album review: 'renaissance' by beyoncé

Let’s open this up with a question: are you more a fan of Beyoncé’s music or of her cult of personality?

Now some will say that they’re one and the same, or at least that said massive, borderline messianic cult of personality is a huge part of her overall appeal, given how much of it is an integral part of her music… but I’m not sure that’s entirely the case. It didn’t feel as true in the 2000s - yes, she’s always carried herself and delivered music as if she’s the most important and powerful presence in the room, but it felt like there was more competition for the throne, that in the 2010s she seemed to claim and that nobody could touch. And it’s kind of fascinating that pop culture at large just seemed to accept this - great music and a terrific live show will mostly get you there, but it is worth highlighting just how shrewd and well-calculated the marketing and opulence of it all is, a glamour that enraptured so many…

And yet it still feels like I’m on the outside looking in. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m not the target audience of Beyoncé’s music or art, but she’s also the greatest argument in being able to transcend those boundaries, she proved it in 2016 with Lemonade. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more that album feels like an anomaly in her catalog, the point where there were real cracks in the armor, where all the deification was demystified, and for as much as it was still calculated, it was the first time Beyoncé’s raw humanity really resonated for me; there were stakes and credible human drama, it just felt more tangibly real. In other words, it flew in the face of many of the reasons why revered Beyoncé, and if you listen to diehard members of the Beyhive, many of them don’t cite that as their favourite - they’ll usually go to 2013’s self-titled album or 2011’s 4, the only other album in her catalog I’d agree is legit great. And that’s the other thing: if you’re not in the cult of personality, you have to run off her catalog… and I’m sorry, even if there’s a modicum of quality, it’s uneven. I never liked Destiny’s Child, her first two albums are mixed bags, I Am… Sasha Fierce is a dud that’s aged really badly, her choice of singles has always been kind of lousy even for the albums I like, and let’s be brutally honest, EVERYTHING IS LOVE was mid in 2018 and is basically a footnote in her career now, more notable for the tour around it than anything else.

And that takes us to the new album, where I didn’t know what to expect - I didn’t believe for a second that ‘Break My Soul’ would be indicative of the entire project, but given that I’m middling on the song at best, I wasn’t sure where anything else would fall out. If you don’t count EVERYTHING IS LOVE - and I wouldn’t blame you - this is her first proper album in six years, it’s tough to have any idea where the hell she’d be going with it - so what did she deliver with Renaissance?

…you know what frustrates me with all of this? It’s not that I think this album is bad - for what it is, you can argue it mostly succeeds and gives the fans exactly what they want, especially those who didn’t fully vibe with Lemonade and were looking for something lighter and accessible coming off of the self-titled album. It’s also probably not for me saying I don’t think this is her best - I’ve seen discourse in the Beyhive where most of them are not ranking this at the top, although where it falls is a matter of debate. No, it’s the fact that as I’m working my way through this project and feel nowhere near as impressed as a lot of critics and fans, it leaves me with the sinking feeling that any criticisms I make will be set up to be willfully misunderstood with a lot of the same tired arguments I’ve seen used to defend Beyoncé time and time again, and I don’t want to take a defensive posture in discussing a project that if this dropped from anyone not named Beyoncé, the vast majority of people would be nowhere near as kind to it. In fact, I’d actually argue this project has more parallels with Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind than a lot of people want to admit: production that’s trendy enough to push outside of an established comfort zone but not so much that it feels experimental or challenging or obscures the sounds from where she’s borrowing, content that feels recycled and leaning on cliches that aren’t always a good fit in a new sound, a serious lack of hooks, and a lingering feeling that Beyoncé might be the part of the album that works the least.

