Beyonce in 2016 - 'Formation' and Lemonade

the visual is quite dense, image- rather than narrative-driven, captivating. the poetic narration is hit-and-miss but, in tandem with the imagery, does regularly make coherent and striking connections between the album's personal-relationship-centered lyrical themes and broader social phenomena. in many instances the glimpses of the music are distractingly abbreviated or disjointed; as a result, unlike the last album, which was very arguably best experienced with the visual, this one might simply be better to listen through on its own.

the songs themselves are really good, not surprisingly. for me the most emotionally stirring moments come when bey's voice slides, even for the briefest moments, into unexpected and jarring textures, as it does on e.g. "don't hurt yourself" and "sandcastles". (now that i'm thinking about it, the way her voice and the guitar are seamlessly combined when she drops the f-bomb in the opening line [yes, even on the explicit/uncensored version] of the former track is super super brilliant.) i did not experience any devastating lyrical gut-punches the way i did when i first listened to her self-titled, but that's kind of a high standard to hold and artist to since that so rarely happens anyway. in general i am trying to resist the urge to label this 'better than' or 'lesser than' her previous work esp that album. there are beautiful moments throughout. my favorite track so far, bizarrely, might be "daddy lessons" while my least favorite is the one with the weeknd, lol.

i'm not sure what to make of the decision not to release it for purchase. i find it very difficult to part with the idea that i need to *own* music i want to listen to often, if only digitally. tidal seems fine for a streaming service, and even better than fine if indeed it compensates creators more adequately than competitors, but in general i find streaming platforms not to be particularly good ways to listen.

there is some wildly casual percussion on this record

loooooool i think "6 inches" lists "my girls" by anco as an interpolated song b/c it uses the phrase 'material things'??? good lord

*6 inch smh

Have to admit, I expected the song with Jack White to be a whole lot worse than it actually is.

I love the New Orleans horns on Daddy Lessons, but the acoustic guitar stomp of the rest of it is so goddamn bad.

All Night is so beautiful.

The song w an Ezra Koenig credit also has a Josh Tillman (aka Father John Misty) credit acc. to wikipedia. Just...fyi

MNEK co-wrote "Hold Up"!

The first point of comparison that occurred to me was relational: this feels like the To Venus & Back to Beyonce's From The Choirgirl Hotel: a more casually executed, "smaller"effort that leans harder into its predecessor's eccentricities and points of difference.

When I wrote about Beyonce following its release it seemed obvious to me that the most interesting aspect of the album was what Beyonce was doing with her vocals, exploring the way she could use her voice to push into different emotional states and terrains. With this album, it's like the songs only really matter insofar as they provide vehicles for exploring new states, new terrains.

I love the New Orleans horns on Daddy Lessons, but the acoustic guitar stomp of the rest of it is so goddamn bad.

really glad i listened to the audio before watching the film

wow @ "daddy lessons", "don't hurt yourself", "freedom" especially

I'm, uh, not much for Jack White but his vocal over those drums is a holy-shit moment.

Is the sound on this kind of muted or is it just my dodgy MP3s? Please don't make me subscribe to Tidal to find out...

Probably the dodgy mp3s.

Yeah it definitely is - Formation just started and boomed out about twice as loudly as everything else.

First impressions are that this is excellent but the one with James Blake is probably the worst Beyonce song since the Sasha Fierce at the very least.

the jack white song is soooooooo good

i have so many favourite parts but b and Serena jamming together in the hallway was so fkn great

This is a good album ain't it.

Atlanta next Sunday!

great post, Tim

after i listened to it for the first time it has a bittersweet taste...
'all night' is an obvious highlight, probably the best song. 'don't hurt yourself' and 'forward' are bad jokes.
i still don't know what to think of it, but i'm not as excited as i wanted do be.

The moment when 6 Inch goes from minimalist trap to widescreen orchestration is wonderful.

damn, i didn't mean 'dont hurt yourself', which is surprisingly good, but '6 inch'. i can't deal with weeknd's voice.

sandcastles seems so out of place for me, no matter how genuine it may be w/in the spectrum of feelings she's exploring. like the song itself was a corporate addition "well, bloomingdales won't play 6 inch in the stores so we need something for 40-something rich wives." the whole album is so dynamic vocally like dyl was saying and it's so... SAFE

Huh? The way I hear it Sandcastles is the one where she is most vulnerable vocally. There is one moment especially where she seems to lose it completely.

The moment when 6 Inch goes from minimalist trap to widescreen orchestration is wonderful.

― Matt DC, Sunday, April 24, 2016 12:24 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol you mean the part where it goes from the 2nd minute of the Isaac Hayes version of "Walk On By" to the 1st miniute of the Isaac Hayes version of "Walk On By"

Huh? The way I hear it Sandcastles is the one where she is most vulnerable vocally. There is one moment especially where she seems to lose it completely.

― Frederik B, Sunday, April 24, 2016 12:48 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess the barn-burning speaks to me more. SC is very trad to me

Yeah it's the one very trad song in there (perhaps the same can be said of Freedom?) but it's still very moving.

just watched the visual..

not malick, julie dash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_the_Dust

watching this w my 86 y/o grandmother rn

Huh? The way I hear it Sandcastles is the one where she is most vulnerable vocally. There is one moment especially where she seems to lose it completely.

