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Music Critic: The Reason Why Beyonce is The All Time Greatest Female Pop Star
Flawless: The Reason Why Beyonce is The All Time Greatest Female Pop StarWhen we compare her resumé to Mariah, Janet, Whitney, and Madonna we find that Beyonce is already leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else.Within a day or two of posting this article, I knew something didn’t feel right. In trying to do an artist ranking list, which can be fun in a super nerdy High Fidelity way, I ended up ranking women against women, which was sexist and unintended. After getting some great feedback from fellow writers I realized that what I was trying to say was framed incorrectly. There were questions about why I grouped “female pop stars” together and why I chose to separate them from male icons like MJ, George Michael, and Justin Timberlake. Funny as it seems, my initial inspiration for this were those old VH1 Divas concerts, where they used to get together great female pop stars from different generations and celebrate them within one tradition. My thesis was that female pop stars are their own separate thing, not stylistically, but as a cultural grouping by the industry and society, for better and for worse. They’re often dismissed because many of these particular artists don’t write their own music and focus on traditionally pop topics like love songs and celebrations of their sexuality. I intended to celebrate the achievements of these artists in a positive way, but in retrospect it’s more negative. What I foolishly didn’t realize until after the feedback I received was that this is conceptually wrong. I thought grouping female pop stars together was similar to grouping great girl groups of the 50s and “best boy bands.” But really, they aren’t really doing anything that male pop stars like Elvis and Justin Timberlake haven’t done. Therefore, the gendered designation “female pop stars” was flawed and because of this my article failed from the start. The original article is below:TV really outdid themselves last month by putting on what many are saying is the worst Video Music Awards in history — and that’s saying something considering the award show has been mostly unwatchable for years. But if you had the stomach to sit through all of it, you were awarded with an absolutely incredible performance from Beyonce, who did a 15 minute medley from Lemonade that was so unbelievable that it made everyone watching forget how awful the rest of the show was. For most artists this would have been their crowning achievement, that iconic moment that we forever remember them for — like Michael’s Motown at 25 performance, U2 at Red Rocks, or The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. But hasn’t Beyonce already had a ton of these crowning achievement performances? There was the “Love on Top” pre...ouncement, the first 15 minute medley from the 2014 VMAs, and, of course, the Super Bowl performance this past January. I guess we should just add the latest VMAs to the list. What this performance of Lemonade confirms, if we still needed confirmation, is that it’s finally time to crown Beyonce as the greatest female pop star of all time. I know what you’re thinking. Sure, Beyonce is wonderful, but the greatest ever? Are we really ready to put her up there with Mariah, Janet, Whitney, and Madonna? When we compare her resumé to these historic greats we find that Beyonce is already leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else. It may sound insane, but at only 34 years old she’s grabbed the number one spot. Beyonce has been around for a really long time. Destiny’s Child had their first hit in late 97 and became absolute megastars in 1999 with their second album, The Writing’s On the Wall. That’s nearly two straight decades of success for Beyonce, which is a longer run than Whitney (1985–1999), Mariah (1990–2000 — I’m not counting her awful Emancipation of Mimi comeback), and even Janet (1986–2001) had. Although Beyonce has never had a peak period as dominant as these three artists had in their primes, her longevity, stylistic diversity, and, recent artistic maturity make her catalog much more interesting. I know this is a bold claim, so let me take each artist one by one and explain why they fall short of Beyonce on the all time ranks. Let’s start with Mariah Carey. The first thing that comes to mind when you think of Mariah is her five octave range. If you ever forgot how impressive her voice was, she’d pull out the Minnie Riperton whistle note at a moment’s notice and remind you. And yes, maybe she pulled it out too much, to the point where it became a borderline gimmick. But people went absolutely mad whenever she did it and it remains one of the most famous vocal moves in pop music history for good reason. Her hits can be divided into two periods: her early New Jack Swing stuff and her hip-hop infused late 90s period, which looking back was less revolutionary than it appeared at the time. Despite being so well known for her collaborations with rappers, in her prime she really only had a few hits with hip-hop artists, notably the “Honey” Bad Boy remix, “Heartbreaker” with Jay-Z, and of course the classic ODB “Fantasy” remix. Her best moment is definitely her MTV Unplugged