Holding true to form, Beyonce drops not one, but two videos from her current ‘I Am…” CD. Video #1 is from the softer side of Be, and in my eyes, it’s the most disappointing part of the record. “Halo” sounds like “No Air”, “T-Shirt”, and all of the other sound alikes that emerged when “Umbrella” became so popular. From a visual perspective, simply overexposing the frames does NOT make your video angelic. It’s getting to the point where it looks like the record company said “you can do two videos at a time, but you’re only getting the budget for one of your usual videos. Make it work!” Tim Gunn would be most disappointed…

For Beyonce’s Ying, there’s gotta be Sasha’s Yang. And her Yang is doing it’s thang in the video for “Diva”. It’s a Beyonce Dance-a-palooza, with an edgy feel to it. That is, if you define “edgy” as black and white, dim lighting, and Lady GaGa-inspired outfits. Here’s the interesting thing about the video for me, though. While a lot of the young’uns will look at this video and scream “she’s ripping off the Lady!”, she really isn’t. Ladies have been doing coordinated dance routines for years, and there’s as much early Mary J. Blige in this dance routine as there is GaGa. Shoulder pads do not make a GaGa. Now that REALLY futuristic outfit just seems inserted for bragging rights or something. Makes her look like a fancy perfume bottle sitting on someone’s dresser that only gets touched once a year, and for good reason.

What’s the verdict? After the fully-fleshed out videos of Round 1, Round 2 is a huge disappointment. Here’s hoping that Round 3 sees the release of “Sweet Dreams” (aka “Beautiful Nightmare”). It just seems like the dual release worked once, but to go to that again is a bit much