And yes, to a whole lot of people this is heresy, I’ve impugned the god-queen diva here of which there is no comparison, so let’s start there. It’s been commonly observed for years that Beyoncé is at her best making aspirational material or cutting down some man who did her wrong - for her it might be reality, but to her audience it’s a power fantasy, specifically for Black women. Obviously I’m not that target audience, but playing at her best there’s an organic swell and connection to her roots that let her leverage raw, borderline volcanic firepower, first across the soul and R&B throwbacks of 4 but then with even more emotive complexity and personal stakes that came with Lemonade; since she’s not an aspirational figure for me - which is obviously fine - I connect more strongly to the more grounded, human moments in her catalog, where she has the presence to command the pedestal, but she doesn’t need it. So a pivot back towards dance music immediately felt odd to me, not just because I never connected to those moments from her or with Destiny’s Child, but because they’re at odds with her strengths and roots as well, especially as a singer. She fares better on the more intimate songs even if I still don’t really care for her breathy falsetto, but I said this when I discussed ‘Break My Soul’ on Billboard BREAKDOWN, a more imperial presence doesn’t really fit well alongside the rough-edged populist bounce and house, or even on the disco-leaning cuts like ‘VIRGO’S GROOVE’ and ‘CUFF IT’, especially when she slips into braggadocious flexing material that has always felt off coming from her; for as much as her greatness is assumed to be self-evident, she shouldn’t need it. And that’s before she starts putting on the patois on ‘HEATED’ and more flamboyant ballroom vocal inflections that feel like a costume coming from her; an expensive one, but a costume nonetheless. Now the argument to counter that is that these sounds historically come from Black culture, she’s entitled to step in them more than the majority and curate the sound, and embracing more swaggering Houston hip-hop can work for her personality, showing off more sides of her especially in her more sexually provocative angles the past decade. And yeah, that’s true… but there are artists who slip into that dance world more fluidly than Beyoncé; Missy Elliott and all of her descendants spring to mind immediately here, who will work with the grooves rather than try to command them.

Of course, the other major problem is that the lyricism took a nosedive, and when we start getting into themes, this album starts to test my patience. Now of course the counterpoint is that this is a dance project, lyrics are arguably the least important thing here, Beyoncé is not trying to put together something as layered and vulnerable and deep as Lemonade or even the more conscious cuts of the self-titled album, if all she drops are self-affirming punchlines and flexes she’s done her job. And while I could point out the obvious contradiction of saying ‘lyrics don’t matter’ and then see them flood the IG captions and highlight for a lot of folks they very much have resonance, the problem goes deeper: in very few moments on this album does it sound like Beyoncé is having much fun. We’ll get into this more later, but one of the things I loved about 4 is just how joyous it felt, and you’d think for a dance album Beyoncé could sell that she’s enjoying the vibes. But that’s not the performance she’s giving which is running on chic cool and glamourous attitude, and a lot of the writing defaults to the stark, boldfaced platitudes that underscore it… or when it gets to the more sexually charged songs, it just gets a bit goofy without selling it well, less like there’s a joke and more like ‘she can get away with saying anything because it’s Beyoncé’ - I think that’s the only excuse as to why ‘THIQUE’ happened at all, or why she calls her boobs ‘tig ol’ bitties’ on ‘CHURCH GIRL’, or why she didn’t get immediate backlash for the ableist slur in the same way Lizzo did with ‘Grrrls’, and certainly had more defenders. Yes, it was eventually changed - and on a side note, given how so many people worked on this project I’m surprised this wasn’t anticipated - but it was hard to avoid the feeling that Beyoncé can say just about anything on record and receive a pass for it…

And that takes us to the ‘activism’ of this album, which has received a lot of praise from certain quarters for elevating and uplifting Black women and especially the queer voices that helped create these subgenres of dance music, a historical curation amplification long-overdue, making the most of the platform Beyoncé has provided. And you know, if it was just in that context, it would be something to praise… but it’s all through Beyoncé’s filter, her declarative voice, and if you want to give her all the praise for being the centerpoint and pulling all these voices together, you also have to include that her framing as a flexing multi-millionaire many times over is misguided at best and flagrant historical revisionism at worst; she’s not just a carnal id pulling all of these disparate eras together and it’s painfully disingenuous to imply that if you casually ignore the context you don’t like. Because if you go back and watch Paris Is Burning, the 1990 documentary exploring New York ballroom culture and the LGBTQ scene of the time amidst the AIDS crisis - which Beyoncé references explicitly on ‘ALIEN SUPERSTAR - it’s worth highlighting that the discrimination wasn’t just societal but had tangible capitalistic impacts coming through the America of Reagan and Bush Sr. The balls were finding glamour and realness with resources they didn’t have, but could still look the part and that might be enough. But Beyoncé’s framing individualizes all of it, or at most for her and her girls - and it’s not one that seriously challenges the financial power structure upholding all of this, because that would undermine her power and we can’t have that here; it can feel disingenuous that what might be escapism for one class is a casual reality of the other, and attempting to bridge that gap like this feels tenuous.

