4 (Expanded Edition)

Editors’ Notes So long Sasha Fierce. Queen Bey goes back to the future with a fourth album that trades some of her strutting blockbusters for timeless mid-tempo finger-snappers (“Love On Top”) and slow-burning ballads (“1+1”, “Best Thing I Never Had”). Not that 4 is in any way a banger-free zone. “Party” packs squelchy 90s soul, and the Major Lazer-sampling “Run the World (Girls)” totally brings the house down.