Beyonce’s video for “Countdown”: busted or beautiful?

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Here is Beyonce’s new music video for “Countdown”. First of all, I dislike the song. It seems all over the place, and… I don’t know, I’m just not humming it. It’s not a “get this dumb song stuck in your head” kind of song, which is what Beyonce specializes in. Secondly, the video is all over the place too. Beyonce jacks (“borrows”) classic images from Funny Face, West Side Story, and many other films, plus lots of 1960s styling and the mother lode of wigs, wiglets, hairpieces, bangs trauma add-ons and weaves. I think Bey must have blown through her Wiglet Budget for 2011 with this video. The result is… visually intriguing, but I feel like Bey has done this a million times before (“this” being the 1960s stuff, plus stealing from other works). It just seems kind of boring:

Did you notice what I noticed? The discrepancy with the “bump”? In some of the shots, Beyonce is caressing what seems like a substantial “bump” and then in other shots, it’s barely there. Don’t even yell at me and say it’s just the angles playing tricks with my eyes. Bitch is wearing padding when it’s convenient for her. I really don’t understand WHY she’s doing it when it’s so obvious. It’s like when Katie Holmes was pregnant with Suri – I believed she was genuinely pregnant (just as I believe Beyonce is), but the discrepancies in the size of the bumps from month to month was so disturbing, and so obviously a padding issue. Ugh.

Oh, and Beyonce’s TWEAKED FACE is killing me. It’s killing me that no one major is calling her out on her major face work.

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Photos courtesy of WENN.

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40 Responses to “Beyonce’s video for “Countdown”: busted or beautiful?”

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  1. Liz says:

    Busted. SO busted.

  2. dorothy says:

    Not even a fan of the song. She can do better.

  3. Rita says:

    Hey Kaiser, maybe I’m like the ‘major’ who don’t really see what you’re talking about with the tweak in Beyonce’s face. Can you show a side by side comparison? I mean, she started very young, and face changes… I’m in my late twenties now and I see a major change in my face myself, with the help of losing collagen (sigh) and makeup.

  4. IAmSam says:

    Maybe the video wasn’t shot in one day? It is possible they shot some before her pregnancy, or early on in it, and some when she was further along.

    Anyway, she’s pregnant. Cant people just be happy for her? Is it necessary to make a conspiracy theory out of everything – even if she is wearing padding, whatever, really now!

  5. rose80 says:

    The only thing “tweaked” on Beyonce’s face is her nose IMO. Everything is makeup tricks IMO.

    As far as her stomach is concerned….I hate the term “bump”…Pregnant women’s stomach can look different depending on what’s worn. It’s really not a “conspiracy” that in some pics she looks bigger or smaller. It depends on what is worn people. Stop jumping on the “faux” belly bandwagon.

  6. Quest says:

    The song is annoying and the video is just a failed rip off of the classical 80’s. Bey Bey tries to hard even with the pregnancy bump.

  7. Kimbob says:

    On the header pic (where you click on for this story), I thought that was a pic of JADA PINKETT SMITH!!! YES, YES, YES Beyonce has jacked her face. I’m in COMPLETE AGREEMENT! Yes, curious indeed…why has no one (besides on this site) called her out for this?

    Other thoughts….I think we can safely assume THIS is the video Beyonce is probably going to refer as her “Pregnancy Video.” LMAO.

    Also, this is unofficially Beyonce’s “Jacked Face Video.” Jeeez…she sure is in love w/herself isn’t she? It doesn’t seem there’s one shot in the whole video featuring/showing ANYONE ELSE OTHER THAN HERSELF.

    I sure hope she hurries up and gives birth to that baby so she can be in love w/someone other than herself!

  8. DarkEmpress says:

    I love love love this song. The video is not as great as I thought it would be from seeing the preview. The only thing I can say about her bump is that maybe for the part where she wanted it to look like she was pregnant she pushed out her stomach and arched her back. Heck even I can look pregnant after a big meal. The one conclusion I can draw from this is I don’t like beyonce with black hair. Weird it is her natural colour but it looks unnatural.

  9. Poison Ivy says:

    Her bump is shrinking and swelling like the tides of the ocean, perhaps the moon is involved with it.

  10. SEF says:

    “Ladies if you love your man,
    show him you’re the flyest.
    Grind up on it girl,
    show him how you ride it.”

    Pure class.

  11. RocketMerry says:

    “It’s killing me that no one major is calling her out on her major face work.”

    Please; between her and her husband, they form such a powerful, potentially career ending threat that nobody is going to call her out, even if she starts filming baby seal hunters on a regular killing spree and spreading their blood on her face to celebrate her inner primitive goddess.

  12. monette says:

    As a fan of conspiracies I think she figured out her latest album was crap and wasn’t going to sell so she did the best thing she could have done: get knocked up. There was so much buzz about how crappy “4” is, but now that she is pregnant nobody cares anymore. And that big announcement at the VMA’s, brilliant!

