With 'Renaissance,' Beyoncé is more relatable than ever, giving listeners all the anthems and sultry slow burners we love and have come to expect from her.
has gone in something like the opposite direction: She leveled up from her early conciliatory yet impeccable overtures to the mainstream — found on 2006’s— and began releasing adventurous projects whose rollouts were more inventive than a Donald Glover teleplay. On her 2016 masterpiece,Beyoncé gifted us with a stunning “visual album” that was at the vanguard of Black contemporary art — an aural analog to curatortheme around Black artists.
cover story, and is being released in four box sets and limited-edition vinyl, finds her creating an upbeat collection of hits, boundary-expanding deep cuts, and cozy ballads, whose quaint grandeur feels starkly cutting-edge. And it happily suggests that the new wave for the iconic singer is to keep it kind of old school.are its mellow atmospherics.
The former Destiny’s Child frontwoman has long been known for telling tales out of school, bringing legit gospel-style singing to the ratchet unwashed masses. On “Church Girl,” over No I.D.
Ditto for lead single “Break My Soul,” whose charged, four-on-the-floor percussion and cascading water-droplet synths — lifted from Robin S.’s 1990 hit, “Show Me Love” — fuel what’s sure to be a high-key motivational mantra. When Bey belts “I just quit my job/I’m gonna find my new drive,” the urgent, unrestrained elation in her voice is enough to make you want to start up a new hustle or go HAM during leg day at the gym., though.