performance in 1992. Early on, critics wondered why she never toured despite having five number ones hits in her first 15 months out the gate. They assumed her voice ha...form live, but she really just struggled with crippling stage fright. Her performance was absolutely flawless, turning what was supposed to be only her coming out party into the highlight of her career. She ultimately falls short of Beyonce for two reasons: First, her catalog isn’t quite long enough: she fizzled out after working non-stop in the spotlight for a decade and never recovered. Secondly, she wasn’t particularly interesting. She had a great voice, but never really cultivated an interesting personality. Her songs were just faceless love songs, which is fine, but not enough to compete with Beyonce’s legacy. On to Whitney Houston. I might get a lot of flack for saying this, but most of her music just doesn’t hold up at all. Of course, there’s “I Will Always Love You,” especially “the note,” which is still incredible to hear despite how many times it’s been beaten into our heads over the years. Her voice was impressive, for sure, but it was too often in the service of the worst kind of 80s ballads. And there were so many of them! Songs like “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” and “Didn’t We Almost Have it All” are only one notch away from “That’s What Friends Are For” at perfectly capturing what a Hallmark Card sounds like. Her upbeat songs were much better. Whitney’s voice is so full of exuberance on songs like “So Emotional” and “How Will I Know” that they practically jump out of the speaker. But besides these and a few other songs, most of her catalog is pretty awful. To be honest, considering how mediocre most of her records were, I’m not even sure she’s an all time top ten female pop star — she’s certainly behind all the artists we’ve already discussed, and I’d put Diana Ross, Donna Summers, Aretha Franklin, and probably a few others ahead of her. But what do I know? Absolutely no one was bigger than Whitney was at her peak and that has to mean something. Janet Jackson had a lot going for her that Mariah and Whitney didn’t have. Her catalog is much stronger than either Mariah’s or Whitney’s and unlike those two she was a historically great performer. She may not have been the vocal powerhouse that Mariah and Whitney were, but she had so much personality and such great material that it didn’t matter. On her breakthrough Control, she came out the gate with a ton of personality — we can’t overemphasize how important her “Ms. Jackson, if you’re nasty” thing was on pop culture. At that time especially, female pop stars were expected to simply fawn over their man (Madonna in particular, despite her strong personality, exclusively sang about worshipping men early on). The two followup albums were both just as important in their own ways. Both the political militancy shift on Rhythm Nation and the extremely sexual Janet album shocked the mainstream culture without sacrificing great songwriting. The Janet album is especially impressive looking back because the “wild, sexually liberated” stage of female pop stardom doesn’t always make for great music. Madonna’s Erotica and Britney’s K. Fed period are both particularly embarrassing examples of artists trying to sound raunchy at the expense of making listenable music. So why is she behind Beyonce? Well, she only really had three albums that mattered. After the Janet record she still had hits but it always felt like she was just cashing in on her legacy. And because all of her great work was produced by Prince’s proteges’ Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, her material isn’t particularly diverse — until the Janet album she was through and through emulating Prince’s Minneapolis Sound. Of course, that also means that she never really deviated from what made her successful, so she didn’t have any weird experiments that fell flat like others have in the past. But that also means that her body of work doesn’t have the incredible variety that Beyonce’s has. At this point, the only female pop star in history that can compete with Beyonce is Madonna. Where do we even start? She rivaled Michael Jackson as a cultural icon and Prince as a sex symbol. And she never stood still — before anyone had a chance to get bored with one stylistic phase she was already onto her next thing. Even though she wasn’t a technically great singer like Whitney or Mariah, she had a better voice than you think, with tons of personality to always keep things interesting. And despite not being the dancer than Janet was, she was such a creative performer that her live shows were, without fail, legendary. Of course, these are all really important reasons why Madonna was so iconic, but sometimes they overshadow how amazing her songs were. As far as modern pop music goes, Madonna should be considered side by side with Michael as the gold standard. Almost every single she released in the 80s was perfect in its own way and she consistently released great stuff until about 1995, not counting the aforementioned Erotica record. I jump off the Madonna bandwagon at 95, but others insist she remained great throughout the late 90s. I just never got the hype around the Ray of Light record — it always seemed