I'll be honest, I came for Jack White, but I stayed for Queen Bey.
The last thing I imagined my first post here being about was Beyoncé. But there's no one perfect album or movie or show to start on, and as I write this, Lemonade is still pretty much the main thing people are talking about, so I got it, and I listened to it.
Well, holy crap. I've peripherally followed Beyoncé's music over the years, never knowing more than a few singles from each album (and even fewer from 4 on), but damn if I'm not delighted I purchased this one. I haven't even seen the visual counterpart yet, but getting to know the music first actually makes me more excited for it.
To me, Beyoncé is one of those entities I think I assumed couldn't be THAT good, just because so many people insisted that she was. But I should've learned my lesson from starting Game of Thrones: sometimes the hype lives up. My limited perception of her recent output was that it was a little less melodic and a little more grating in terms of the songwriting and percussive instrumentation, than perhaps her earlier classics like "If I Were A Boy" and "Irreplaceable."
So color me surprised when I turned on Lemonade. We open with the sweet, soft prelude of "Pray You Catch Me," followed by one of my favorites, "Hold Up," where Beyoncé repeatedly echoes the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' over-a-decade-old refrain "They don't love you like I love you." This phrase, with a sparse mix of decidedly chill plucked strings and steel drums, and even the occasional echoing air horn, make the track feel like a tipsy, incredulous afternoon at a beachside basketball court. And it's a game I wanna attend.
"Beyoncé is one of those entities I think I assumed couldn't be THAT good, just because so many people insisted that she was. But I should've learned my lesson from starting Game of Thrones: sometimes the hype lives up."
Enter Jack White (which is actually a phrase I feel we should all use more often, no?). Against signature White Stripes drumming, Beyoncé unleashes a scathing mix of sing-rapping that cuts to the core. And Jack White's limited vocal participation is just enough to satiate me, as an ardent fan of his. This song, too, demonstrates one of the album's best qualities: the featured use of one or more unique sounds in just about every song. Here it's the drums; elsewhere it's brass, or simply Beyoncé's ever-impressive pipes. But this is something I find consistently attractive in all of my favorite music, and Bey and her co-writers and producers have melded these featured elements into pop perfection on this album.
"Sorry" is probably the most talked-about song due to all the speculation as to the identity of the famous "Becky" and her fucking AMAZING hair. One of my favorite things about this song, though, is its willingness to adapt to the narrative it's telling; the last minute or so simply simmers, as Beyoncé apparently becomes progressively sadder waiting for her man to come home. It's that kind of disregard for traditional song structure that makes this an exciting pop album. That, and things like the double entendre of "6 Inch," which it turns out refers to "her" heels during her murderous entrance to "the club." Still, you can't help but notice the vague phallic reference, especially amidst the album's other gender-reversal lines like "Suck on my balls" and "When he fuck me good, I take his ass to Red Lobster." The biggest treat of this song, though, might just be Beyoncé's voice almost cracking at the end, as she tearfully repeats "Come back..." in a rare moment of vulnerability for the queen.
This brings us to perhaps my favorite song on the album, the completely unexpected, jazz/country/soul-infused romp that is "Daddy Lessons." This tune finds Queen Bey belting folksy melodies that might be more at home in some Spaghetti Western tribute album like Jack White's Rome, but she's never sounded better. I came to this album expecting Beyoncé to knock a ho down, not be performing an actual hoedown. "Good job, Bey," indeed! (Is that you, Blue Ivy?)
The synth-y and sexy "Love Drought" is a perfect down-tempo cleanser before the strikingly classical piano and strings of the ballad "Sandcastles." This one truly stretches Bey's voice to the limits, and as always, she delivers, sounding like a winning American Idol performer on finals night.
In "Forward," James Blake joins Beyoncé in a somber interlude, which preps us nicely for the energy and sheer power of "Freedom." With soulful organ, funky 70's guitars, and battle-ready drums, this standout song takes us on a ride that would have been perfectly poised for use in Tarantino's Django Unchained, if only it had come out in time. And that's all before Kendrick-fucking-Lamar steps up, swinging a lyrical countdown that slides into a triplet-beat treatise touching on everything from his mother's psyche to Black Lives Matter. This song actually may be my other favorite, and it also reveals the album title's origin at the end.
"With soulful organ, funky 70's guitars, and battle-ready drums, ['Freedom'] takes us on a ride that would have been perfectly poised for use in Tarantino's Django Unchained, if only it had come out in time."
The penultimate "All Night" boasts a smooth, brass-infused beat that could play just as well in the bedroom on a night in as it could in the driver's seat on a night out. And finally we have "Formation," which, as Saturday Night Live coyly pointed out, "revealed" to the public that Beyoncé is, in fact, black. And proud of it. Braggy, even: an attitude you'd expect to hear more in her husband's music than in hers, but she shines here yet again. Dropping references to her family's American roots, she spits, "Mix that Negro with that Creole / make a Texas bama." And that's likely far from the most surprising lyric in the song, for Beyoncé's more conservative fans. When she repeats "Okay ladies, now let's get in formation (I slay)," it's hard to say whether she's suiting up for a halftime dance or a straight-up battle.
That, I think, is what's so great about this song, and the whole album, really: Beyoncé can indulge in her iconic place amongst black American royalty, simultaneously dropping sassy lines about hot sauce next to the emotional lyrics about lost love for which she's come to be known. And all she has to do is leave a little wink behind at us, knowing the public will thirstily sort it out themselves. Everything from the final track's "controversial" (read: too black) halftime performance at the Super Bowl, to the album's mysterious promotion and unannounced release, to the defining line, "You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation," reveal that Beyoncé is not just a great artist. She's great at being an artist in our social media, social justice, social butterfly whirlwind of a culture.
When I got the album, I told myself I'd just be stepping in to see what all the fuss was about. Instead, I got sucked into the sweet depths of Lemonade. But I should rest easy, for as Beyoncé herself reminds us, "Every promise don't work out that way."