FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Beyoncé - Lemonade
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THE remaining editions of this feature…
are dedicated to exploring some of the best albums of this decade. Last week, I featured Solange and her album, A Seat at the Table. This week, Solange’s sister, Beyoncé, is at the forefront. When one thinks about remarkable albums of the 2010s, you need to include Lemonade in that discussion! It is an album I am still listening to, three years after its release. I realise both Solange and Beyoncé released their albums in 2016 – for the rest of the Vinyl Corner slots, I will take albums from other years. There is so much to talk about when it comes to Lemonade. Of course, one should buy the album on vinyl as it would make a great Christmas present. Lemonade is the second visual album from Beyoncé. There are articles out there that explain the lyrics and the themes explored. Beyoncé mixes politics with the personal; the affectionate alongside the angered and charged. It is an enormously powerful album that mixes genres such as Pop, Reggae and Gospel together to electrifying success. Lemonade was accompanied by the release of a sixty-five-minute film of the same title, produced by Good Company and Jonathan Lia, which premiered on HBO on 23rd April, 2016. It is divided into eleven chapters, titled Intuition, Denial; Anger, Apathy; Emptiness, Accountability; Reformation, Forgiveness; Resurrection, Hope and Redemption. Beyoncé released a visual album in the form of her eponymous release of 2013.
Transcending into cinematic territory, I think Lemonade is more powerful and illuminating because of its visual nature. The filmed pieces make the album seem like an event; this big and wonderful record that demand you listen and learn from. Most artists cannot afford to run such a campaign and put out visual albums, but Lemonade is no ordinary album. After Beyoncé of 2013, so many eyes were on Beyoncé. She released her best album to date, so many people wondered how she could possibly follow it. Featuring collaborators like Kendrick Lamar, James Blake and Jack White, Lemonade is a busy and eclectic album. Although there are a fair few producers and writers in the mix, it is Beyoncé’s voice and spirit that comes through the clearest. She turns in her strongest set of vocals to date; her most ambitious songs and videos/visuals that took her work to a new level. At the heart of Lemonade is fidelity and trust. There were rumours that the songs were based on her husband, Jay-Z, and alleged indiscretions. Beyoncé has denied that, yet one cannot help hear the purity of anger when she sings about betrayal and cheating. Rather than Lemonade capturing a time in her life or documenting a rocky moment of her life, Beyoncé stays in the present, but she also looks back to her roots. Beyoncé explores blackness, her southern roots and family through Lemonade.
At times tender and nostalgic, at others raw and calling for formation, Lemonade is not only one of the best albums of the 2010s; one could comfortably include it alongside the best albums of all-time. Lemonade was nominated for nine Grammy Awards in 2017; it won for Best Urban Contemporary; Formation received nods for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The sort of attention and celebration that Lemonade received cannot be understated. Beyoncé was an enormous star in 2016, but Lemonade brought her music to new listeners and took her status to new peaks. I have heard some fantastic albums this decade, yet few have the same sort of weight and importance as Lemonade. In this review, AllMusic gave their take on Beyoncé’s sixth studio album:
“The cathartic and wounded moments here resonate in a manner matched by few, if any, of Beyoncé's contemporaries. She sometimes eclipses herself in terms of raw emotion, as on the throttling Jack White encounter "Don't Hurt Yourself." At the low-volume end, there's more power in the few seconds she chokes back tears while singing "Come back" -- timed with the backing vocal in Isaac Hayes' version of "Walk on By" -- than there is in most contemporary ballads. Romantic conflict is nothing new for her, but there is a degree of concentration and specificity, and an apparent disregard for appealing to commercial radio that makes Lemonade a distinct addition to her catalog.
PHOTO CREDIT: Parkwood Entertainment
(Another distinguishing factor is the length of credits which, due to a vast assortment of collaborators and samples, exceeds that of the self-titled album.) Lemonade can also be heard as the dark flipside of Beyoncé. When "Dishes smashed on the counter" is bleakly observed, just before "Pictures snatched out the frame/Bitch, I scratched out your name and face" is delivered with seething wrath, it's hard to not flash back to "Drunk in Love," in which the presumably same couple were revelrous in the same room. After the first three-quarters play out in compelling if somewhat erratic fashion, Lemonade closes with a torrid stretch. "Freedom" is a marching anthem of resilience and preservation, produced by Just Blaze with a glowing guest verse from Kendrick Lamar. The loved-up "All Night" is a tangle of emotions and hints at reconciliation, facilitated by the horns from OutKast's "SpottieOttieDopaliscious." And then, at last, there's the strutting "Formation," simultaneously a tack-on and an ideal finale, where Beyoncé delights in her blackness, femininity, and Southern origin with supreme wordplay”.
