Review Revue: Critics React To Beyonce’s “Best Thing I Never Had” Video

Robbie Daw | July 8, 2011 11:22 am

Over a month ago we whipped up a Review Revue for Beyonce’s second 4 single “Best Thing I Never Had,” and the response veered pretty much toward the positive side of the spectrum (especially after the lackluster performance of “Run The World (Girls)”). Now the wedding-themed video for the upbeat tell-off track has premiered. Once again we found ourselves compelled to survey what the Internet at large had to see about Bey’s latest offering. Read on! :: Entertainment Weekly‘s Music Mix took a look at Bey’s vid and raved, “…damn if Ms. Knowles isn’t at her peak — in voice, in looks, in taste in opulent wedding gowns (by Baracci Beverly Hills).”

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:: Rolling Stone also said “I do” to Beyonce’s clip: “The video hits all of its marks perfectly, conveying all of the nuances in the lyrics while providing a lovely, memorable visual.”

:: Zap2it.com got straight to the point: “Beyonce looks super pretty in a wedding dress. That’s the take-away from her new video for the single ‘Best Thing I Never Had’.”

:: PopCrush appeared to breathlessly analyze every frame, and finally concluded with this: “Beyonce’s having the last laugh and a life full of happiness now. Not to mention the fact that she is one of the most striking creatures on earth. No wonder she is celebrating the sorry loser with whom she split. The video issues its own memo to boy who broke the Queen Bee’s heart: It sucks to be you right now.”

:: New York Magazine joked, “Hell, Kate Moss had more outfits in her wedding than Beyonce does in this video, which has been compared to bad Victoria’s Secret and David’s Bridal commercials. So it might be more low-budget than ‘Run the World,’ but it’s still true to Beyonce, who has never hidden her love of wearing underwear or wedding dresses.”

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:: Prefixmag quipped, “Beyonce’s 4 is the current No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, with impressive first week sales of 310,000. This video for ‘Best Thing I Never Had’ is presumably being issued in an attempt to fend off the traditional second week dip in sales. Whether that’s successful or not is moot—4 is still an album without a hit single behind it, although this track feels like it’s got all the appropriate anthemic qualities to change that.”

:: The Prophet Blog got in a few jabs: “Luckily Beyonce’s totally hot, so she kind of gets away with just walking around and being beautiful and sexy for a whole video. Imagine if they’d tried to inject a really loose plot into Rihanna’s ‘California King Bed’ visual, and you’ve got ‘Best Thing I Never Had’.”

:: Meanwhile, Global Grind rounded up the 10 best shots of Bey in the vid while comically noting, “Last night’s premiere of Beyonce’s ‘Best Thing I Never Had’ was a great make up for not seeing her marital union with Jay-Z a few years ago.”

What do you think of Beyonce’s latest video? Let us know below, or on Twitter and Facebook!

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