Beyonce's new album feels personal
Whatever its message about Jay Z, Queen Beys Lemonade offers some amazing music
Who is Beyoncé?
She's Queen Bey, "the baddest woman in the game," as she refers to herself on "Hold Up," the bouncy reggae track about rage and (maybe) forgiveness, whose video on Lemonade, the surprise "visual album" released Saturday night, features her walking down the street in a chiffon dress smashing car windows with a baseball bat. (The tune also samples Andy Williams' "Can't Get Used to Losing You" and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps"!)
Beyoncé the ultradiva is so successful, she "might just be a black Bill Gates," as she posited in "Formation," the Black Lives Matter battle cry debuted on Super Bowl weekend that also gives a name to the world tour she will bring June 5 to Lincoln Financial Field. She's one half of the music business' most formidable power couple, a feminist force of nature who's the only woman ever to headline Philadelphia's (and Jay Z's) Made in America festival, which she has done twice.
Within that construct - Beyoncé, Super Woman - one element has often been missing: vulnerability. A sense of who the pop star really is hasn't always been apparent, even on her first "visual" album, 2013's simply titled Beyoncé.
That changes with Lemonade (Parkwood / Columbia *** 1/2), an album that feels deeply personal in every way and makes her human. It's a multimedia song cycle about infidelity and marital strife that starts out deeply suspicious ("You can taste the dishonesty / It's all over your breath," are the first words in the opening "Pray You Catch Me"), quickly works its way into righteous anger, and ultimately reaches a reconciliation that's not entirely convincing.
It's music, a theatrical art form, and the themes of betrayal, self-doubt, and disappointment are clearly meant not only to be heartfelt and intimate but also to resonate with all women who find themselves done wrong by a man who can't be satisfied. (Even by Beyoncé!) But Lemonade - whose title is inspired by a home- movie clip of Jay Z's grandmother saying, "They gave me lemons, and I made lemonade" - sure as shootin' seems to be about Jay Z.
The rapper, impresario, and head honcho of streaming service Tidal - where Lemonade was available exclusively until it went on sale Sunday on iTunes (it will be out May 6 on CD/DVD) - is missing from the first part of the visual Lemonade.
"Looking at my watch, he shoulda been home," Beyoncé sings over the gurgling, stutter-step beats on the track coproduced by Wynter Gordon, Melo-X, and herself. "Tonight, I regret the night I put that ring on."
Later, she adds, "He only want me when I'm not there / He better call Becky with the good hair," a lyric that has sent Internet gossip-mongers into a frenzy to determine who Becky might be.
Speculation has centered on Rachel Roy, the fashion designer ex-wife of Damon Dash, Jay Z's former Roc-A-Fella business partner, who put up an Instagram post Saturday that included the phrase "good hair don't care."
Lemonade was shown Saturday night on HBO and had wags speculating that the rapper might be served with divorce papers before the show was over. He shows up about halfway through, however, initially on the soft-focus ballad "Sandcastles" - destined to be a massive hit. By the end, the couple are in a tentative embrace, with their celebrity offspring, Blue Ivy, also in the frame.
But never mind her other half: What makes Lemonade so thrilling are the handpicked collaborators Beyoncé pairs with throughout an album that pushes her in new, rawly emotive musical directions. A case in point is "Don't Hurt Yourself," a hookup with Tidal shareholder Jack White that samples Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" and unequivocally demonstrates that hell hath no fury like Beyoncé scorned. It's blistering and essentially turns Elmore James' "It Hurts Me Too" on its perpetrator: "When you hurt me, you hurt yourself." It's Beyoncé singing the blues.
Conflict and strife make good fodder for storytelling and inspiration for great art, and Beyoncé has many helpmates to bring the Lemonade narrative to life. Principal among them is Warsan Shire, a Somali British poet whose words Beyoncé recites in the interstitial segments of the visual album. Lines that effectively cast Beyoncé as an emotionally abused Everywoman, such as, "I tried to change, close my mouth more / I tried to be softer, prettier, less awake," voiced as the singer floats underwater, come from the pen of the London poet - who's about to get a whole lot more famous.
Other coworkers of note on Lemonade include former Philadelphian DJ-producer Diplo, Vampire Weekend leader Ezra Koenig, and rapper Kendrick Lamar. On "Freedom," a rocked-out expression of self-determination, Lamar spits out: "I'm gonna keep moving because a winner don't quit on themselves." The song also credits musical anthropologists Alan and John Lomax as cowriters because it builds on early-20th-century African American field recordings.
That song is one of many that bring in music textures you don't expect to hear on a Beyoncé record. "Daddy Issues," which digs deep into her relationship with her father and former manager, Mathew Knowles, starts off with a brass-band sample and would not sound out of place on country radio, if country radio were any good.
Two songs - the opener "Pray You Catch Me" and "Forward," a transitional tune that Jay Z, if he were listening, might interpret as meaning there might be some hope for him after all - features James Blake, the British songwriter and producer who specializes in diaphanous moodscapes.
"Forward," which lasts a mere 1 minute 19 seconds, blends Blake's voice with Beyoncé's and holds a door open. "It's time to listen, it's time to fight," might translate as: You're getting one more chance, honey, even if you don't deserve it.
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