The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
 6D — Fall 2018

Ever since “‘03 Bonnie & 
Clyde,” Jay-Z and Beyoncé have 
wanted you to know two things 
about their relationship: they’re 
in love and they’re rich. For 
years that’s the most they’ve 
cared to divulge. They kept 
their 2008 wedding as hush-
hush as possible and would 
almost never be caught publicly 
without sunglasses — Jay often 
opted to cover his eyes while 
they sat courtside at indoor 
NBA games. They popped up 

here and there as if to bless 
us with their public presence, 
but that exterior appearance 
was all us normal people got to 
witness.
It wasn’t until 2016, with the 
release of Beyoncé’s creative 
opus Lemonade, that cracks in 
the perfect marble sculpture 
of the Carters became visible. 
Bey not only touched on the 
social and political nature of 
Black love, but the personal 
as well; she was on a quest for 
self-knowledge in the face of 
infidelity. That infidelity, Jay-
Z’s alone, was nothing but 
a tabloid rumor for a couple 

years 
but 
made 
headlines 
with 
Lemonade 
and 
was 
only further made concrete 
when 4:44 arrived in 2017. 
With 
4:44, 
Jay-Z 
brought 
his flaws to the forefront, 
admitting his guilt and asking 
for forgiveness. Who knows 
what happened between the 
two superstars behind closed 
doors, but it seems to them 
the highest form of therapy is 
making music together. And 
with the unannounced drop of 
EVERYTHING IS LOVE, this 
unorthodox trilogy of healing 
has its final act.
EVERYTHING 
IS 
LOVE 

represents 
a 
synthesis 
of 
Beyoncé’s perfect pop formula 
and Jay-Z’s classical brand of 
rap, but instead of being the 
lavish pairing we have come 
to expect, it comes across as a 
controlled mess. The couple’s 
undying love is at the center of 
the album, but the music itself 
has no heart — there’s no sonic 
flow as the tracklist jumps 
from a sexy string symphony 
to trap-inspired synth banger 
or songs that sound less like 
collaborations and more like 
Magna Carta Holy Grail or 4 
leftovers.
If anything, one of the few 
consistent musical takeaways 
from the album is that Beyoncé 
has cemented herself as a good 
rapper, sometimes outshining 
Jay-Z in terms of technical 
ability. She borrows the triplet 
flow on “APESHIT,” trades bars 
with Pharrell on “NICE” and 
poetically chides her husband 
on “LOVEHAPPY.” “You fucked 
up the first stone, we had to get 
remarried,” raps Bey, almost 
certainly looking at Jay dead 
in the eyes in the booth. In this 
way, EVERYTHING IS LOVE 
comes across as Beyoncé album 
that happens to feature Jay-Z 
on every track, as he functions 
more as afterthought than equal 
collaborator. His contributions 
are fewer and further between 
than those of his wife, and his 
verses occupy the portions of 
any given instrumental at its 
barest; Beyoncé is backed by 
a soulful chorus on “BOSS” 
while Jay-Z is left to work with 
snare drums and a singular 
background 
vocalist. 
When 
Jay-Z flips off the NFL and 

tells them “You need me, I don’t 
need you” on “APESHIT,” it’s 
almost if Beyoncé could say the 
same to her husband himself.
There’s something off about 
this new version of Beyoncé, 
though, as she brags about 
Lamborghinis 
and 
Patek 
Philippe watches on a verse 
clearly written by Offset of 
the Migos (him and Quavo 
lend their ad-libbing talent 
to “APESHIT”), and her flow 
perfectly matches Pharrell’s on 
“NICE,” leaving you wondering 
if he just didn’t give her half of 
his verse. In fact, there’s this 
whole manufactured quality 
of EVERYTHING IS LOVE 
that 
makes 
this 
meditative 
masquerade sound artificial. 
Each 
song 
rests 
on 
the 
shoulders of a veritable army of 
songwriters and producers: Ty 
Dolla $ign, Cool & Dre and Boi-
1da, to name a few.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z are so in 
control of their public images 
that it should come as no 
surprise they recruited such 
talent to bring this album to life. 
However, facts like that make 
this celebration of their love 
seem hollow. The convenient 
rollout of EVERYTHING IS 
LOVE and the two preceding 
solo albums, along with the 
On the Run II Tour, makes 
the inner conspiracy theorist 
in me wonder if the whole 
saga of Jay-Z’s affair (except 
Solange whooping Jay’s ass 
in an elevator) was nothing 
more than a carefully crafted 
publicity stunt to drive album 
sales and Tidal subscriptions.
Ironically, the best moments 
of EVERYTHING IS LOVE 