to me like people loved it because she started acting kind of normal after her weirdo Bedtime Stories album (which is actually a much more interesting record). When it comes to ballads, Madonna is truly in a class of her own. Whitney isn’t the only female pop star to ever get stuck singing mediocre ballads, it unfortunately happens to most of the greats including Beyonce. Up until recently, every Beyonce album had at least a couple of dreadful slower songs that were released as singles like “If I Were a Boy” and “Halo.” Madonna is the one exception, her ballads were both catchy and moving: “Take a Bow,” “Crazy For You,” “Live To Tell,” “Oh Father,” and “I’ll Remember,” the list goes on and on. So far in our considerations Beyonce and Madonna seem to be neck and neck for the all time spot. Beyonce has the better voice, is the better live performer, and in recent years has become as indispensable of a cultural icon through her commentary on both sexism and racism. Madonna has much better ballads and was able to cultivate a much more interesting image than Beyonce. So why isn’t it a tie? Because Beyonce is at a place in her career where even calling her a female pop star sounds kind of ridiculous. Although the “female pop star” label is certainly helpful when considering the kinds of artists we’ve been discussing, it always points to something artistically limited, which is why people are so often quick to insult female pop stars in general. We expect them to fit a certain mold: they don’t write their own music, they have a team that’s constantly collaborating with them on their image — or, if we’re cynical about it, completely controlling their image — and, perhaps most importantly, they’re singles artists who aren’t able to craft albums that are complete works in their own right. As great as Madonna was, she never put together a great album from front to back. But Beyonce’s last two albums, while producing lots of great singles, are fantastic albums. They’re cohesive, experimental, and are great from front to back (although to be fair, I still can’t get over the “surfboard” line in “Drunk in Love”). Calling Beyonce a female pop star now, after she’s released her self-titled album and Lemonade back to back, would be like calling Marvin Gaye just another Motown act while he was making experimental, beautiful masterpieces like I Want You and Here, My Dear. And sure, she’s had tons of amazing hits over the past 15 years, but many artists have had long stretches of hits. Beyonce’s the first female pop star to make the term “female pop star” sound like an insult to her brilliance. That’s what truly sets her apart as the best of all time.
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Why do you continue to post this kind of thread here? You know the same folks are going to come in here and say the same old thing over and over.
You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton | |
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Can someone remind me of the "lots of great singles" that emanated from Beyonce's last two records? | |
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Based on the aforementioned criteria(catalogue, live performer etc.) how does Beyonce compare with her peers main Britney Spears, P!nk and Christina Aguilera? I actually think that P!nk is the best overall performer of that generation.
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...because she is willing to sell out and make the most money .... | |
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"Music Critic" pens lengthy yet predictably ridiculous diatribe about overhyped carnivorous pop star before showering and heading to PT shift at McDonalds. if it was just a dream, call me a dreamer 2 | |
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WHOA WHOA WHOA
EVERYBODY AND EVERYBODY MOTHER KNEW MJ TUNES
MADONNA UNAVOIDABLE
AND IIIIIIIIIIYEEIIIIIIIIII WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HEARING THAT TUNE MILLION TIME IN 1995
POOK STILL NEVER HEAR BEYONCE LEMONADE SONG
WORLD KEEP SPINNIN P o o |/, P o o |\ | |
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I guess I'm a glutton for punishment but I'll play along: 1) Mariah had always been a boring performer. Even at her best she can come off as corny. 2) Whitney vocally is unmatched, and in her heyday could bring as much excitement just singing than all Beyonce's backup dancers combined. But she burned out quickly. 3) It's kind of unfair because Beyonce owes SO much to Janet, but as the article states Janet kinda petered out after janet. Beyonce took what she learned, decided to work ten times as hard on her live show, and piggybacked on the internet age and hot button topics of the day to spin relevance. 4) There's no way in hell Beyonce's discography holds up to Madonnas. And Beyonce owes a lot to the spectacle show that Madonna laid out for her. But Beyonce is a stronger live performer. She sings better, dances better, just does everything better live than Madge. |
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so apparently the Velvet Rope didn't even happen. NOTHING of note post janet? really! eat a dick! | |
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> My apologies. I forgot about The Velvet Rope, especially the tour.