  13. fancyamazon says:

    I thought I was the only one who hated the term “bump” It drives me crazy! To me, a bump is when you hit your head and get an egg on it. Bump just seems so demeaning and sort of like it is an accessory, nothing too serious, like bringing a new person into the world. Of course, as serious as I think being a mother is, I also don’t think every pregnancy is so special that the woman needs to have everything done for her and whatnot. People have been popping out babies for thousands of years, and the lower mortality rates in the western world are due to increased knowledge in science and midwifery as well as nutrition and so on rather than to treating pregnant women like they are made of china or something.

  14. whome says:

    ok… so her face is deff, tweaked. its not just you. and i do believe its more that a “good” makeup artist. she has had work done. secondly its not the camera angles, in some shots she looks pregnant in others in does not. I dont konow how long it took to shoot this video, but it seems like even tho it may have been weeks apart the bump should not have grown that big.
    and yes i did think that this was JADA in the picture.

  15. tapioca says:

    She looks incredible with the bob and short sparkly dress, but bangs are not her friend!

    In general the video was clearly a bit too high-concept for my plebeian brain to compute – she seems a bit confused as to which decade she’s in!

  16. reg says:

    What song? this is a joke, where is the hook? It sounds like garbage.

  17. Sue says:

    SHe is trying everything to save this piece of crap album. Her music has become really annoying. Can you tell that I am not much of a fan!?!

  18. itstrue says:

    HAHA! My three year old just walked my and said “Mom I don’t like her singing” From the mouths of babes.

  19. Jacqu says:

    So I don’t watch many music videos, so I do wonder, this blinking thing, is it from some movie/media reference that I’m not getting, or do her and nikki minaj have some unknown tic. XP

  20. LIVEALOT says:

    I LIKED THE VIDEO. kind of reminds me of the “dreamgirls” bey.

    @ monette – cant agree with you more!!

  21. really says:

    I second the lovely comment made by the post of “itstrue”: love it!

  22. birdie says:

    I finally realized what bothered me about her face..her cheeks! They are somehow..sharper

  23. jay says:

    I’m with the three year old.:-)

    Actually, Beyonce has talent but she isn’t the be all/end all she’s been made out to be. Her dancing reminds me of Elaine Benes, she caterwauls most of the time, and her lyrics are amazingly trite and juvenile, arrested in 7th grade time.

    She seems to be harmless, really, but she definitely is a trend jumper, working with whomever/whatever is considered hottest at the moment. Working it, I guess, but it just feels like she tries too hard, like there’s a internal feeling she really doesn’t have an original thought, idea, etc. She gaffles freely and rarely gets truly called out on it. It’s insulting to other artists’ work that she “takes”, the biggest example was when she sang ALL five songs at the Oscars. Puh-leeze. That shit still annoys the hell outta me. The others that put it out there in the first place? Sorry, girlfriend does it better. Pfft.

    Law’, she needs to set down a bit and see if she can “be” on her return as well received. Whatever; I always thought the other girls in DC sang as well as her but they didn’t stand a chance with the dynamic that existed.

    Funny, that’s way more than I really care with her.:-)

    And if those “big” bumps are real that girl is gonna be hoooooge by her ninth month. Uncomfortable.

    But she is a pretty woman.

    Whew. Too early for all that….

  24. Riana says:

    Her nose just looks painful, blech,

  25. Happy21 says:

    I couldn’t watch the clip but looked it up on youtube and only got to see a sneak peek. Must say the half minute I heard, the song is awful.

    The video I don’t know, couldn’t tell. Was too busy looking to see if I could say she was tweaked or not. She does look a bit tight and her lips looked a little too perfect.

    I don’t know. She’s an egomaniac. I haven’t been a huge fan since Single Ladies. It was like after that song and all the hype, she changed. Her music has as well. I have a good friend who really, really likes her and she said the new album wasn’t very good so that says something for me and my opinion.

  26. belle says:

    You guys are such haters. lol.
    First of all, you really do need to do side by side comparisons before you call out someone for tweaking. She’s always looked like that.
    Also, obviously the video was shot at different times. And if she wants to play up her bump, who cares?? She displayed the bump at that particular time because of the lyrics. smh.

  27. MellaYellow says:

    Her nose has been done but that’s about it. She is not Kardashian. She hasn’t had the works. Kim has had butt,breast,nose botox weave just to much. Beyonce just weave and nose. Make up but she is pretty much a natural beauty

  28. Reece says:

    Nope I saw it too. Thought maybe she was spanx-ing the baby…idk. The whole video concept was played 10 yrs ago.
    I think her face may just be the lighting. It’s all soft to fill in everything, you know, no harsh light in the whole video.

    But I’m not ruling out the other option!

  29. celine says:

    HATER that’s all u are.