Lemonade is an album that blows you away the first time you listen. One needs to return time and time again to truly absorb everything. In some songs, Beyoncé sounds utterly enraptured and on fire; in others, you can practically feel the emotion and upset in her voice. She is astonishing through the album and commits to every single note. I think the sheer versatility and diversity in terms of sound and textures means Lemonade speaks to everyone. That is not to say previous albums from her were restricted to certain people; it is just Lemonade is so wide-ranging, everyone will find something to love.
In their review of Lemonade, The Independent had this to offer:
“The personal cannot help but overshadow the political when dealt with so forcefully. On the film released on HBO to coincide with this album, Beyoncé does not pull her punches: throwing away her wedding ring, wielding a baseball bat with venom, committing suicide, dripping water, destroying cars… all of this is nothing next to the venom exhibited in the music, and songs.
"So what are you going to say at my funeral now that you've killed me?” she asks. “Here lies the body of the love of my life whose heart I broke without a gun to my head. Here lies the mother of my children both living and dead. Rest in peace, my true love, who I took for granted."
The culmination of the spooked Pray You Catch Me and Hurt Me, Don’t Hurt Yourself features licks from rock stalwart Jack White. The distortion and fury, and occasional breaks of restraint from White work, brutally and wonderfully”.
It is hard to pick a highlight but, in my view, Formation and Don’t Hurt Yourself are top of the pile. I love so many of the songs on Lemonade, but there are certain cuts that stand above the rest. I will conclude in a bit but, first, I wanted to source from an article that discussed Beyoncé in the terms of Rock’s black female legacy. It is worth exploring the whole article, but I have grabbed a couple of passages:
“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman,” Malcolm X says in a sample used on Beyoncé‘s Lemonade. “The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” He was talking about society in general, but the same is true of popular art, specifically rock. The female artists who helped build rock are often forgotten, but the re-imagination of what rock can be and who can sing it by Beyoncé and her superstar peers is giving the genre a second life – and may be what can save it.
On Lemonade, Beyoncé’s choice to include both a raucous blues-rock track — “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” featuring Jack White — as well as an Americana romp — “Daddy Lessons” — is as political as the poetry she intertwines with her songs on her visual album. Lemonade is, in part, an album about black legacy, and her choice to tap more fully into rock, a genre she has touched lightly upon before, is an important nod to the often forgotten place black women had in inspiring and forming the genre. Seen in this light, the fierce and vengeful tone of “Don’t Hurt Yourself” takes on a broader cultural meaning.
PHOTO CREDIT: Parkwood Entertainment
On Lemonade, Beyoncé pays her own tribute by proving she’s a quick study of the blues-rock form. On “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” she swaggers and roars, evoking the gritty garage style her collaborator has been known for. Her anger is tempered by a steady funk bass line, then mirrored by the roar of the track’s crunchy riff, like a new generation’s “Whole Lotta Love” or, if the verses were slowed down, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.” The twang of her Texas accent comes to the fore on “Daddy Lessons,” a track on which she even embraces the traditional folk trope of familial history. Still, both songs are entirely Beyoncé, much in the way Tina Turner transformed “Proud Mary.” This tradition has always been in her, and much in the same the way that she channels black historical trauma in her most recent opus, she channels the erasure of forgotten black female voices as well.
If you have not experienced Lemonade, go grab it on vinyl or stream it. It is the finest thing Beyoncé has put her name to and the songs will definitely leave an impression! At the moment, there are no announcements regarding a new Beyoncé album. She performed at Coachella in 2018, and, in the same year, released Everything Is Love alongside Jay-Z – the two form The Carters. It has been a busy last couple of years. The iconic artist, surely, will have musical plans for next year; maybe we will get a new solo album or, with talks of a Destiny’s Child reunion in the offing, perhaps they will get another album together.
PHOTO CREDIT: Melina Matsoukas for Elle
Beyoncé did give an interview to Elle a couple of days back – she is their January 2020 cover star -, where she discussed everything from fashion to family. She was asked about Lemonade in the interview:
“I connected with Lemonade and I almost passed out when I saw Homecoming. You brought it and made me want to stand up and scream your name!! What’s up with the people who give out awards? Were you disappointed not winning? Because you know, you already won with me.—via Instagram
I began to search for deeper meaning when life began to teach me lessons I didn’t know I needed. Success looks different to me now. I learned that all pain and loss is in fact a gift. Having miscarriages taught me that I had to mother myself before I could be a mother to someone else. Then I had Blue, and the quest for my purpose became so much deeper. I died and was reborn in my relationship, and the quest for self became even stronger. It’s difficult for me to go backwards. Being “number one” was no longer my priority. My true win is creating art and a legacy that will live far beyond me. That’s fulfilling”.
The final days of the 2010s are upon us and, as we look ahead to a new decade, I have been considering the albums that have defined the past ten years or so. Do get hold of Lemonade and give it a good spin. Its importance and relevance will not diminish; its personal potency and importance is also very obvious and moving. Even if you are not a fan of Beyoncé, Lemonade is an album that transcends everything. It is a musical tour de force and…
A mighty revelation.