‘Singles Ladies’ to ‘Broken Hearted Girl’: Charting Beyoncé’s Video Decline

Being a pop singer these days is like standing in line at a carnival to swap your hard-earned tokens for some fluffy swag. Most pop singers get one, maybe two singles out of an album before everyone loses interest. All they've earned maybe an honorable mention on some growly music editor's year-end Top 20 list. Three singles tend to qualify an artist for a "Deluxe Edition" album cash-in. Four singles usually ensures a world tour. Five earns them all previous benefits and mints them as a bona fide superstar, plus a chance to sing on some loony variety show like American Idol. And six singles ... six singles in an era where most music consumers are hard-pressed to recall last year's top-selling single means you're Beyoncé. Which is why with her sixth single, "Sweet Dreams" -- the video which was just released -- this particularly blessed child of destiny has reached something of a milestone. Six singles and seven videos into her Sasha Fierce campaign, we've yet to tire of B's theatrics. And so what, in addition to everything else, does six singles earn a prodigious popstrel like Beyoncé? Why a survey of how cruel time was to the videos that defined Sasha Fierce, of course.

And as easy as it might be to knock her for some of the creative nadirs she achieved, it’s a formula for staggering and prolonging excellence that’s made her stick around for the long run.

Single Ladies: 10. This video become instantly iconic—for its lo-fi complexity. Or maybe for that bizarre robotic armlet Beyoncé’s sporting. Either way, it’s inspired everyone including a bunch of ladies in London, a JoBro, and an Alaskan aficionado to re-create it.

If I Were A Boy: 4. Sigh. For every bit of brilliance, there’s got to be a misfire. But this is bit of gender role reversal is almost as bad as the time when Ciara did the same thing. The video is kind of like an abridged chick flick itself.

Diva: 8. I like videos that try to overconceptualize themselves by including a flash card at the beginning to help us remember what certain, overused words mean. But more importantly, this video features the type of gaudy couture that Lady Gaga’s made her signature. That’s a good thing.

Halo: 5. This song had an excellent video for radio.

Ego: 7. Really, this is where Beyoncé was beginning to show a little fatigue. But just a little bit, because she still dresses and dances to kill. And also makes use of whatever trace bits of that Mark Ronson/Amy Winehouse/Duffy jazz-pop trend we were still humoring. Bonus Points: The remix video featuring Kanye West doing that strange rapping-coughing thing.

Sweet Dreams: 4. Terrible. It’s really just the dancing and the song itself that give it those 4 points of excellence.

Broken Hearted Girl: 3. Sometimes even the biggest stars strike out. Beyoncé struck out with this otherwise pretty generic video for a single that was quickly cancelled. It’s the worst use of a beach since this video.