also harder than they have any right to be, which sort of feels more like a personal touch than any of the lyrics. The better ballad is “Flaws and All,” because it seems like a nod to all of the insecurities she had to overcome, the walls she had to bring down, to be able to make B’Day.
Years later there’d be more relationship-specific and revealing Beyoncé music, but that came once the music world was all-in on Bey fever, when, in the eyes of many, she could do no wrong. B’Day is riskier, rawer. It’s her chips-all-in album. She didn’t just run back the hit-chasing of Dangerously in Love, or wait for her dad to lay out the master plan. “When I was young, my ambition was to get a recording deal and get a gold record and write a number one single,” she said in 2003. “That was the only thing I wanted.” B’Day is after more than that: It’s her.
Additional research by Deirdre McCabe Nolan.
