Apparently over 2,000,000 copies sold is just not enough for superstar diva, Beyonce Knowles, who’s 2003 debut disc, Dangerously In Love, shifted over twice that figure. Despite being one of the most successful releases of 2006, Knowles and her management plan to not only re-release the album, but add a “3rd chapter”, a live disc to come out later this year. With it’s heavy beats, aggressive vocals, unique titles, and effortlessly addicitive hooks, does B’Day fair better or worse with a few added tracks?

Disc 1 opens with Shakira duet, “Beautiful Liar”, a sultry mix of latino-pop and r&b flavors, but with a video that overshadows the song itself (and makes you realize that the song may not have been as dazzling as you first imagined). Well it might find a better fit on the re-release of Shakira’s Oral Fixation Vol. 2 (2005/2006), this “Hips Don’t Lie” sibling is still catchy all over. It’s no surprise when horribly overplayed #1 megahit “Irreplaceable” occupies the second spot, but you’re thrown for a loop when the more “out there” original B’Day tracks, “Greenlight”, with it’s so-so verses but increasingly catchy chorus, and the sexed-up slow jam, “Kitty Kat” take the next 2 seats. And once again, in a very interesting method of beginning an album, Knowles throws in her rapper boyfriend, Jay-Z’s “Kingdom Come” album track, “Welcome To Hollywood” (which she’s featured on quite a bit of). While the title sounds promising, you find yourself puzzled about 30 seconds in, on whether or not the song should be sent packing back to Jay-Z’s disc, or still sitting on the shelves of Columbia Records collecting dust.

Finally, the album has the sense knocked back into it, and the simple but terrifically pumping track (”Upgrade U”, yet again ft. Jay-Z), starts up with just Beyonce’s vocals and a beat. The intricately twisting lyrics will continue to amaze you all the way into a new track, “Flaws And All”. The non-belted half-ballad will mystify you for the full 4:10, and becomes increasingly enchanting throughout, with a rather floating effect. But with a hit, there had to be a slight miss. The cover song, “Still In Love (Kissing You)”, bores in comparison, but does have a few good moments half way through.

Then comes a flood of old B’Day tracks, all of which still perform to high standards. Despite “Get Me Bodied” being unnecessarily turned into an extended mix (with a tedious extra 1:30 tailgating the brilliant beats), “Freakum Dress”, “Suga Mama”, “Deja Vu”, “Ring The Alarm”, “Resentment”, and “Listen” are pitch-perfect. However, with hidden track, “World Wide Woman”, it’s clear why Columbia would want it “hidden” as it’s a big mess of a miss, sounding like a good leftover track from her first album, but completely out of place on this release.

Disc 2, where Beyonce naively takes on several spanish efforts of previous tracks, turns out to be nearly pointless. “Amor Gitano”, the only new track on this disc, lacks anything special, even with a feature from Alexandro Fernandez. And with Spanish versions and remixes of tracks like “Listen” and “Beautiful Liar”, “Irreemplazable” (the spanish version of, you guessed it, “Irreplaceable”) is the only one that is striking when switched in language. But maybe that’s just because it puts a fresh spin on what some call the best track of Knowles career.

A plus is the paper-produced simple, yet “cute” packaging, but it seems that B’Day may have been better left alone, with the exception of “Flaws And All” (which you should just download, as opposed to buying the whole re-release). Maybe Beyonce should just try and get it right on the first try and leave it at that, instead of possibly poisoning the whole idea all together, with an over-dose of new tracks and new releases.

Note: If you don’t own the original release of B’Day, you’ll probably find this pretty pleasing. But for those who do have the original, this is not much to brag about.

Best Old Tracks: “Irreplaceable”, “Suga Mama”, “Upgrade U”, “Freakum Dress”, “Resentment”

Best New Tracks: “Beautiful Liar”, “Flaws And All”

Original Release Score: 8.0

Re-Release Score: 6.75
Rating: 3 / 5

Why did Beyonce re-release B-Day? Did she have a need to? Wasn’t the previous version selling? The last time I checked, the first version of B-DAY has sold over 2 million copies in the U.S. alone. It pisses me off when an artist re-release their album and the previous version is doing so well. Usher and Mariah Carey did the same thing. One word….GREEDY!!!!! I would’ve understood if the original version of B-DAY wasn’t selling, but it is.

I can also understand the other reason why Beyonce re-release this album. It’s so obvious. She’s trying to get the attention focused back on her. Normally when Beyonce is involved with a project, she gets all the attention and she loves being in the spotlight. Who’s been getting all the attention lately? Jennifer Hudson. Beyonce thought she was going to be the star of DREAMGIRLS, but she thought wrong. For once, there’s a female artist out there who’s getting all the attention besides Beyonce.

I’m sure that the new version of B-DAY is great, but Beyonce isn’t getting anymore of my money…she’s greedy.
Rating: 1 / 5

I’m a fan of Beyonce and I liked the original version of this album from the moment I heard it. I could identify with alot of the songs and they are great to dance and work-out to. I watched the videography and decided that I would buy this cd with the added songs mainly because of the song Flaws and All. This songs speaks to me in a very personal and lovely way and that’s why I love Beyonce..lol..So I gave it 5 stars, and stamp that it’s a very good cd, but I’m a fan.
Rating: 5 / 5