Da da da…

[Video][Website]
[5.82]

Colin Cooper: A recent technological nightmare involved my girlfriend’s laptop spontaneously syncing a large portion of her music library to my MP3 player, erasing what I had on there in the process. I’m backed up and everything, so it was no big deal. This incident, however, combined with the release of this single, raises two questions: 1. Why did this incident not result in me getting a rip of I Am…Sasha Fierce? 2. How does someone who owns both Big Willie Style and the Scouting for Girls album also own something as slick, bassy and downright brilliant as this?
[9]

Al Shipley: The upper echelons of pop sometimes seem like an isolated incubator, where superstars only pay attention to or follow the cues of other stuperstars. Sometimes they build on each other’s innovations, but more often than not, they just play catch up in the most craven and transparent ways possible, like this overheated Weezy homage. There’s really not a word B breathes on this song that doesn’t sound ridiculous, but the half dozen different ways she pronounces the word “money” take the cake for its most irritating moments.
[2]

Keane Tzong: This, yet another of Beyoncé’s cold-eyed capitalist interpretations of modern relationship dynamics, is exactly as brittle and cold as all that preceded it. It may be conspicuously high quality, tailored to please, but it can only really elicit a “ho-hum” from me.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: You would think Beyonce is famous and fabulous enough to go about her day job without having to self-aggrandize by way of repetitive, flatulent blasts of hookless self-love like this, wouldn’t you? She sounds like a robot, in a bad way, particularly because there are bits where you’re reminded about how great her voice can be when her material’s better.
[3]

Martin Skidmore: When Beyonce gets to stretch on the verses, she sounds as mighty and unstoppable as ever; the chorus isn’t R&B, though, a stuttering and factually dubious claim in irritating chipmunk voices, which offers nothing for the star, so it ends up feeling a little like Beyonce doing guest verses.
[5]

Dave Moore: Bouncy’s “A Milli” rip is definitely unstoppable, probably unnecessary, but to dock it points for being too much of a good thing would be like docking kittens points for being too adorable.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: Even more ice-queen-distanced than her creepy norm (actually, a lot more, probably), with ugly meaningless rhythmic and vocal convolutions to match the dumb meaningless lyrics. And though meaninglessness can obviously be fun, this isn’t, at all — even the alien robot chirps have not an ounce of joy or wit to them. Graded un-leniently just to balance the scales a bit:
[2]

Anthony Easton: The post-feminist maxim “Diva is a female version of a hustler” puts “Put A Ring On It” into stark relief; I like the gangsta version that asks to be paid much better. That it explodes into something vaguely like a traditional Beyoncé song in the last 10 seconds might mean that she is ready to go full robot, and, well, I want that action.
[8]

Martin Kavka: I cannot imagine listening to this song outside of watching the video. The a-milli-isms are just too grating for me in isolation from Beyoncé’s poses. By the way, is the synthesized “I’m a pretty girl” chant double-tracked with a very soft-spoken natural enunciation of the same line?
[4]

Alex Macpherson: It’s totally ridiculous, of course, but Beyoncé pulls it off by amping up her imperious haughtiness, like a supermodel who is totally committed to her poker face despite being bedecked in insane haute couture. She struts and preens herself with genuine relish, treats the beat like a catwalk to sashay over, essays all sorts of irresistible shifts in vocal inflection and makes every line quotable. “Diva” is the aural equivalent of a tyra.gif – surely there is no higher compliment.
[10]

Jordan Sargent: It’s hard to deny Beyonce’s swagger, but “Diva” is just kind of plodding. The song gains momentum during B’s torrential verses, but its chorus has the same effect as rebooting a computer. The way you do this kind of chorus is by shutting up and going “A milli a milli a milli a milli a-a milli.”
[6]