That "lack of soul" criticism of Beyonce is really kinda bullshyt. She has a lot of soulful material in her discography. The fact of the matter is thats not what you are going to hear. The masses want to hear Single Ladies and Freakum Dress. So thats what get played 1000 times a day.
Basically...
And it's not that THAT stuff doesn't have soul either... white artists have been copyin' black people so much, we sometimes forget that even the poppiest acts are borrowin' from R&B. So when we do stuff that's not exactly deep soul, it gets confused with tryin' to cross over. I don't see Beyonce singin' Miley Cyrus type songs.