Song of the Day - 2 Shots of Halo - Beyonce

Happy Friday! Today is July 1st and I'm back after a short trip down to Atlantic City. Though I had planned to at least keep up with the "Song of the Day" while I was gone, I now realize why many of my fellow bloggers announce breaks in blogging when they go away because when you are away from home it's just hard to get down to business. So, now's time to get back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Beyonce

The musical artist for the day is Beyonce. She and I have had a rocky relationship in the past, but that's all over with now. Way back when she was in Destiny's Child, I never really thought too much of her personally. I liked, not loved, their music, but when she bolted for a solo career after only a couple of albums I thought she was just full of herself. I know a lot of people hated Diana Ross when she left the Supremes, but at least that was after six or seven years and many albums together. I resisted her and her solo career for a few years because I didn't like what she had done, but that's all changed now.

Beyonce is definitely a talent. With a string of both hot dance numbers and nice ballads, she's amassed a catalog that I've come to love. From hot, funky stuff like 'Get Me Bodied,' 'Check On It,' and 'Put a Ring On It' to tender ballads like 'If I Were a Boy' and 'Irreplaceable,' Beyonce's stuff is a little bit of everything.

On Tuesday I downloaded her latest CD, her fourth studio album appropriately titled "4," and listening to it was a bit of a surprise. The first single, which I had already had in my iPod, 'Run the World (Girls),' is not exactly one of her best dance songs and I had originally hoped for more good possibilities from it. On first listen, I saw that the bulk of the album is down tempo, something that I would normally avoid, but almost every song on the album is fantastic.

I enjoyed "4" so much that I penned a review of it, which you can read here. It's the quickest I've ever reviewed an album after its release, so that's really saying something for how I feel about it.

I love it when a producer remixes a good ballad into nice dance song. These types of club songs are amongst my favorites, like MJB's 'Be Without You' and 'No More Drama' or Whitney Houston's 'My Love Is Your Love.' This remix of Beyonce's 'Halo' is a recent favorite, and I'm including that version here after the original. 'Halo' is from Bey's last CD "I Am...Sasha Fierce," and it's such a beautiful song, both musically and lyrically. I hope you enjoy both equally great versions:

Remember those walls I built
Well baby they're tumbling down
They didn't even put up a fight
They didn;t even make a sound...





And here's the remix by David Aude:



P.S. There are some great possibilities on "4" for some nice remixes, like '1+1,' 'I Care,' and 'I Was Here.' Deejays, are you listening?

Here are links to purchase "4":



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