Beyonce Wears The Pants Around Here

ARTIST: Beyonce TITLE: “If I Were A Boy” WEB DEBUT: Oct. 8, 2008

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Beyonce’s attempt at a gender-bending single is a starkly intimate ballad that starts off with her waking up and reveling in the relatively low-energy process of getting ready–no eyeliner or lipstick to be trifled with here! From there, it goes into a description of how she’d spend her day as a he: chilling with the dudes, flirting with any and all women who enter their orbit, and generally ignoring any emotional needs put forth by the woman who’s allegedly an important part of his life. (The lyric “I’d put myself first / And make the rules as I go / ‘Cause I know that she’d be faithful / Waitin’ for me to come home” has about eight levels of bitterness going on.) So yeah, it’s pretty much a breakup anthem, as evidenced by the chorus, which is about women being taken for granted and men not realizing that they’ve got a good thing until said ladies have wised up, moved on, etc. In that sense, it’s lyrically different from Ciara’s attempt to play Man For A Day; Beyonce doesn’t come off as put-upon by her man’s screwups as much as she is determined not to make the same mistake twice.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: Z100 has the stream.