When Beyoncé’s self-titled fifth album landed unannounced on the iTunes store in December 2013, the pop world trembled. “If you try this shit again/You gon' lose your wife.” In support, White offers a word to the wise: “Love God herself.” “This is your final warning,” she says in a moment of unnerving calm. Through tears, even Beyoncé has to summon her inner Beyoncé, roaring, “I’ma keep running ’cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.” This panoramic strength–lyrical, vocal, instrumental, and personal–nudged her public image from mere legend to something closer to real-life superhero.Įvery second of Lemonade deserves to be studied and celebrated (the self-punishment in “Sorry,” the politics in “Formation,” the creative enhancements from collaborators like James Blake, Robert Plant, and Karen O), but the song that aims the highest musically may be “Don’t Hurt Yourself”-a Zeppelin-sampling psych-rock duet with Jack White. Billed upon its release as a tribute to “every woman’s journey of self-knowledge and healing,” the project is furious, defiant, anguished, vulnerable, experimental, muscular, triumphant, humorous, and brave-a vivid personal statement from the most powerful woman in music, released without warning in a time of public scrutiny and private suffering. The details, of course, are what make it so relatable, what make each song sting. Both the album and its visual companion are deeply tied to Beyoncé’s identity and narrative (her womanhood, her blackness, her husband’s infidelity) and make for Beyoncé's most outwardly revealing work to date. The speech-made by her husband JAY-Z’s grandmother Hattie White on her 90th birthday in 2015-reportedly inspired the concept behind this radical project, which arrived with an accompanying film as well as words by Somali-British poet Warsan Shire. “I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.” An elderly woman’s voice cuts in: "I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up,” she says. There’s one moment critical to understanding the emotional and cultural heft of Lemonade-Beyoncé’s genre-obliterating blockbuster sixth album-and it arrives at the end of “Freedom,” a storming empowerment anthem that samples a civil-rights-era prison song and features Kendrick Lamar. It’s the perfect lead-in to the album closer “SUMMER RENAISSANCE,” which propels the dreamy escapist disco of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” even further into the future. And on “PURE/HONEY,” Beyoncé immerses herself in ballroom culture, incorporating drag performance chants and a Kevin Aviance sample on the first half that give way to the disco-drenched second half, cementing the song as an immediate dance-floor favorite. “CHURCH GIRL” fuses R&B, gospel, and hip-hop to tell a survivor’s story: “I'm finally on the other side/I finally found the extra smiles/Swimming through the oceans of tears we cried.”Īn explicit celebration of Blackness, “COZY” is the mantra of a woman who has nothing to prove to anyone-“Comfortable in my skin/Cozy with who I am,” ” Beyoncé muses on the chorus. There are soft moments here, too: “I know you can’t help but to be yourself around me,” she coos on “PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA,” the kind of warm, whispers-in-the-ear love song you’d expect to hear at a summer cookout-complete with an intricate interplay between vocals and guitar that gives Beyoncé a chance to showcase some incredible vocal dexterity. RENAISSANCE is playful and energetic in a way that captures that Friday-night, just-got-paid, anything-can-happen feeling, underscored by reiterated appeals to unyoke yourself from the weight of others’ expectations and revel in the totality of who you are.įrom the classic four-on-the-floor house moods of the Robin S.- and Big Freedia-sampling lead single “BREAK MY SOUL” to the Afro-tech of the Grace Jones- and Tems-assisted “MOVE” and the funky, rollerskating disco feeling of “CUFF IT,” this is a massive yet elegantly composed buffet of sound, richly packed with anthemic morsels that pull you in. Crafted during the grips of the pandemic, her seventh solo album is a celebration of freedom and a complete immersion into house and dance that serves as the perfect sound bed for themes of liberation, release, self-assuredness, and unfiltered confidence across its 16 tracks. Unique, strong, and sexy-that’s how Beyoncé wants you to feel while listening to RENAISSANCE.
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