Beyoncé
Renaissance
Release Date: Jul 29, 2022
Genre(s): Pop, R&B
Record label: Columbia
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Album Review: Renaissance by Beyoncé
Absolutly essential, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 101234/10
From the moment Beyoncé's RENAISSANCE begins, Queen Bey herself tells you exactly who she is: "I'M THAT GIRL. " For her seventh album, her least personal but most confident to date, it is not hyperbolic to say RENAISSANCE is the sound of a once-in-a-generation superstar performing at her peak, akin to Mike Tyson knocking out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds in 1988 or the Chicago Bulls going 72-10 in 1996. Beyoncé pulls no punches on RENAISSANCE, delivering 62 minutes of sonic joy filled with unabashedly fun, self-assured and sexy lyrics.
Based on rating 9/10
At first glance the album's title could be interpreted as a renaissance of Beyoncé herself, but quite frankly Beyoncé has never gone out of style. Instead, the renaissance taking place is the revival of disco and house in her music - much alike the current cultural revival of OG house music, most recently found in Drake's Honestly, Nevermind and Charli XCX's Crash. None of these do it quite like Beyoncé though, and Renaissance is thoughtfully curated with samples and features as well as a new interpretation and reimagining of these ideas.
Based on rating 4.5/5
Every generation of pop music has always had at least one artist that became the standard during their time. There's Prince, