OK, we come, with a certain sigh of relief, since I realise I haven't been overwhelmingly positive about anything for quite a while, to one of the greatest songs of all time,
Crazy in Love - Beyoncé ft Jay-Z
which was the UK Number 1 on my 25th birthday.
That summer was my last PHSP playscheme, so, you could say, my last "childhood" birthday, where I was away, with people I knew, as part of some trip/project.
It was extremely hot that fortnight - it got up to the mid 30s. I remember, on the way to Portsmouth, smoking out of a train window (legally!) - smoke and rushing wind and blazing heat all at once.
I also remember returning to London, to the flat on Kings Avenue I'd recently moved into, and hearing Crazy in Love for the first time, and yes, there it was, a truly great pop single. I'm sure there are plenty of people that don't think so, but I haven't met them or read them.
20 years ago! Crazy in Love, 20 years old. Good god ...
It was not a debut, as such, for Beyoncé. Destiny's Child had become one of the biggest bands in the world, and her star status was unquestionable. And it was not her first solo single - there'd been Work it Out, the previous summer, from the Austin Powers movie (a minor hit in the UK but not the US), then a feature on Jay-Z's 03 Bonnie and Clyde - but, still, the was the real start of it. The announcement of the century's greatest musical star.
Number 1 for eight weeks in the US, only two weeks in the UK. You might have thought it would be longer, but, to be fair, 2003 had some crackers. All The Things She Said, Beautiful, Ignition (I know, but it was), Bring Me to Life, Breathe, Where is the Love, Leave Right Now, Hole in the Head, Mad World. A lot of competition.
Beyoncé's performance is incandescent, Jay-Z's guest slot really adds something (which won't necessarily be the case for one I'll come to in a few years), it comfortably crosses several genres, has several memorable hooks, is just a thing of pure joy.
The man behind the sound was Rich Harrison, and the sound he found was Are You My Woman (Tell Me So) by the Chi-Lites. Harrison, in his early 20s at the time, has had a solid career, but only three megahits ...Crazy in Love, 1 Thing by Amerie and Get Right by Jennifer Lopez, which is less of a megahit than the other two, more a retread. It's fair to say Harrison had a shtick which wasn't infinitely repeatable, but Crazy in Love and 1 Thing are two of the most glorious peas in a pod you'll find.
As an aside, I don't think Jennifer Lopez was a very good pop star. Everything she did seemed to be a few months behind something better that someone else had done.
Beyoncé, on the other hand, is a great pop star and considerably more, someone who, over almost 25 years has hardly ever done something that has been poorly, or even lukewarmly, received, yet has hardly ever done the obvious thing, has always been a step ahead. The hype, the cult, can be a bit unbearable sometimes, but it is more justifiable in this case than most others.
Finally, thinking about Crazy in Love vs Livin' La Vida Loca four years earlier - by the age of 25, as opposed to 21, I was able to recognise that, though I wouldn't be able to light up the floor if Crazy in Love was on, though it had an unabashed joy, a universality I shunned, it was still ok for me to like it, and I didn't have to look askance at all the other people enjoying it.
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