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Hamburger, Hot Dog, Root Beer, Pussy | |
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Hardly. Beyonce had 1 real hit 'crazy in love'. I don't know any other song of her, but that 1 was unavoidable and what makes superstars. Unfortunately just 1 of those isn't enough. | |
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Beyoncé is an excellent live performer . She works her ass off and never depends on her laurels or past success. Every album that releases is experimental and different. Her catalogue is different from Madonna, Janet, Whitney and Mariah's. That doesn't make her catalogue better than these other artist. It's a matter of PERSONAL taste. Beyoncé is fierce. She doesn't allow detractors to dictate her music or her life and I respect and admire her for that. Beyoncé doesn't sit back and rest on her laurels or incredible success. In reality, she has earned the right to do this. Beyoncé deserves all of the praise and success that she is receiving. No one gave her anything, she WORKED for it. IMO, she IS the greatest female star out there at the moment. This takes nothing from these other women. Their legacy is secure, just as Beyonce's legacy is secure. | |
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The greatest? No,she's the most overhyped,overrated and overexposed female pop star,ever | |
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The industry acts like everything she does is amazing,but that's simply not true.IMO,she only has a few truly good songs in her catalog.Songs like "7/11" and "Formation" suck ass,but her fans (and the industry) fool themselves into believing that those are great tunes.As for her being a good performer.... HA! All she does is shake her ass and shake her weave in every directio,lol.Same ol' predictable routine during every performance.Far from it is all I will say, she is talented can sing though many blow her away vocally but that is for another time and thread, but just being able to dance and sing does not make u a great or even the best performer, to me she still is very boring on stage, but thats me. "We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F | |
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Beyonce is very hard-working and talented in many ways, and has helped to bring light to social issues that are often avoided in the generally vapid landscape of modern pop. With that said, I honestly can't say that I find much of her music to be impressive or worthy of the praise it receives. Maybe Beyonce as a whole package is noteworthy, but she would be so much better and even more worthy of accolades if her music was actually challenging or consistently interesting.
I don't listen to enough modern popular music to know for sure, but has the bar been lowered across the entire board as far as the music goes? I'm not just talking pop music, but anything that generates buzz on all of the music sites and blogs. I checked out the new Kendrick Lamar album recently and it wasn't bad, definitely had some cool ideas, but was it really the masterpiece that people online say it is? Am I just being too picky or keeping my standards too high? I honestly can't tell if I'm missing out on a lot of perfectly fine music because I'm not giving it a chance, or if certain music in general is too overhyped and overrated now. | |
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The Greatest?
Beyonce is the most overrated pop star of all time, I don't think that this is up for debate at this point IMHO. Beyonce can win 30 Grammys for singing "Surfboard and cum my face" "I slay I slay I slay" "Im spinning and flexing". What a joke and a disgrace!
As far as Beyonces talent, its marginal at best. There are plenty of girls from her generation that sing circles around her (Brandy, Monica, Aguilera) even some of course out now (Gaga, Adele, Fantasia) and dance circles around her (Ciara, 2001 circa Britney Spears) and lets not even talk about catalog and album sells because she ranks low on the list even when compared to her peers!
Beyonce has always been overrated to me and this excessive hype and media adulation she receives is uncomprehensible. I mean I could see it if she was actually intelligent and actually was interesting with thought provoking things to say but she is not. She is very vapid and uninteresting.
Pink, Britney Spears, Aguilera All of these girls HAVE Diamond albums and Beyonce does...NOT. They also have OUT sold her catalog. So how could Beyonce be better than legends that have sold over 200 million records ww if she hasn't even sold more than her peers? People say these things don't matter...yea they do. Adele just garnered her second consecutive Diamond album last year in the Digital Era. If Lemonade was the greatest thing that happened to music why didnt it go Diamond? Why wasn't it the best selling album last year? Why didn't it produce any hits?? All lies and false propaganda.
I agree with your feelings on Pink, Pink is a more talented artist and performer than Beyonce, particularly when it comes to dancing. She KILLED that tribute to Janet with that very difficult chair routine and she has done more intricate choreography than Beyonce as well as more techinical and elaborate things with her live shows. EVEN Adele, Lady Gaga are way more talented than Beyonce overall. So how can Beyonce be more talented than Whitney, Janet, etc (true elite) when her peers Lady Gaga, Pink etc are more talented and more commercially successful? This is Beyonce PR team spurring this bullcrap, nobody in real life believes this.
[Edited 4/23/17 12:35pm] | |
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Free2BMe said: Beyoncé is an excellent live performer . She works her ass off and never depends on her laurels or past success. Every album that releases is experimental and different. Her catalogue is different from Madonna, Janet, Whitney and Mariah's. No she doesn't.That doesn't make her catalogue better than these other artist. It's a matter of PERSONAL taste. Beyoncé is fierce. She doesn't allow detractors to dictate her music or her life and I respect and admire her for that. Beyoncé doesn't sit back and rest on her laurels or incredible success. In reality, she has earned the right to do this. Beyoncé deserves all of the praise and success that she is receiving. No one gave her anything, she WORKED for it. IMO, she IS the greatest female star out there at the moment. This takes nothing from these other women. Their legacy is secure, just as Beyonce's legacy is secure. | |
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THIS and the ones that would even dare suggest that Beyawnce is better than Whitney, Mariah, Janet and Madonna, they can eat a sour dick too. | |
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I will take Aretha , Diana Ross, Billie Hoilday, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone before i call Beyonce the greatest female. This critic just dismissed and totally forgot these fabulous women.
