An important component to both Beyoncé and Lemonade — released during Beyoncé’s mid-30s, a danger zone in our sexist, racist, ageist pop-cultural climate — was how consummately they utilized newfound depth and broader cultural impact to side-step the pop star rat race. Both records centered breathtaking execution, profundity, and the element of surprise to circumvent the search for hit singles, a pursuit that has ruthlessly ended the careers of numerous pop titans. In fact, while each of those albums were massive sellers — both moved over half a million copies in their first weeks alone — neither produced a massive chart-topper, still the de rigueur currency for pop stars and one Beyoncé arguably has not traded in as a solo artist since 2008, when “Sweet Dreams” hit the Hot 100’s top 10.
By announcing the album with six weeks’ notice and releasing its lead single, “Break My Soul,” a few days later, Beyoncé effectively abandoned the shock-and-awe protocol she’d pioneered. “Break My Soul” was immediately notable for its uncomplicated lightness, the first piece of Beyoncé music in more than a decade unburdened from Saying Something. On the contrary, it reveled in being a down-the-middle pop single, complete with obvious, familiar references to ’90s diva house and a big, vaguely empowering, nearly meaningless hook. “You won’t break my soul, and I’m telling everybody,” Beyoncé repeats ad nauseam on the chorus, miles away from the gut-punch specificity of Lemonade-era lyrics like “I like my negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils.”
If “Break My Soul” was, on one level, a respite from Beyonce’s aggressively thoughtful oeuvre of the 2010s, it also felt vaguely disappointing, a concession from an artist who had so miraculously avoided them for so long. What it had in accessibility, it lacked in the iconoclastic thrill of her recent output.
As a commercial gambit, it only partially worked. “Break My Soul” has sat on the lower rungs of the top 10 for the past few weeks, but it hasn’t exactly reached the sheer inescapability of her peak-era hits like “Crazy in Love,” “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),'' or “Halo.” It raised some questions: Was grabbing for a conventional hit single a worthwhile gamble? And would the rest of Renaissance be similarly neutered?
Now that the record is out, the answer to those questions is “maybe” to the first and, joyously, “absolutely not” to the second. Renaissance arrived as planned (despite a leak 36 hours prior) at midnight Friday morning, 16 tracks, unadorned by visual bells and whistles, and with no solemn processing required.
The record is all the better for it.
A carnal dance fantasia of lust, abandon, and release rendered in a continuous mix of some of the most ravishing and inventive production in recent memory, Renaissance needs no accouterments to get its point across. What Beyoncé and her small nation-state of collaborators have achieved is a fusion of her most gleefully unencumbered music to date with the political and social resonance and virtuosic mastery that are her trademarks.
Here, the dance floor is a place for Black and queer revelry-as-resistance. Take “Cozy,” a thick, steamy dancehall track in which Beyoncé coos, “Comfortable in my skin, cozy with who I am,” layered in the mix with another striking observation: “They hate me because they want me / I'm dark brown, dark skin ... that's all me.” This is the kind of euphoric self-empowerment banger, complete with allusions to Black solidarity and beauty, that Lizzo often attempts with much less dexterity; Beyoncé achieves it here without ever losing her edge or, notably in this very chill vocal performance, even breaking a sweat.
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In “Renaissance,” Beyoncé Chooses Ecstasy - BuzzFeed News
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