Haunted (Beyoncé song)
The former visual shows various close-up shots of Beyoncé lip-syncing the lyrics, while the latter features her walking in the corridor of a big mansion meeting various actors seen inside the rooms.
"[1] Beyoncé also explained the meaning of "Haunted" on her iTunes Radio channel where she also revealed her admiration for Boots, "The song is really about temptation in this music industry and being exposed to this crazy madness.
[20] According to Spin columnist Brandon Soderberg, the song begins with a "random, frustrating indignity from her youth into a full-blown, racially loaded origin story" and also features expressions of her celebrity.
[20] Anupa Mistry of the same publication felt that she borrowed Lamar's "alien-robot cadence and sings in a pinched choral croon" which she further compared with Bat for Lashes.
[21] Writing for the website The 405, editor White Caitlin felt the singer offered part of her insecurities and flaws through the song and "sheds slut-shaming, the shackled role of uptight matriarch or calculated star".
[11] Robert Leedham of the website Drowned in Sound felt that the album's "confessional moments are when you connect with it the most", exemplifying the statement with lyrics from "Haunted".
[28] AbsolutePunk writer Ryan Dennehy remarked in his review that "ethereal echoes" of the singer's voice "elevate it above just a post-Weeknd, dark update to staid topics".
's Ryan B. Patrick felt that the song's minimalistic sound allowed the singer to "ironically champion artistic integrity and proclaim her thoughts on the industry".
[42] Chris Bosman from the website Consequence of Sound who felt that the song was the record's "mood setter" and contained "ghostly vibes", wrote that it "dabbles in R&Burial, Evian Christ's drag-influenced codeine hip-hop, and Nothing Was the Same's Xanax club rap".
[7] He felt that during the lines "Slap me, I'm pinned to the doorway / Kiss, bite, foreplay", Beyoncé "slides" the last word, making the song sound "even less radio friendly".
Hamm from Under the Radar magazine felt that "It's remarkable to hear a pop star at the height of her arena-tour powers taking chances like 'Haunted,' a dirge of a song that behaves more as spoken word until it's 'Vogue'-y breakdown".
[44] In a review of the song, Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times compared its break with Madonna's work during Ray of Light with a chopped and screwed sound characteristic for Houston.
[22] USA Today writer Elysa Gardner wrote that in "Haunted" along with another song on the album, "Jealous", the singer "embodies success and privilege on the surface, but there is a sense that her contentment is fragile".
[47] Tim Finney of Complex magazine considered "Ghost" "a collision of opposites... less a song than a transfixing eye-hole glimpse into another, entirely separate world the singer could inhabit if she chose".
[52] While creating the video for "Pretty Hurts", she sent a note to director Melina Matsoukas requesting from her to include footage from her childhood as the clip was meant to connect to the next one on the album, "Ghost".
According to the architecture firm Elenberg Fraser, the skyscraper Premier Tower under its construction on 134 Spencer Street in Melbourne, Australia was designed drawing inspiration by Beyoncé's look in the music video for "Ghost".
[54] Writing for MTV, John Walker wrote that Beyoncé "serves multiple levels of Martha Graham realness" in the video for "Ghost".
[48] Michael Zelenko from The Fader praised the director's work on the video and remarked it included "stark portraits of a blase Beyonce, slithering, perching and dancing against black and white backgrounds".
"[10] The song inspired Australian company Elenberg Fraser to construct a two-hundred-and-twenty-six-metre-high skyscraper in Melbourne, Australia that features a curvaceous form taken from the music video.
[64] On November 15, 2013, Popjustice reported that one of the actors who was featured in the video, J-Hustle, shared a picture on his Twitter account while being on a five-day set for the filming.
He concluded that the team had "all the elements to create something special"[66] The video opens with a three-second film countdown and proceeds with shots of several empty rooms and televisions in a big mansion.
[69] Kitty Empire of The Observer stated, "Less originally, the high-concept Haunted video finds Beyoncé in a posh hotel populated by sexually motivated freaks, with many shades of Madonna invoked.
[68] Whitney Phaneuf writing for the website HitFix felt that the video was a fit for the song's industrial sound and described the singer's look as "goth-glam".
[70] Sharing what he perceived to be "key" moments in each of the seventeen music videos, Walker of MTV identified one for "Haunted" where Beyoncé "begins to crack under the pressures of her iconic status".
[58] Michelle Collins of Vanity Fair noted the scary atmosphere of the video and described the singer's look as "straight-up 1920s glamour" with a hair styled similar to Josephine Baker.
Collins went on to compare it with the opening credits of American Horror Story and found "[n]ightmarish images strung together in one very long, very creepy sequence of Beyoncé looking for her hotel room".
[57] ABC News journalist Michael Rothman compared the video's opening with horror movies and The Ring in particular and went on to praise it overally as Beyoncé's "best yet".
[4] "Haunted" was performed as the opening song for Beyoncé's first concert of the last European leg of The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour in Glasgow on February 20, 2014.
[84] In another concert review, Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times noted that the attention among the people in the crowd "drift[ed] noticeably during 'Haunted'" resulting in a mild reception of the song's performance.
[93][94] According to the architecture firm Elenberg Fraser, the skyscraper Premier Tower under its construction on 134 Spencer Street in Melbourne, Australia was designed drawing inspiration by Beyoncé's look in the music video for "Ghost".
