POP: 2 Beyonces aren’t in sync

“I am …. Sasha Fierce”

Beyonce. Columbia. 11 tracks.

Grade: B-

In the promotional material for her ambitious, somewhat befuddling double album “I Am … Sasha Fierce,” Beyonce Knowles discusses her newly revealed alter ego. “She’s the party girl, she’s bootylicious,” says the star. “She is, but I’m not. She’s my alter ego. I’m finally revealing who I am.”

The contradiction of that brief comment says much about Beyonce’s artistic predicament. A child talent show winner molded into a pop star by her driven father, she is a creature of the stage who has secured a spot in hip-hop’s firmament. Yet she’s often criticized for seeming distant within her own performances.

For Beyonce, to say that an identity she is not is “revealing who I am” is not a contradiction. As an artist, she is a role player first —- a brainy, often showy interpreter instead of a gut singer on ballads and a brilliantly varied rhythmic innovator on her club hits. “I Am … Sasha Fierce” shows her further refining both of those tendencies. But her misplaced worries about authenticity cause Beyonce to make some unfortunate missteps.

Her first mistake was to give Beyonce and Sasha each her own disc.

The “real” Beyonce is romantic, interdependent, brought to life by love. Her modus operandi is the power ballad. Then there’s Sasha, whose manifesto is the Lil Wayne-inspired “Diva,” anchored around the line, “Diva is the female version of a hustla.” Her motif is the club banger.

As a vocalist, Beyonce seems more comfortable in Sasha’s stilettos. Stretching on the Beyonce ballads, she risks sounding ponderous. When she finds the right balance, as on the first single, “If I Were a Boy,” she can be exquisite.

ALSO OUT

> “The Foundation” from Atlanta country-rockers Zac Brown Band.

> Blake Shelton’s “Startin’ Fires.”

> “American Idol” Season 8 winner David Cook’s self-titled debut.

> “Dark Horse” from Nickelback.

> “17” from Latin pop star Ricky Martin.

> “The Promise” from Il Divo.

> Onetime Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar’s “Cosmic Universal Fashion.”

> “Safe Trip Home” from one-time British pop sensation Dido.

> “King Pleasure Time,”multi-genre stylist Joe Jackson’s four-song EP of remixes.

ON DVD

“Wall-E”; Tropic Thunder”; “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2”; “Charmed: the Complete Series”; “SpongeBob SquarePants: Season 5, Volume 2”; “The Fairly Oddparents: Season 6, Volume 1”; “The Who at Kilburn: 1977”; “Wu: the Story of the Wu-Tang Clan”; “Doctor Who: the Complete Fourth Series”; “Daniel Boone: the Final Season”; “Madame Bovary.”

—- Sonia Murray

COMING NEXT TUESDAY

New albums from Trace Adkins, David Byrne and Brian Eno, the Fireman (aka Paul McCartney), Guns N’ Roses, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Tom Jones, Kid Sister, Barry Manilow, Return to Forever and Scott Weiland. (The Killers, Ludacris and Kanye West will release their new albums on Monday.)