As she put the destiny in Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé Knowles made her name as a guerilla in the war of the sexes, slaughtering scrubs, bugaboos and suitors unready for her jelly. But on the way to her 2003 solo album, she fell in love, and was reborn as a fantasy-fulfilling naughty girl. The transformation made for some deliriously rowdy singles, but also for copious ballads about devotion and astrology.  

On album two, she realizes that the best way to stay crazy in love (as opposed to boring in love) is by never quitting the dance floor. “Ring the Alarm,” a storm of clattering percussion and sirens, tackles a Beyoncé evergreen: the inseparability of romance and finance. “I’ll be damned if I see another chick on your arm!” she shrieks. It’s an unhinged riot merging passion, jealousy and conspicuous consumption: “Bills Bills Bills” meets Fatal Attraction.

B’Day never cools down, and sweaty up-tempo numbers prove the best platform for Beyoncé’s rapperly phrasing and pipe-flaunting fireballs. If only some mettle carried over to the lyrics. In R&B she’s what passes for a feminist, but B’Day’s gender play is resolutely traditional. On “Sugar Mama,” she coos, “I’ma be like a Jolly Rancher” — a boast far more “Cater 2 U” than “Bootylicious”; and “Freakum Dress” is about sexying up to stay a bored man’s wandering eyes. Beyoncé working overtime to please some triflin’, good-for-nothing type of brother? There’s crazy in love, then there’s just plain crazy.

DOWNLOAD: “Ring the Alarm,” “Sugar Mama”