Beyonce has returned this week, with a brand new single. “Bow Down”, and in doing so created quite the spectacle. Potentially featuring on Beyonce’s New, fifth Album, and most definitely being used as a “buzz track” to get the “Bee Hive” excited for her new Tour, The Mrs. Carter Show, Bow Down has got feminists in uproar! The track itself, sounds like a cross between an 80s Atari Console game with sounds reminiscent of Asteroids or Missile Command, and a Miss Dynamite track, with some MIA influences to it. Bow Down sounds like Baby Blue Ivy, performed the intro, before Beyonce stumbles into her karaoke growl (Simon Cowell, would not like that at all), yelling “Bow Down B*tches”, Before she uses her “Ava Maria”, soprano over a really weird bassline, which has cool tempo to it, but is messed up by the sound fx.

Beyonce then channels the Dark Side, on the second half of the preview, “I Been On”, (Oprah – yes, We Know), which sounds like it’s being sung from the cellar from the evil dead cabin.

(It Aint Groovy).

I think what B was going for a Diss track, Lil Kim, & Trina Style, but Beyonce isn’t a rapper, and the track has come out sounding like it takes itself too serious. I’ve Been a fan of Beyonce’s music, since I bought Bootylicious by Destiny’s Child, and then the House mixes, “Work it out”, and of course “Crazy In Love” which was one of, if not the best song’s of 2003.

B’day, Beyonce’s second album, is my favorite of her career, mixing the kind of funky sassyness and hard basslined urban pop songs, she has become renowned for. It seemed Beyonce was getting back to her roots with the under appreciated “4”, which featured the beautifully smooth and uplifting “Love on top”, and was head and shoulders above the Sasha Fierce era, which just didn’t do it for me. “Bow Down”, seems to be Beyonce bringing Sasha Fierce back to life, after she said she was “done” with that character. It’s a step backwards musically, and literally. Beyonce has established herself as one of the best entertainers, and female singers in the world. Having presented herself as an “Independent Woman”, and telling us (Girls)-“Run The World”, Bow Down-“Bitches” was also going to be seen as a slap in the face to that, and the titling of her new tour as “The Mrs’ Carter Show”, makes it appear her independence and female power is now being emasculated while at the same time, she has been appointed both”King” , and “Queen” Bee, by hardcore fans. Much confusion.

Elton John, and Madonna, along with Gwen Steffani, have already done the “Regal” approach to theatricality, and done it with a sense of sending themselves up. This blurring of the gender divide, between “King” and “Queen” B, comes at at a time when Rihanna sings “Cockiness” with no irony at all, and Nicki Minaj waves a strap on weener on stage. Bow Down, and The Mrs Carter Show feels like Beyonce in an identity crisis, as much as the music industry itself, seems to have lost it’s way as what’s labelled as R&B music today, isn’t really r&b at all. It’s typically pop, electro with some urban inflections, sung by singers from an urban or gospel background.

Watching the behind the scenes video of Beyonce’s Dangerously in Love Tour, on my DVD, and comparing that to her new HBO Documentary, Life is but a dream” I‘m almost waiting for James Bond’s latest nemesis to saunter in and ask “is there Anything, of the old Beyonce left”?

All we want is for Beyonce, to be herself, and all I want is for the old Beyonce to come back, that’s the one who provided me with some musical inspiration, and prompted me to work my butt off on a remix of the stompin “End Of Time”, last year.

I’m not sure who, Beyonce wants to Bow Down to her, Superman wouldn’t “kneel before zod!”, and while I’m Down for Beyonce, Sorry B, This B*tch Can’t Bow Down to you.