(t5!) Heroes Of The Zeroes Singles: #27: Beyoncé f. Jay-Z – Crazy In Love (2003)

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It seems like it has been such a long time that we have been enjoying Beyoncé as a solo artist, maybe the biggest female solo artist on the planet right now. If you may recall, it’s only been a total of six years that she’s been out on her own. As a member of Destiny’s Child at the end of the 90’s and the beginning of the 00’s, she was unequivocally the leader and the most talented member. But they were a group regardless, a sensationally successful one, as a matter of fact. They were so successful back then that it was inconceivable that Beyoncé can match it as a solo artist. However, not only did she become prodigiously popular on her own, she also reduce Destiny’s Child into an afterthought. And the truth is that she only really needed one song to achieve this.

If there was ever a self-help book on “How to Break Out From A Hugely Popular Group”, then “Crazy In Love” is the first and only chapter in it. The very first thing you heard from Beyoncé’s solo career were the bulldozing horn riff, a hook sampled from the Chi-Lites. It is so imposing that even though this song is so much more than that hook, it alone would’ve propelled it to this end of the decade list. Meanwhile, then boyfriend and now husband Jay-Z plays Michael Buffer before a big fight on the track, hyping up the crowd for B’s arrival with nearly as much power as the horns.

I’ve never actually noticed before, but the majority of Beyoncé’s old groups singles never actually showed endearment to the opposite sex. They’re either bug-a-boo’s, or guys who couldn’t pay their bills, or acted kinda shady. Destiny’s Child seemed as if they had so much anger towards men that the chances of them ever reaching any kind of pact with them would never happen. Yet in “Crazy In Love”, not only did Beyoncé reach an agreeable mutual respect with her man, she went totally insane for him. “I’ve been playing myself/Baby, I don’t care/’coz your love got the best of me/and you’re making a fool of me!/you got me sprung and I don’t CARE WHO SEES!!!” she screams in the climactic chorus while, pretty much, foaming at the mouth. Jay-Z, who the song in all probability must’ve been inspired by, was either full of himself or uneasy of this insane woman professing her frighteningly exuberant love for him. But he keeps his cool anyway, and when it’s his turn on the plate, he knocks it out of the park. His guest verse in “Crazy In Love” is probably not his best, but it’s certainly one of the most memorable guest verses of the 00’s.

And then there’s the booty shake. The “uh-oh, uh-oh” dance. In her countless music videos, she introduced signature dance moves before. But none of them were as distinctively hers as this dance. And I’m sure it existed before this song, but I don’t remember being captivated this much by it. You’d like to be as gentlemanly as possible in a blog like this, but which red-blooded male wouldn’t go crazy when you see a full-figured Beyoncé shaking her ass like this?

“Crazy In Love” was such a smash hit right off the start that Beyoncé almost instantaneously thrusted herself in the same league as Madonna, Whitney, Mariah, Janet, and other mega-divas who can be recognized by one name. And she only got bigger from there: every single album she has released this decade, four or five iconic mega-hits come out of it (including her latest album I Am…Sasha Fierce, which is still churning out #1 hits as we speak). She is so successful that she even had enough star power to fuel a Destiny’d Child comeback. But none of them touches “Crazy In Love’ though—a song that transformed a lifetime’s worth of subdued positive adulation into one of the biggest singles of the zeroes.