  30. mia135 says:

    Video no longer available due to a copyright claim, oh boo.

  31. original kate says:

    in that bottom photo i thought she was kim kardashian!

    i will say beyonce has gorgeous skin. i always think that whenever i see her, so it must be true.

  32. CallieTrichid says:

    She looks whitewashed.

  33. Original Tiffany says:

    You can do a search of her before and afters to see the nose job and boob job. And those are old posts-side by side. She’s tweaked since then.
    Internet research is the bomb. My last post with the links got eaten by cyberspace, but they are out there.

  34. Ally says:

    Terrible video and song. She’s gotta stop with the staccato thing. Just sounds like a record skipping now.

  35. Jaye E says:

    Enough with the padding conspiracy. Now, if she went from looking like she was in her 1st trimester and then suddenly looked like she was in her third trimester…THAT would be something to talk about.

  36. Jb says:

    She is more Kat-faced Kardashian.

  37. corey says:

    I detected a little Niki Minaj with the offbeat facial expressions and shoulder rolls. I like B and think she is very pretty and talented, I just wish that she wouldn’t buy into these silly little gimmicks. In her defense, she’s in a very competitve business, with women crawling on top of each other fighting to stay relevant.

  38. JaneWonderfalls says:

    @Belle who are you the president of Bey’s fan club, if we don’t like Beyonce why does that mean we are ” hater’s” I really can’t wait until that word get’s played out. I don’t like her music, she not a great singer, she rips off all her performance antics from the one and only “Tina Turner” , she takes credit and than get’s sued for music she doesn’t write herself, she is an overall attention seeking whore. I’m not hating these our facts.

  39. NotaFanRHON says:

    Could the pregnancy be the reason her nose looks different?

    I can understand being influenced by others and that nothing is 100% original but there’s that and then there is just stealing!

    I’m shocked that more people don’t know how deep her stealing goes. This women doesn’t have an original thought in her head.

    judiciaryreport.com/beyonce_steals_more_copyrights.htm

    It’s the same foolishness Beyonce did when she publicly and fraudulently took credit for writing the song Ne-Yo wrote called “Irreplaceable” because she arranged the humming during the bridge on the tune (humming doesn’t even constitute lyrics/words). That story has now become an internet punch line at her expense and testament to her craziness.

    Songs stolen by Beyonce and/or Destiny’s Child:

    If I Were A Boy

    Crazy In Love
    she was also slammed for taking credit for writing her hit Crazy In Love and coming up with the sample, when she only wrote the bridge, which at best, is two lines repeated. What a fraud. Producer Rich Harrison came up with the beat, wrote the choruses and verse and used a sample he was sitting on for years as the horn basis for the track. The percussion is also from an 60s track (for which the widow did not receive royalties).

    Survivor

    Ladies Night

    Irreplaceable
    I also wrote months ago in the Column how she also went around saying she wrote the track “Resentment” that was a remake of a song done by Victoria Beckham and written by Jasmine Sullivan. You will never sell Beyonce as a songwriter. She has stolen from so many people.

    Furthermore, when I heard the claim she wrote “Irreplaceable” I said to someone when the topic came up, “No she didn’t. That song is coherent.”

    Beyonce can barely string a sentence together and frequently and noticeably uses the wrong words in sentences. She has been called out for this on numerous blogs. People don’t speak badly then all of a sudden write properly.

    It just doesn’t work that way. Never has. And this has nothing to do with her being southern or country, also known as the Britney Spears defense, as there are many southerners and country people who speak well. It’s not about accents. It’s about diction.

    The music video for “Single Ladies”

    Bootylicious

    De’ree sued her about “Kissing You”

    1+1 is rip off of Sam Cooke and En Vogue’s “Don’t Go”

    Countdown video stolen from Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker a Belgian choreographer
    Took credit for writing “Crazy In Love” when she didn’t

    Will be sued shortly for stealing the songs “Worldwide Woman,” “Amor Gitmo” and…
    Sued for stealing the song “Baby Boy”

    Sued for stealing the song “Independent Women”

    The Academy Awards Committee didn’t buy her as a songwriter either. She was dropped from the songwriter ballot for the song “Listen” making her ineligible to win an Oscar.

    I also agree with all that was said by poster#23, basicially.

  40. DeE says:

    Are belladonna eyedrops available to the rich and mighty because she seems to have utilized them here. She looks cute even beautiful as usual. I say the only tweaking seems to have been nose, boobs especially noticable in the German magazine shoot where she is wearing that white leotard…wow and possibly, just possibly some tummy contouring befor pregnancy. yes, she is prego, but she seems to be padding it here and there for some reason. Could it be so as to come off as the most fashionable in-shape, I would type sexy, looking pregnant woman? Would that have gone to Posh B. Oh…and the lip plumpers, which are all her choice. At least she hasn’t went overboard as she does with overt sexuality and dislike of pants and hair flipping and stage fugging