Beyonce Renaissance

2022 - 7 - 29

Post cover — Image courtesy of "NME.com"

Beyoncé - 'Renaissance' review: a celebration of love and Black joy (NME.com)

The superstar's first studio album in six years is indebted to house music and New Orleans bounce, keenly reclaiming gentrified genres.

‘Renaissance’ does precisely what it says on the tin; the revival of Black classics, and she makes sure a lot of love goes into that. The finest arrives on ‘Moves’ where an icon ( Grace Jones) meets a newcomer ( Tems); here, a bassline synonymous with afro-centric music encourages everyone to join the as a bolshy Jones says she’ll “bruk a bitch, bruk up / Fumble like we ’bout to come up”. Then, it’s Tems’ turn to shine with her brief interlude asking: “Who this girl in the back of the room? ‘Renaissance’, her seventh studio album, marks the sound of an artist refreshed: this is her most relentlessly upbeat and fun record yet, one where she explores love, friendship and relationships across 16 spellbinding tracks.

Beyoncé' Unveils 'Renaissance,' the First of Three New Projects (The New York Times)

The pop star's seventh solo album is “Act I” of work born during the pandemic, a time she “found to be the most creative,” she said in a statement.

“He was my godmother and the first person to expose me to a lot of the music and culture that serve as an inspiration for this album,” she wrote. The performance was later turned into a Netflix special and an album, both titled “Homecoming.” In an explanatory statement posted to Instagram last month that Beyoncé expanded on her website on Thursday, she said “Renaissance” was part of a “three act project” she recorded during the pandemic. A place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking. She announced the album more than a month ahead of time, did an interview with British Vogue, put out the single “Break My Soul,” revealed a track list and finally began posting on TikTok. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she added, thanking her followers “for your love and protection.”

Beyoncé Renaissance: new album review, Renaissance name ... (NationalWorld)

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Writing about the album on her website Beyoncé said: “This three act project was recorded over three years during the pandemic. A source for The Sun said that they were already looking for venues in the UK for a tour to promote her seventh album. In a post on social media the singer thanked fans for their “love and protection” and called out anyone “that was trying to sneak into the club early.” The last time Beyoncé performed solo in the UK was for her Formation World Tour, which coincided with the release of her album Lemonade. A time to be still but also a time I found to be the most creative.” The singer announced her new album was dropping in a Tweet on Tidal, the streaming service owned by her husband Jay-Z.

Beyoncé releases 'Renaissance' — her 7th studio album (NPR)

The new album pulls from '70s disco, '80s synth-pop, '90s house and afro-beats. In other words, it makes you want to dance. This is only the first act ...

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Every Song Ranked on Beyonce's 'Renaissance': Critic's Picks (Billboard)

With fifteen new songs in addition to “Break My Soul,” Queen Bey has gifted us a hefty chunk of new music to soundtrack our foreseeable future. From ...

“Cuff It,” fittingly the fourth track on Renaissance, combines all of the hallmarks of Beyoncé’s artistry into one gargantuan display of excellence. Across Renaissance, you’ll hear the rasp of her self-titled album, the gritty funk of 4 and B’Day, and the bright flirtatiousness of Dangerously In Love. On the aptly titled “Virgo’s Groove” you get every shade of Beyoncé’s voice in one behemoth of a song. “Break My Soul” all but guaranteed an uptempo dance album, so the existence and function of slower tracks remained a question mark until the night of the album’s release. Clearly dedicated to the preachers’ kids who start their weekends in the club and end their weekends in a church pew, “Church Girl” is the kind of uber-specific celebration of Black music that genuinely inspires awe. In many ways, “Break My Soul” is the thesis of Renaissance. From a structural and musical standpoint, this is easily the most traditional and accessible song on the album. There wasn’t a more fitting way to conclude Renaissance than using the track that interpolates Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.” In 2003, Beyoncé earned one of her first solo hits with “Naughty Girl” — a track that borrowed an early hook from Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby.” Nearly two decades later, Queen Bey brings her most experimental album to a close with a song that cleverly incorporates its sample into a soundscape primed to flaunt her otherworldly vocal acrobatics. When a track opens with an announcement requesting that we “do not attempt to leave the dancefloor,” you know you’re in for a ride. “Thique” walks in the spirit of “Bootylicious,” and Beyoncé’s raspy vocal contrasts nicely with the sleek production. “Break My Soul” is an anthem of reclamation; Beyoncé is reclaiming her joy and inner peace. Beyoncé is far from the first name that comes to mind when thinking of mainstream artists likely to foray into the vast universe of hyperpop, but she sounds right at home in the genre on the ethereal “All Up In Your Mind” — which even features genre stalwart A.G. Cook as a writer and producer. Brooding synths and urgent bass bookmark “Thique.” One of the songs that appear in the back half of the album, “Thique” finds Beyoncé and her collaborators sauntering through lyrics that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Chlöe single. The skittish track uses a sample of Kilo Ali’s “Cocaine” to provide a canvas for some of the best rapping of Beyoncé’s career; it’s an ambitious song that reveals new rewards with every listen.

Beyoncé 'Renaissance' review: 'Gay black man' rebirth after Jay-Z ... (New York Post)

Beyoncé's much-anticipated seventh solo studio album, “Renaissance,” which dropped from the stratosphere on Friday morning, is a rebirth for Bey after the ...

“Comfortable in my skin/Cozy with who I am,” she sings over the dirtiest of grooves. In this way, it’s even more like her answer to Madonna’s “Erotica” than her surprise self-titled set was in 2013. Clearly, she got all that out of her system, and after being pent up during the pandemic, she’s ready to release her wiggle — as hinted by the LP’s housed-up first single “Break My Soul.”

'Renaissance' Review: America Has a Problem and Beyoncé Ain't It (The New York Times)

On “Renaissance,” the pop star's seventh solo album, she finds escape, rebirth, community, pleasure and control in decades of dance music steeped in Black ...

There’s also Beyoncé’s vamp at the end of “Heated,” which she recites to the crack of a splayed hand fan. It sustained and delivered delight and provocation in spite of the surrounding crisis, it gave people looking for a house something that approximates home. The sternness she applies to the word “No” on “America” alone would be enough. This is to say that “Renaissance” is an album about performance — of other pop’s past, but ultimately of Beyoncé, a star who’s now 40, an age when the real risk is in acting like you’ve got nothing to lose. But there’s her impersonation of Grace Jones’s imperiousness on “Move,” some sharp-elbowed dancehall refraction in which the two of them command the plebes to “part like the Red Sea” when the queen comes through. “Dark skin, light skin, beige” — Madison drawls on “Cozy” — “fluorescent beige.” Thank the tabloid-TV keyboard blasts on “America Has a Problem.” But Beyoncé herself has never been funnier than she is here. The album’s final song is “Summer Renaissance,” and it opens with the thrum of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.” It’s not the first time she’s quoted La Donna. But the nod is not only there, where the reference is explicit. The exercise of control is as entertaining on this album as the exorcism of stress. And C) The person actually performing this song knows “that booty gon’ do what it want to.” Now’s the time to work your body in lieu of losing more of your mind. The range of her voice nears the galactic; the imagination powering it qualifies as cinema. Now’s the time to remind yourself — to be “telling everybody,” as she sings on the first single, “Break My Soul” — that there’s no discourse without disco. Were I that musician, now might be the time to call my freestyle jam “America Has a Problem” and not say what the problem is because A) Psyche! B) What I’ma say you don’t already know?