Tuesday's Drop:Queen of Pop Secures Throne

Pay no attention to the drag queen-ready title of ­Beyoncé's new album. She may have titled her third solo CD "I Am ... Sasha Fierce," but the music seems hellbent on proving just the opposite.
It finds this battering ram of a star not just lowering her guard, but practically opening up a vein.
That's partially by design. Beyonce divided the 16-song double set in two, devoting the first half (dubbed "I Am ...") to aching ballads, the second ("Sasha Fierce") to her usual "I am woman, hear me roar" anthems. At least that's what Beyoncé stated. In truth, the "upbeat" section includes its share of ballads, too. And even the harder, faster section's songs express more yearning than defiance.

All this comes as more than a revelation. It's a relief — especially following Beyoncé's last album, 2006's hastily recorded "B'Day." That disk seemed primed to compete with the music of then boyfriend Jay-Z for hardness, anger and distance.
How ironic that only now that Beyoncé has married Jay has she released an album rippling with need and hurt.

The result has done wonders for both her character, and the breadth of the music. Avoiding the usual R&B clichés, Beyoncé's new songs draw on the wider palette of pop. The song "Disappear" has some of the intimate chord structures of a John Lennon ballad, while "Smash Into You" shows influence from the musicals ­Beyoncé branched into with "Dreamgirls." "That's Why You're Beautiful" even swipes some chords from grunge.
The loosening of Beyoncé's melodic structures allows her to circumvent the constricted, and rhythm-driven, shouts of her ­earlier work to access new parts of her range. She snakes up the crescendo of "Satellites" with fresh grace, and embraces ­operatic flourishes in "Ave Maria" with heavenly élan. The album's first single, "If I Were a Boy," presents an ideal marriage of Beyoncé's newly empathic lyrics and non-­cliché melodies, which studiously avoid the ­melodic limitations of post-hip-hop R&B.
Beyoncé even worked to undermine her famous perfectionism: In some songs she purposely hits bum notes.
Not every song mines the warm new mode. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" honors the sporty beat and in-your-face lyrics Beyoncé has drawn on since her days in Destiny's Child. Same goes for the tellingly titled "Diva."
But even a song called "Ego" avoids expectations by celebrating a man's cockiness rather than her own. More, the album ends the "Sasha" section with perhaps the most open-hearted ballad on the CD, "Scared of Lonely." It's a whole new Beyoncé here, bold and brave enough to finally let herself be weak.