And I’m not going to mince words, the line that pissed me off right out of the gate was on ‘'I’M THAT GIRL’, not about not wanting power which is total bullshit based on her own catalog, but ‘knocking Basquiats off the wall’, because it’s so revealing in the same way it was with Jay-Z on ‘Picasso Baby’; it’s not about the ideas within Basquiat’s work challenging systemic oppression and capitalism, it’s about being so fucking rich that you can own them and in your reckless hedonism it’s just a flex to knock it off the wall. And again, this is not new from Beyoncé - this was a critique of Lemonade’s activist moments as well on ‘Formation’ and ‘Freedom’ - it just feels way more obvious now because it’s interwoven directly into the themes, samples, and everything else Beyoncé is trying to wrap around herself… and again, it feels off to me. It’s every designer brand name getting wedged into these songs, it’s referencing the ‘Progress’ pride flag on ‘COZY’ and sampling Ts Madison but weaving it into a flex about getting paid and being effortless on a throne, it’s the ‘label whores’ reference on ‘ALIEN SUPERSTAR’ - hell, playing the ‘I’m Too Sexy’ interpolation straight when that was a parody of the same runway material leaves the song an incoherent mess for me - and it’s the references to January 6 on ‘ENERGY’ where we get ‘only double lines we cross is dollar signs’, ignoring the role that monetized disinformation plays in all of this turning Karens into terrorists. It’s the reference to quitting your job on ‘BREAK MY SOUL’ that had me rolling my eyes… although I did appreciate the irony of any higher thematic ambitions seeming to evaporate after that song for a series of simpler dance and sex jams… and what do you know, even if it’s not Beyoncé’s comfort zone and you still have songs like ‘THIQUE’ that are completely ridiculous, or how ‘AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM’ is basically a cocaine rap song about how addictive her sex is, or how you get lines like ‘It should cost a billion to look this good’ on ‘PURE/HONEY’, or how the last lines on the album are brand name porn, it tends to be better! That’s the tension at the core of this album: it’s enjoyable when it’s just decontextualized dance jams, a purer celebration that says less and does more, but it’s fragile and when this album tries to say more, it breaks apart; in other words, it’s a glamour.

Now some will argue I’m overthinking this - most people engaging with this album do not know nor care to go this deep with it, it’s just lightweight empowerment and flexible release on the dance floor, and in our modern society isn’t that enough, revolution simply by escapism. That’s certainly the point a lot of mainstream establishment critics have tried to make, alongside assertions that Beyoncé is more of a curator of sounds than experimenter, a mosaic of ideas all stitched together, even that it’s a deconstruction of what Beyoncé has done before in the anonymous, sweaty blur of the dance floor. And I feel like all of this is ignoring not just who Beyoncé is as the central magnetic force behind the album, but also that her arc or central ethos hasn’t changed in years, this is not deconstructive - if anything, compared to the more complicated cuts on the self-titled album and Lemonade it’s become more simplistic and direct. That could be enough to amplify a populist streak if you just focus on the vibe… but again, this album does have lines where it’s trying to say more that will be embraced by fans directly, ignoring chunks of context to how this can feel self-serving and weirdly calculated. I like Tems and Grace Jones being on this project, but if you’re going to include Afrobeat as representative of important Black music right now in the historical continuity she’s weaving, it feels odd for such a long album to ignore the more progressive and offbeat experimentation that’s been holding house and dance music together for the past decade, which comprise - funnily enough - a lot of the descendants of Missy Elliott. Again, there’s an odd exclusionary quality that creeps through the constructed arc of this project, which is what happens when you build a hierarchy and place yourself on top, and that feels at odds to the escapist revolution of the dance floor.

