Beyonce in 2016 - 'Formation' and Lemonade

From SPIN

http://www.spin.com/2016/04/beyonce-new-album-lemonade-download-free-stream-tidal/

Ugh. "Update: Per an industry insider, Lemonade will be a TIDAL exclusive in perpetuity, as in yes, it will be exclusively a TIDAL release forever."

Nice knowing you, Bey.

heh to hell with tidal i'm torrenting this

GOOD LUCK BROS im on tidal now u know theres a free trial right

Hold Up written by Ezra Koenig!!! YES!

How much Terius is on this?

BTW this album is brilliant if you havent heard it, like the jack white song goes hard thats how good it is

HBO thing has bey doing malick narration

it will be exclusively a TIDAL release forever

Just like The Life of Pablo?

liking this a lot so far.

v lil terius mentioned so far but apparently one thing is a co-write on the weeknd song ...

any caroline polachek tracks?

no

xpost I don't think so

i am pleased to see upon browsing the credits that the common denominator to the songs that caught me most off-guard is that they were co-written with wynter gordon!

(they are also my favorite songs from the album as of my first couple of listens)

daddy lessons is spectacular yeah

also how can we make a full beyoncé +kendrick album happen?

All Night with the Jon Brion strings playing Spottieottiedopaliscious. Might be my favorite track.

not strings, lol my bad. lots happening at the same time.

glad to see wynter gordon in the credits here

Has anyone checked on Jay Z lately? I fear for his health.

love drought is a cloud

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

My main hope for this is "Brown Skin Girl" becomes a massive hit, so I never have to see Wizkid's entire career summarized as "Drake’s 'One Dance' collaborator" again

i don't really care about it being a 'copy' of the black panther soundtrack - doing a film tie-in compilation/soundtrack album with more effort put into the curation and production than usual isn't really some wildly innovative idea. with the success of the black panther soundtrack i'm not at all surprised that others are doing something similar. there's not really a reason it needs to exist and i'd much rather a beyonce-does-afropop album as its own thing but since it does exist i'm glad it's quite good. it certainly seems to be by far the best thing related to the lion king remake.

"find your way", "jara ara e", "brown skin girl" and "my power" are the highlights

likely deserves a thread? it's good.

Was toying with that idea as well. Mind if I start it, or are you on it already?

Whoomp, there it is: the LiON KiNG: the GiFT <<>> where Beyoncé meets with Afropop

skoal