Beyonce in 2016 - 'Formation' and Lemonade

Thanks, Tim! That's exactly the kind of thoughtful, enlightening comment I came here for.

At the very least performing 99 Problems should be very awkward for him from now on.

Indeed... I'm very curious to see how the Jay-Z persona is affected by this.

whoa andrew nf came up with the *exact same argument* as azealia banks

Not sure how to take this! haha

One thing that occurred to me was that each of the songs on this album could conceivably be a response to the question "what does singing the blues sound like in 2016?"

something Dori@n wrote on FB otm:

I used to think Kanye was the master of marshalling a diverse team of collaborators into a cohesive album where everyone brought their A game but with Lemonade that honour passes to Beyonce. Every story leaking out from contributors reveals how cleverly she pieced it all together and made every song her own. It's a masterclass in a style of songwriting that too often creates bloodless mishmashes. She's the centre of a whirlpool of talent. I don't think there any bad songs here and there are a fistful of phenomenal ones. This is how to do it right.

How on earth is this being billed as a "feminist" work? Like, really? She spends the hour defining herself in terms of her husband.

everything beyonce does is feminist. there is no point in arguing about this.

when jay-z says 'thats my bitch' about beyonce, this also does not diminish beyonce's feminist credentials.

RELATED, this article about why endlessly debating whether individual choices are "feminist" or not is pointless

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/25/can-you-be-a-feminist-empowering-dicourse-debate

whether beyoncé leaves, or does not leave, a cheating partner who may be jay-z or a fictional character or a blend of both, isn't a decision that should be assessed in reductive "is this feminist y/n" terms. but if you can't see how the album as a whole pushes back against the structural misogyny and racism that black women specifically face, in part by telling a story that strikes a chord with them but also in terms of the visual and lyrical imagery she employs, you're really wilfully blind

and yeah if TLOP was impressive on collagist terms how much more so is lemonade, which brings together so many disparate things and melds them together so seamlessly.

im not a beyonce stan but from following lots of other contradictory artists (and what can be more contradictory/conflicted than trying to be a feminist and uphold the contract of a marriage), contradiction is always good fodder for any musician. the TLOP comparison makes me increasingly interested to hear this album.

purely from a feminist angle I don't see how this work is in any way empowering to women

said the man who decided that this work written and performed by a woman is not empowering to women lol.

trying to imagine a feminism that just ignores men i dunno it sounds like missing the point? completely? yeah there are some forms of that i'm sure but from what i have read and seen feminism is a look at, you know, the reality that we actually live in, including men, marriage, etc., looking at that through a woman's perspective rather than the traditional male's.

like if feminists are not suppose to concern themselves w the male realm then..... what? that doesn't make any sense, it's an unrealistic demand.

I haven't heard a lovelier piece of music all year than Beyoncé's falsetto complementing those Outkast horns on "All Night."

i rolled my eyes @ the "all night" praise upthread, ofc a bunch of dudes gravitate towards the song that forgives him/them

Are you really arguing over whether Beyonce is a feminist? Didn't I say upthread how resolutely this doesn't care about your opinions? Don't you feel it? Your slide into irrelevance. The biggest pop moment of whenever and it doesn't include you. It must be clear to you by now. You're not a factor here. If you want to be a factor at all then it will be on merit. Adjust.

1. formation
2. daddy lessons
3. hold up
4. 6 inch
5. sorry
6. don't hurt yourself
7. love drought
8. freedom
9. sandcastles
10. pray you catch me
11. all night
12. forward

All Night SOUNDS amazing though. That bassline!

Are you really arguing over whether Beyonce is a feminist? Didn't I say upthread how resolutely this doesn't care about your opinions? Don't you feel it? Your slide into irrelevance. The biggest pop moment of whenever and it doesn't include you. It must be clear to you by now. You're not a factor here. If you want to be a factor at all then it will be on merit. Adjust.

― Popture, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 7:05 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is this a joke post?

i can't tell what's going on on ILX half the time. is that addressed to azealia banks? to a poster? is it sarcastic? sincere? i just don't know any more.

i rolled my eyes @ the "all night" praise upthread, ofc a bunch of dudes gravitate towards the song that forgives him/them

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Wednesday, April 27, 2016 12:03 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This strikes me as unfair both to the song and to the relevant posters ITT.

maybe, it's not like i dislike it, but there's something odd about having an album dominated by anger, sadness, humour, shit-talking, and then to go oh the biggest highlight is the corny happy one at the end. it'd be like saying "coming home" is your favourite off LTTP.

love drought not being in your top 3 makes list irrelevant

i rolled my eyes @ the "all night" praise upthread, ofc a bunch of dudes gravitate towards the song that forgives him/them

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Wednesday, April 27, 2016 8:03 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or her voice sounds gorgeous and it uses the spottie horns to perfection. i literally have no idea what any of the lyrics are.