But then you reach a weird conundrum: if this album is calculated, there’s a lot of odd rough edges where some feel intentional but others leave me frustrated. This is where we get to the production and coming back to Beyoncé having fun, it’s hard to escape the feeling that with less melody once again Beyoncé’s voice often hangs as the most prominent element opposite the groove in the mix; where she winds up commanding it rather than riding it, and where the rough edges that are supposed to imply organic release feel hollow to me. This predominantly comes through in the vocal mixing and production, where the fidelity is all over the place, but this is also where we get a lot of samples and interpolations of classic house and disco, and on the one hand, it creates a pretty impressive historical tapestry. On the other, I know exactly how expensive some of these recognizable samples are - especially the Donna Summer interpolation on ‘SUMMER RENAISSANCE’ - and this isn’t the underground or plunderphonics, you had to pay to get those cleared and that flies in the face of what sampling was like in that era. This isn’t even touching on the Kelis controversy, where the most I’ll say is that it’s very revealing of where the lines of power and solidarity really are, but I’d argue the larger issue for me is that minus more melody outside the vocal line, a lot of this album doesn’t stand out in the same way in terms of distinctive hooks. This has been an issue I’ve had with Beyoncé for years, and to be fair it’s less of a factor here because the transitions are effortless and I can remember specific samples or stylistic moods rather than outright tunes… but when the project already feels long you’d think there’d be a little more to stick there. But maybe she felt she didn’t need to bring those in the same way given how this album relies so heavily on groove… and hell, maybe that was enough, because if there is one thing that saves this project, it’s groove and percussion. The drums sound phenomenal across this entire album, the basslines are impeccably balanced, and as much as this album doesn’t experiment in sound, it absolutely can recapture those old-school vibes whenever it goes, like the shuffling jingling bounce of ‘COZY’ and the retro disco bounce of ‘CUFF IT’. And when this album hits its stride on ‘CHURCH GIRL’ with the bounce/soul blend flowing into the liquid bassy patter of ‘PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA’ and sweet funk/disco of ‘VIRGO’S GROOVE’, it’s my favourite run of the album! And to Beyoncé’s credit, her late album run from Bloodpop’s gurgling attempt at hyperpop on ‘ALL UP IN YOUR MIND’ with AG Cook to the seething new jack swing of ‘AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM’ and bladed vamping of ‘PURE/HONEY’ with a killer R&B change-up worked better than I thought it would Hell, as much as the lyrics annoy me on ‘I’M THAT GIRL’, that crescendo on the back half is impressive, as are the vocal harmonies on ‘HEATED’ - and hell, as much as the lyrics on ‘THIQUE’ are absurd and the bass synth sounds like a distended fart, it might be the funniest moment on the entire album, I’ll give Beyonce that.

You know, there’s a certain irony to Kendrick Lamar saying on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers that for as much as folks want him to be their saviour, he absolutely is not that and by the end of his album, I believe it… and then it’s followed by Beyoncé saying that she never wanted this power, and by the end of her album not only do I not believe her, she’s also claiming as much as she can get. And you know what, if the stakes stayed on the dance floor, the creation of a pure moment of escapism, where all Beyoncé did was curate a tapestry of Black queer music and sensuality across history, just let it all stand with vibrance and colour, it might be enough; and hell, just taken on that level, this is pretty good! But it’s the purposeful recontextualization and individualization of that aesthetic in the service of power that just feels off, not aligning with the reality of the sounds she extrapolates, serving Beyoncé’s platform but not her artistic execution of this newfound coronation. It’s no surprise that Noname called both Kendrick and Beyonce out for how performative it all feels, and while there’s a part of me that can appreciate that performance, I can also see every seam; and when it doesn’t quite feel as fun, I’m not as mesmerized. And I’m reminded of Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer from 2018, a project I still feel is criminally underrated and also draws across Black and queer music to weave an expansive world, touching much of the same territory as Beyoncé… but the afrofuturism doesn’t just feel more creative and personally rooted, it understands the systemic change required to look forward, and it feels utterly euphoric in chasing it.

Maybe the next two segments of Beyoncé’s Renaissance will feel more revolutionary, a proper Reformation, and I’m willing to accept we’re not getting the full picture as of yet… but albums of this breadth and scope should stand alone, and this just doesn’t get as far as I wanted. On surface spectacle it’s good for what it is - sits around the self-titled for me in terms of quality so it’s no surprise the fans adore it - but I dunno, I wanted to like this more.