Referencing
disco,
funk,
house,
techno,
bounce
and
more,
the
generally
upbeat
songs on
Beyoncé’s
“Renaissance”
draw
from a
wide
array of
writers
and
producers.
Credit...Mason
Poole/A.M.P.A.S.,
via
Getty
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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.
CREDIT:
CARLIJN
JACOBS |
|
Beyoncé’
Unveils
‘Renaissance,’
the
First of
Three
New
Projects
Ben
Sisario,
Joe
Coscarelli
nytimes.com
NEW YORK
- The
new
Beyoncé
album
has
officially
arrived.
In a
rare
breach
of the
pop
queen’s
carefully
choreographed
release
plans,
an
unauthorized
version
of
“Renaissance,”
the
singer’s
seventh
solo
studio
LP and
the
first
part of
a teased
trilogy,
leaked
two days
early
online.
Beyoncé
acknowledged
the
hitch in
a
statement
upon the
album’s
wide
release
on
streaming
services
at
midnight
on
Friday.
“So, the
album
leaked,
and you
all
actually
waited
until
the
proper
release
time so
you all
can
enjoy it
together,”
she
wrote to
her
dedicated
fans.
“I’ve
never
seen
anything
like
it,” she
added,
thanking
her
followers
“for
your
love and
protection.”
The
debut of
“Renaissance”
followed
a
marketing
rollout
that,
for
Beyoncé,
was
oddly
conventional.
After
years of
ripping
up the
standard
playbook
for
releasing
new
music —
eschewing
early
radio
singles
and
interviews
for
surprise
drops
and
elaborate
multimedia
spectacles
—
Beyoncé
spent
six
weeks
beating
the
promotional
drum.
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.
Yet on
Wednesday,
about 36
hours
before
the
appointed
release
time,
what
seemed
to be
high-quality
copies
of the
album’s
16
tracks
appeared
online,
spreading
across
social
media
even as
Beyoncé’s
most
vigilant
fans
encouraged
one
another
to hold
out (and
to
tattletale
on the
bootleggers).
“I
appreciate
you for
calling
out
anyone
that was
trying
to sneak
into the
club
early,”
Beyoncé
wrote in
her
statement
on
social
media as
the
album
was
released.
Sleuthing
observers
speculated
that the
leak may
have
come
from
copies
of the
CD that
were
being
sold in
some
European
stores
early.
Neither
the
singer’s
team nor
her
record
label,
Columbia,
have
commented
on the
leak,
though
the
songs
seemed
to be
authentic,
and
samples
matched
with the
official
songwriting
credits
revealed
a week
ago.
In a
perverse
way, the
old-fashioned
leak of
a
blockbuster
album
seemed
to fit
the
throwback
theme of
“Renaissance,”
which
throbs
with the
sound of
dance
music
from
across
the
decades.
Referencing
disco,
funk,
house,
techno,
bounce
and
more,
the
generally
upbeat
songs
draw
from a
wide
array of
writers
and
producers,
with
some
tracks
crediting
more
than
dozen
people.
In
addition
to
reliable
Beyoncé
collaborators
like
The-Dream,
Pharrell
Williams,
Hit-Boy
and
Drake,
experimental
songs
like
“Energy”
and “All
Up In
Your
Mind”
also
feature
electronic
producers
including
Skrillex,
BloodPop
and A.G.
Cook of
PC Music
among
their
eclectic
personnel.
The
samples
and
interpolations
run the
gamut as
well,
from the
regional
and
esoteric
to the
indelible:
“America
Has a
Problem”
pulls
from the
Atlanta
bass
pioneer
Kilo,
while
“Summer
Renaissance,”
the
closing
song,
includes
an
interpolation
of Donna
Summer’s
1977
electro-disco
classic
“I Feel
Love.”
On
“Move,”
a
feature
from the
cultural
chameleon
Grace
Jones is
paired
with the
rising
Afrobeats
star
Tems;
elsewhere,
Beyoncé
links
the
sounds
of
traditional
Black
music
genres
like
soul and
R&B with
subcultures
like
ballroom
vogueing.
“I’m one
of
one/I’m
number
one/I’m
the only
one,”
she
intones
on
“Alien
Superstar.”
“Don’t
even
waste
your
time
trying
to
compete
with
me/no
one else
in this
world
can
think
like
me.”
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.
She
called
the
album,
which
she
refers
to as
“Act I,”
“a place
to dream
and to
find
escape
during a
scary
time for
the
world.”
Adding
that she
hoped
the
dance
floor-focused
tracks
would
inspire
listeners
to
“release
the
wiggle,”
she
added:
“My
intention
was to
create a
safe
place, a
place
without
judgment.
A place
to be
free of
perfectionism
and
overthinking.
A place
to
scream,
release,
feel
freedom.”
Beyoncé
also
cited
her late
“Uncle
Jonny,”
whose
battle
with
H.I.V.
the
singer
has
spoken
about
before,
as an
influence
for the
music
and its
historical
ties to
the
L.G.B.T.Q.
community.
“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.
“Thank
you to
all of
the
pioneers
who
originate
culture,
to all
of the
fallen
angels
whose
contributions
have
gone
unrecognized
for far
too
long.”
Since
“Lemonade”
(2016),
her last
solo
studio
LP and
accompanying
film,
Beyoncé
has
tided
fans
over
with a
number
of
ambitious
in-between
projects.
In 2018,
she
performed
as one
of the
headliners
at the
Coachella
festival,
where
her show
paid
tribute
to the
marching
band
tradition
of
historically
Black
colleges
and
universities,
and was
widely
hailed
as
triumph
— one
that
“reoriented
her
music,
sidelining
its
connections
to pop
and
framing
it
squarely
in a
lineage
of
Southern
Black
musical
traditions,”
as The
New York
Times
critic
Jon
Caramanica
wrote.
The
performance
was
later
turned
into a
Netflix
special
and an
album,
both
titled
“Homecoming.”
Also in
2018,
Beyoncé
and
Jay-Z,
her
husband,
released
a joint
album,
“Everything
Is
Love,”
credited
to the
Carters.
And in
June
2020, at
the
height
of
national
protests
in wake
of
George
Floyd’s
murder,
she
released
a song,
“Black
Parade,”
with
lines
like
“Put
your
fist up
in the
air,
show
Black
love.”
“Black
Parade”
took the
Grammy
Award
the next
year for
best R&B
performance,
one of
four
prizes
that
night
that
brought
Beyoncé’s
career
haul to
28 —
more
than any
other
woman.
This
year,
Beyoncé
was
nominated
at the
Academy
Awards
for best
original
song for
“Be
Alive,”
from the
film
“King
Richard,”
a biopic
about
the
father
of Venus
and
Serena
Williams.
How the
early
leak
will
affect
the
commercial
prospects
of
“Renaissance”
remains
unclear.
Years
ago, the
unauthorized
release
of music
in
advance
could
have
devastating
consequences
for an
album.
But that
danger
has been
mitigated
by the
shift to
streaming.
And
Beyoncé,
like
most
other
artists
today,
took
advance
orders
for
physical
copies
of her
album,
which
will
count on
the
charts
as soon
as they
are
shipped
—
usually
the week
of
release.
On
Beyoncé’s
website,
the four
boxed
sets of
“Renaissance”
and its
limited-edition
vinyl
version
are sold
out.
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