Beyonce will also not nearly be as influential. [Edited 4/22/17 21:18pm] | |
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I prefer miss Diana Ross or miss Debbie Harry or Madonna.. [Edited 4/23/17 4:35am] | |
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What an over the top statement, in any case that would be Madonna. | |
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MotownSubdivision said: Free2BMe said: Beyoncé is an excellent live performer . She works her ass off and never depends on her laurels or past success. Every album that releases is experimental and different. Her catalogue is different from Madonna, Janet, Whitney and Mariah's. No she doesn't.That doesn't make her catalogue better than these other artist. It's a matter of PERSONAL taste. Beyoncé is fierce. She doesn't allow detractors to dictate her music or her life and I respect and admire her for that. Beyoncé doesn't sit back and rest on her laurels or incredible success. In reality, she has earned the right to do this. Beyoncé deserves all of the praise and success that she is receiving. No one gave her anything, she WORKED for it. IMO, she IS the greatest female star out there at the moment. This takes nothing from these other women. Their legacy is secure, just as Beyonce's legacy is secure. That's your opinion. In MY opinion, I say she does deserve the praise that she is receiving. FTR, I am not even a die-hard fan of Beyonce.However, it pisses me off when people try to act as if Beyoncé is someone with no talent. Beyonce is very talented, hating on her is not going to change that fact. You don't have to like Bey; however, that's not going to change how successful she has become because of hard work, determination and most of all TALENT. | |
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Free2BMe said: MotownSubdivision said: No she doesn't.
That's your opinion. In MY opinion, I say she does deserve the praise that she is receiving. FTR, I am not even a die-hard fan of Beyonce.However, it pisses me off when people try to act as if Beyoncé is someone with no talent. Beyonce is very talented, hating on her is not going to change that fact. You don't have to like Bey; however, that's not going to change how successful she has become because of hard work, determination and most of all TALENT. Yeah, she had to work hard but that's a default requirement to make it to the level she's at. It's not like Beyonce is the only act ever who has had to work hard for success. [Edited 4/24/17 3:02am] | |
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If you're talking hit records/singles, she actually has 10 top 40s from those two album eras and 14 top 40s overall from this decade. The only reason she has "only" 2 top 10s this decade is because she don't service her singles to every radio station, pop radio don't really play her anymore and she don't even service her songs to streaming stations like Apple and Spotify. | |
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Why are you posting articles like this on this board of all places so that Beyoncé gets dragged in here? You know how polarizing she is in here and articles like this are only written to get ratings and clicks to their site. JFTR, I don't agree with this article.
That said, the girl just won a Peabody Award for "Lemonade." A Peabody Award is extremely prestigious and only other popular female musician has every done that is Barbra Streisand and is only the 2nd black woman(Oprah Winfrey) to have ever won it. Whether many of you think she deserves it or not is another topic. However, like it or not, Bey's legacy is trending on the right side of history and it's going to be remembered favorably.
[Edited 4/24/17 8:21am] [Edited 4/24/17 8:48am] | |
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She has more longevity of success that they do(hell she debuted before they did with Destiny's Child) and she has a better reputation especially as far as critical acclaim that they do as music performances and live performances. P!nk is the only other one who is similar to Beyoncé as far as longevity and live performance. Not to mention, when Britney, Christina were at their sales peak(which is where the bulk of their sales come from), it was during the time when overall album sales were at their sales peak, when they(Britney and Christina) had images that appeal to that generation(teen generation) and virtually fads of that time period.
Whereas Beyonce's wasn't even a solo act in that time but with DC has an album that's eligible for diamond certification(The Writings on the Wall) and keep in mind that they were R&B/Pop with a different image and appeal than Britney/Christina so they had a smaller demographic access. Yet they were still amazing popular with a sonic vocal stylings(re: The Writings on the Wall, rap/sung vocal hybrid merging rapping and singing vocal concepts together) which had so much appeal to the clubs and radio stations that it helped same the vocal-centric asthestic nature of mainstream musical entertainment.
Then Beyonce was able to transfer that into major solo commerical success and she's the last black female to do this on her level. Her legacy is different than theirs and at this point more respected that theirs. P!nk is the only one of the 3 you name that rivals it. [Edited 4/24/17 8:43am] | |
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She is talented, no doubt, but the greatest? above Madonna, no way. | |
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