Ehhhh... not liking All night because she forgives Jay in it is a bit like not getting how this album could possibly be feminist, no? C'mon, Lex, you're better than this. The song is gorgeous.

i don't dislike "all night" but it's so far from the most striking or gorgeous sonically or melodically that i assumed it was either the lyric or the pavlovian reaction to the sample elevating it for others

or her voice sounds gorgeous and it uses the spottie horns to perfection. i literally have no idea what any of the lyrics are.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 8:57 AM

I have not been following the lyrics that closely (except on "Don't Hurt Yourself," where the pronoun shifts and misdirections are part of its appeal), hence my side eye at the autobiographical overtones.

i rolled my eyes @ the "all night" praise upthread, ofc a bunch of dudes gravitate towards the song that forgives him/them

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Wednesday, April 27, 2016 8:03 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or her voice sounds gorgeous and it uses the spottie horns to perfection. i literally have no idea what any of the lyrics are.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 8:57 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What cad said.

Well, the sample is mighty good. But it's the first half of the album that's really unique, it seems to me as well.

I'm basically into every song on this album except for Daddy Lessons, which I even started to ease my contempt of when seeing it in the film.

i can't really imagine hearing this album or watching the film and not being struck with the idea that i was witnessing an extremely empowered woman at the zenith of her artistry. expressing that power in a way that is specifically and particularly Black is in itself a feminist statement IMO

newsflash, feminists have relationships w/ men too

I'm wondering if Formation is meant to be taken as an epilogue, or a bonus track? Otherwise the narrative goes: Sandcastles (breakdown), Forward (which, of course, breaks down and doesn't go forward), Freedom (a real way forward: Politics) and then the sample about making Lemons from Lemonade? So Beyoncé realizes Jay-Z can't break her, nobody what he throws at her, she will only come out stronger. Hell, she just made a brilliant album out of his betrayal. So let's take him back. And make another master-song about that.

the dark horse of this album for me is "love drought". some of the things she does with her voice !!!!!!! and:

Nine times out of ten, I'm in my feelings
But ten times out of nine, I'm only human

and the barely concealed contempt when she sings:

Tell me, what did I do wrong?
Oh, already asked that, my bad

Formation is easily one of the best three tracks if not the best, but it feels sort of tacked on at the end, when it would have made a really incredible centrepiece. One of those examples of the narrative getting in the way of the musical flow.

the film ends with "all night," right? formation feels like a bonus track. i'm prob not well-versed enough yet to talk about where it could conceivably fit in.

the film does end with "all night" and the instrumental to "formation" is played over the credits. it definitely does feel like a victory lap in the way that "grown woman" did on the last album. still, though, it's a strange way to close it all out since the song sounds so much like it's going to introduce something else. like, okay, we're in formation now. now what?

...now you're ready to take on the world?

it just struck me that in "don't hurt yourself" there...is no guitar apart from a bass guitar? is this right? all the spaces you'd expect a guitar riff are taken up by that amazing vocal backing

The only place where Formatuon woul make narrative sense is at the beginning. More to the point though, the album doesn't need it; as good as it is, it's literally an appendix to the rest of the album, which INO is outstanding as a collective work and a stronger artistic statement than Beyoncé (even though I like isolated songs on Beyoncé more)

A friend wrote that Formation at the end of this makes it sounds like she's out partying looking for fresh men to have sex with. As much as I sympathize with his interpretation I don't really hear it myself though.

Still haven't gotten around to experiencing the movie/album, but aspects of this thread helped to inspire this anti-review: http://www.splicetoday.com/music/lemonade-a-recording-exists

Also - and it's been a long time since I've felt this way about anything in the pop culture realm - I almost don't want to experience "Lemonade" now, on general principle. (Not pointing a finger at this thread specifically, FB is a bigger culprit.)

I'm not completely sold on Daddy Lessons, but I read a rumour that it's getting airplay on country stations and pissing off racists, which is pretty great.

So i've listened to the album like 10 times and each time I get antsier and antsier about the 'visual' version. Does it really add to the experience? I don't know, I like my albums to be albums and my films to be films.

i think this is, next to the last album, my favourite beyonce album. her vocals on this are maybe the best ive ever heard her. ive never heard her sing with such versatility. and i dont mean the genres shes working in, just purely her vocals. tremendous. daddy lessons might be my favourite song so far. it seems the most 'complete' song so far, though ive not heard anything i didnt like. even the jack white collabo was much better than i expected it to be.

I like to imagine (and it's entirely plausible) that, notwithstanding its earlier release, Beyonce wrote "Formation" after the rest of the album, and it's placed at the end of the record as a signpost for where she wants to go next.

sure, but formation sounds like where she has already been, musically, if not lyrically. all the songs leading up to it sound like the future for her.

The album is pointing in like eight different directions at once so pinpointing "the future" feels largely futile.

and imo as a beyoncé song "formation" feels like an austere otherworld

the music is austere but shes weirdly buoyant and supple on it

her arsenal of voices has never been better highlighted than on this album IMO

the whole album sounds like a possibly brilliant future for her

its not an album i ever expected actually

The album is very much in line with formation, I'd say. It's all about bringing the past to light, getting information and then acting rationally and decisively (getting in formation) accordingly. That pretty much describes the arc of this album as well.

"All Night" feels connected to "XO" to me (and I have at least one friend apart from Lex who doesn't feel either). Both are love songs that feel exhausted and happy: a happiness that knows precisely the price at which it was bought, has that price etched into the skin of its lyrics, into the grain of Beyonce's vocals. Both subtly (albeit differently) call back to Caribbean music, I like to think because lover's rock remains the preeminent expression of workaday romance for lovers on the grind.

They're as close to the centre of the "message" of each album as are "Flawless" and "Sorry", IMO.

otm