― Frederik B, Sunday, April 24, 2016 12:48 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess the barn-burning speaks to me more. SC is very trad to me

― How Butch, I mean (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), 24. april 2016 19:00 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh, I agree with this fully. Yeah, not my favorite track. But the vocals from 1:15-1:50 are quite extreme. Actually, the way she screams 'what is it about you' 1:40 in might be my favorite vocal moment on the album so far. She sounds so scary and ugly right there, as if she completely loses her cool for a moment. I also quite like the James Blake coda, lol.

I should have put this off a bit, because I don't think I'm really in the mood to engage with non-Prince music right now, but this sounded generally fine but rarely spectacular for the most part. I like "Sorry" a lot. "Daddy Lessons" is dreadful, though; essentially her version of Lady Gaga's "You & I."

"Daddy Lessons" is my favorite. I love the horn chart part seguing into the acoustic part.

Well, Gaga's track was divisive as well. The problem may be me: I don't like contempo country enough on its own, so hearing pop superstars do their camp riffs on the genre is really gonna make me itch.

Would it sound backhanded for me to say that I'm happy that its a 40-something minute album? Cause I don't mean it that way.

I don't hear country in this track at all! Sounds like Beyonce over an acoustic riff.

and, no, I'm grateful it's 45 minutes long. I want more 45-minute albums.

6 inch loses its way the moment that sample comes in, imo.

And I'm getting the feeling that the relaxed vocals signify that none of this means v much to her. She has a great voice though.

The "yee-haw" that opens it and the whole fetishization of daddy's gun scan as (intentionally) broadly Country.

I'm grateful when albums are 45 minutes long these days, just like I'm grateful when movies are under 2 hours.

Actually, 6 Inch is a mess from start to finish and this album feels very unnecessary.

sandcastles seems so out of place for me, no matter how genuine it may be w/in the spectrum of feelings she's exploring. like the song itself was a corporate addition "well, bloomingdales won't play 6 inch in the stores so we need something for 40-something rich wives." the whole album is so dynamic vocally like dyl was saying and it's so... SAFE

― How Butch, I mean (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Sunday, 24 April 2016 16:32 (5 hours ago) Permalink

Yeah Beyonce groaning "bitch I scratched out your name and your face" is a very 40-something rich wives moment.

If we're talking about Real Housewives of Atlanta maybe.

And I'm getting the feeling that the relaxed vocals signify that none of this means v much to her. She has a great voice though.

can someone find me a gif to respond to this post with

And I'm getting the feeling that the relaxed vocals signify that none of this means v much to her. She has a great voice though.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Sunday, April 24, 2016 9:21 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't agree with this even if I know what you're getting at.

The film is intense - and utterly pretentious in a way that almost threatens to topple it but ultimately is also its precondition - and in a roundabout way suggests that the album is both cathartic reaction (to Jay-Z's adultery obv) and a very deliberate statement about where Beyonce sees herself as an artist and about the kind of "art" she wants to make (as an aside, it's interesting to observe that while Jay-Z's response to moving in arty circles is just to hamfistedly reference it in lyrics, Beyonce goes away and makes what is essentially a video installation for a gallery of digital media).

In that regard you might say that the songs as songs are no longer shouldering the burden of all of Beyonce's emotional/artistic focus. These songs certainly don't feel laboured over, and I'd not be surprised if a lot more time and effort went into perfecting the visuals that accompany them. But I think that's less because Beyonce doesn't care about the songs and more that she doesn't really view them in isolation from the "project' as a whole.

But even then, it's not the "relaxed vocals" that give this away - the vocals are clearly the aspect of the music she's thought about most! - but the lived-in messiness of the lyrics and production. A lot of it almost feels like Beyonce is writing the song on the spot - a quality one could never have ascribed to the material on her first four albums.

i would call much of the album 'trad' sonically but that's not a value judgment

was pleasantly surprised to hear that the urban station here is playing scattered tracks from the album today. i honestly don't think there'll be much in the way of long-term radio candy from this album, not that that's a bad thing.

Thanks, Tim. This album just doesn't *sound* too personal to me. The whole infidelity narrative just raises so many questions about what sort of statement this is supposed to be, exactly. Why address these issues in this very particular way - after years of silence?

I *like* the relaxed vocals - it's something she's been getting closer and closer to nailing, and here she finally does it. But the songs just aren't that strong. They need the Narrative and perhaps also the film (which I haven't seen yet) to work. Her last album managed to intertwine art and life in new ways and felt like a fresh start. This feels like a lot of loose threads atm - not really cathartic at all. It doesn't even feel like an ending. Just a bunch of okay songs sung very well.

Hold up, is this Apathy track not on the actual album, just in the film?

Or are people talking about Sorry? That must be it, I guess.

Thanks, Tim. This album just doesn't *sound* too personal to me. The whole infidelity narrative just raises so many questions about what sort of statement this is supposed to be,

I wouldn't worry about this at all. She's a star, so what's "personal" anyway?

yeah none of the 'chapter titles' in the film are the same as the song titles, it was pretty confusing in that hour before the album hit Tidal what to call any of them

Well, what her last album managed to do was to tie together a sense of who Beyoncé was as a person, an artist and a... uh... force in the world. It felt very post-knausgaardian, in a way. She moved decisively away from the "hit songs mingled with a bunch of non-hit songs" paradigm that even Rihanna is now trying to move away from - through recourse to the personal. With this album, however, I get the feeling that it needs the "personal" - in this case the b'trayal narrative - as an excuse to even exist. So yeah, it's all about the "personal" - but it still doesn't feel very personal.