Best albums of 2011, No 4: Beyoncé – 4

The thrill of pop is its instant rush, yet Beyoncé's fourth album was a refined record that showed she was in it for the long haulPeople who don't like R&B like Beyoncé, so it was understandably confusing when her fourth solo album turned out to be refined, straight-up R&B. Unlike most of her peers, who have spent the past couple of years chasing the Guetta effect – layering Euro-synths on pop-step woomphs to create homogenised commercial R&B – Beyoncé kept it classy. People complained 4 ...

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