Beyoncé has a new single out called Countdown. As she is wont to do, she's released a suitably funky video to go along with it – but there's a problem we can't quite get past.

Beyoncé's good at singing, right? That's something we can all agree on. Whatever you think of her particular style of music, the fact that she is scientifically excellent at making difficult sounds fall out of her mouth in the correct order is indisputable.

Wow, three Beyoncés! What could possibly be better than that?

We just don't get why anyone would like this song.

Don't get us wrong – we're behind everything else that Beyoncé's released, even if we might not rush out to the shops and buy it. We can fully understand why people enjoy Naughty Girl or Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) even if we'd never ourselves admit to liking them. Never. We definitely don't sing along to them in the shower, or anything.

But Countdown escapes us. Fundamentally, despite the fact that Beyoncé looks wonderful (as ever), we can't fathom how this collection of furious noise masquerading as a “single” could please anyone and not, say, send them into a dizzying pressure headache upon repeated exposure.

Oh, well, fair enough

And yet the comments attached to the video on YouTube (which has had around one and a half million views in three days) aren't statements like “My ears are bleeding from the dangerous syncopation of clearly illegal rhythms” but instead “OMG this is my favourite song on the album and I didn't know that there was a video of it, wow!“

We thought for a second that maybe we were out of touch, but – actually – we're not. We're FH Bloody M. If we don't like something, chances are it's not actually good. This song borders on distressing and we're pretty sure that turning the little red volume bar all the way up to red counts as a minor breach of the Geneva Convention. Thank heavens she looks so good, eh?

Cover Girls A-Z

Beyonce Knowles

• In 2007, People en Español magazine expanded their list of the 50 Most Beautiful Latinos to 51, just to include the non-Hispanic Beyoncé.

• Beyoncé was the first female artist to reach pole position on both singles and albums chart simultaneously in the United States and the United Kingdom.

• Despite launching her own fragrances called True Star and Heat, Beyoncé doesn’t touch the stuff – she’s allergic to perfume.

Why we love her...

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