Beyoncé does an ambitious double dare on new CD

CD review |

In the promotional material for her ambitious, somewhat befuddling double album — the deluxe edition, with extra tracks, is currently streaming on her MySpace page — Beyoncé Knowles discusses her newly revealed alter ego, Sasha Fierce. "She's the party girl, she's Bootylicious," says the singer/songwriter/movie-star/mogulista. "She is, but I'm not. She's my alter ego. I'm finally revealing who I am."

The contradiction built into that brief comment says much about Beyoncé's artistic predicament. A child talent-show winner molded into a pop star by her notoriously driven father, she is a creature of the stage, like Britney and Christina, the pop stars with whom she might have continued to be lumped if her husband, Jay-Z — and, more important, her own "rapperly" vocal gifts — hadn't helped her secure a spot in hip-hop's firmament. Yet because the world of hip-hop soul expects its divas to be "real," she's often criticized for seeming distant within her own performances and refusing to expose herself.

For Beyoncé, to say that an identity she is not is "revealing who I am" is not a contradiction. As an artist, she is a role player first — a brainy, often showy interpreter instead of a gut singer on ballads and a brilliantly varied rhythmic innovator on her club hits. "I Am ... Sasha Fierce," being released Tuesday, shows her further refining both of those tendencies, and it's full of interesting choices. But her misplaced worries about authenticity cause Beyoncé to make some unfortunate missteps (mostly into the puddle of excess) that often afflict artists in mid-career.

Her first mistake, noted in other early reviews, was to separate Beyoncé from Sasha and give each lady her own disc. Dispensing with the idea that the one sharing her name is any more genuine makes it clear that Beyoncé has accepted standard thinking about what "real" is for a woman.

For T.I. (the other hip-hop star who recently tried this split-personality thing) real-versus-fake meant thug-versus-pop star, and ultimately the two were inseparable. But that's the male rapper's version of this struggle — the ascendant entrepreneur trying to reconcile with the street-wise, marginalized youth still fighting for control of his psyche. (That's also the Jay-Z story, so B knows it well.)

Might as well quote B herself (or whoever wrote the lines — she had many collaborators, as always) to define the split she makes. "My heart used to be cold till your hands laid on my soul," she intones in "That's Why You're Beautiful," in which she compares herself to a diamond that finds its sparkle only when bought. This is the "real" Beyoncé — romantic, interdependent, brought to life by love. Her modus operandi is the power ballad.

Then there's Sasha, whose manifesto is the Lil Wayne-inspired "Diva," anchored around the line, "Diva is the female version of a hustla." She is nobody's baby, and if she finds love in the club, she's not necessarily dirtying her apartment with it after closing hours.

Her motif is the club banger — electro elements optional. When she does go into mid-tempo territory — say, on the R. Kelly-meets-Rihanna vocal workout "Hello" or on "Ego," in which B shows off the spunk she developed playing Etta James in the upcoming movie "Cadillac Records" (much to longtime James supporter Christina Aguilera's chagrin, we're sure) — Sasha's still all about sonic complexity and challenging singing, rather than the cleaner, more open style of the Beyoncé tracks.

As a vocalist, Beyoncé seems more comfortable in Sasha's stilettos. Her performances on those cuts feel unforced and fun, as if she's thinking on her feet. Stretching for deep meaning on the Beyoncé ballads, she risks sounding ponderous — communicating thoughtfulness weighs her down. Still, when she finds the right balance, as on the first single, "If I Were a Boy," she can be exquisite — accessing the timeless quality she's clearly bent on mastering.