Clive lets his hair down. What there is of it.

This makes me feel quite a bit better about my recent supposedly unbecoming explorations of pop and rock music. (Latest startled discovery: Courtney Love. And you could not be more surprised than I was.)

As with most of the recent R&B singers, most of [Beyonce's] songs were half talk, and in between the songs there was more talk. All this talk I personally could have done without. My idea of an interesting speech goes back to Winston Churchill, who spent little time screaming: “Everybody put your hands together!” Beyoncé prattles no better than anybody else. But when she sings she is a storm of light, even if the melisma swamps the melody.

I suppose it helps to be cute. Such was her long-stemmed beauty, as she prowled and strutted in search of her missing skirt, that among the audience of 170,000 people there were young men who passed out standing up, their eyes wide open. You could tell by that helpless look.