Did Beyoncé have the greatest video of all time? Yes. See- Formation.
Was Single Ladies one of the best videos of all time? Probably. It’s a gorgeous video. In larger terms, Beyoncé's vast videography is unlike any other pop artists' our world has known. Her work is varied, thrilling, evocative, and beautiful. MJ truly wish he could. Just as Michael Jackson’s videography was groundbreaking in its time, Beyoncé consistently creates impeccable, iconic, and spectacular music videos. Sometimes full albums of it. It’s truly unbelievable.
On the other hand, when Taylor Swift first surfaced as a young singer-songwriter, her narrative-style videos were compelling to her young audience. Her videos are fun, but they just do not compare to Beyoncé's. Cinderella Story is really fun and nice when you're 14 with a DVD player in your room, but it’s not a cultural experience. In 2009, "You Belong With Me" was a very cute video and a sweet little preteen fantasy, while "Single Ladies" turned out to be unique and iconic, complete with trendsetting choreography that will be danced at the weddings of our grandchildren. The play with gradation in the black and white scale throughout the video is graceful and dynamic. The dancers are Black and beautiful, uniform and powerful. Taylor Swift is any movie with Mandy Moore (Tangled even), but Beyoncé is The Godfather.
The parallels in the quality of their music video extend as a comparison for their greater bodies of work. Taylor routinely steals ideas from Beyoncé in her desperate attempts to keep up with the Queen Bey in the pop industry. It’s extremely cringe.
There's really no comparing the two, although the music industry attempts to do so, and fails every time. In fact, the music industry routinely overlooks the best thing that ever happened to it in favor of the paste. Yeezy's brass attempts to correct the VMA's mistake wouldn't be the last time a major artist defended Beyoncé at an award show. When Adele's 25 won the Grammy for best album over Beyoncé's earth-shattering Lemonade, her acceptance speech served as a rejection of the award in favor of Beyoncé. In fact, maybe our entire culture would have been better off if Kanye had taken a page out of Adele's book, On the Methodology of Allyship. Amazingly, the nonstop discussion of Kanye’s asshattery never includes mention of when Beyoncé re-invited Taylor to the stage to share her acceptance speech time for another award later in the VMA ceremony.
Kanye was right, and prophetic. But yes, obviously Kanye shouldn’t have interrupted the teenager’s speech; that was fucked. Even if she is a white devil.
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