comes when it relaxes its precise 
focus on the power couple. 
Album 
highlight 
“BLACK 
EFFECT” is a love letter to their 
own Blackness and acceptance 
of the symbolic power they 
have 
in 
their 
community. 
Jay-Z aims to uplift, shouting 
out “I’m good on any MLK 
Boulevard” and demonstrating 
the power of unity. The video 
for “APESHIT” is similarly 
empowering; the two have the 
fuck-you money to rent out 
the Louvre for one night and 
use it as their personal artistic 
playground, 
juxtaposing 
successful Black artists like 
themselves and their team of 
dancers with perhaps the most 
recognizable 
collection 
of 
white art on the planet. Jay-Z 
props himself before The Raft 
of the Medusa, a rarity among 
famous paintings as a Black 
man is at the pinnacle of the 
composition, 
while 
Beyoncé 
dances in front of the Mona 
Lisa and Winged Victory of 
Samothrace, placing herself as 
the new ideal of beauty among 
those classical notions.
Yet, 
without 
the 
visuals 
for “APESHIT,” the song is 
nothing more than an elevated 
trap anthem, as the lyrics give 
no hint of its take on high 
art. And this identity crisis is 
representative of the whole 
album itself: While it attempts 
to shape Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s 
love, 
success 
and 
passion 
into a jubilant meditation on 
Black excellence, it celebrates 
Carter 
excellence 
instead. 
Albeit 
tastefully 
opulent, 
EVERYTHING IS LOVE can’t 
shake its extravagant vanity.

SONY
‘Everything is Love’ is 
excessive without purpose

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

ROBERT MANSUETTI
Summer Senior Arts Editor

The 
thing 
you 
need 
to 
know about Shawn Mendes 
is that he was a Vine kid. 
More 
importantly, 
he 
was 
one of those Vine kids who 
didn’t use the platform for 
tormenting 
unsuspecting 
parents or siblings, but rather 
used it mostly for showcasing 
musical talents that would have 
otherwise 
remained 
hidden. 
Armed with an acoustic guitar 
and a wide smile, Mendes 
would post short clips of him 
covering various Ed Sheeran, 
One Direction and 5 Seconds 
of Summer songs (and even a 
Beyoncé track thrown in here 
and there). His rise to fame 
started here, under the pastel 
green curl of Vine’s logo, vocals 
restricted to bite-sized, five-
second long segments.
It’s a shallow personability 
that has remained constant 
throughout his music, even as 

Mendes stepped away from 
Vine, 
entered 
into 
record 
contracts and started releasing 
original albums. His songs lack 
substance, depth or dynamism, 
instead just minute variations 
on the same easily-consumable, 
bred-for-radio sound that has 
been 
recycled 
throughout 
generations of generic pop stars 
from Ed Sheeran to Charlie 
Puth. And it isn’t a bad sound 
— catchy hooks and predictable 
melodies 
are 
easy 
to 
sing 
along to when you’re stuck in 
bad traffic — but it’s one that 
lacks originality; music that 
never goes beyond established 
constraints.
Shawn 
Mendes’s 
newest 
single, “Lost In Japan” follows 
the same formula — easily 
memorable 
“Can’t 
get 
you 
off my mind” a bow on top 
of 
the 
whole 
shiny, 
auto-
tune slathered chorus — only 
with an “edgy” R&B twist. 
Rather 
than 
authentic, 
the 
dancing synth and energetic 

tempo’s upbeat pulse are only 
reminiscent of Calvin Harris’s 
Funk Wav Bounces Vol.1, and 
Shawn Mendes finds himself 
continuing to rip off those who 
came before him.
To be fair, Mendes is not a 
bad artist. His vocal range is 
astounding, 
natural 
falsetto 
reaches add texture to every 
lackluster 
melody 
and, 
as 
he jumps from the smooth 
crescendo of the chorus into the 
abrupt “I could feel the tension 
/ We could cut it with a knife” of 
verse one, Mendes is graceful, 
never allowing the delicate 
warmth of his voice to falter.
“Lost In Japan” is nothing 
new. Similar to the breezy 
triviality of what came before 
it — songs like “There’s Nothing 
Holding You Back” or “Treat 
You Better” — the single’s best 
feature is its consumerism — the 
nearly universal sentiment that 
can be found within Mendes’s 
manufactured 
confession 
of 
love. 

‘Lost in Japan’ a false, 
manufactured charm

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI
Daily Music Editor

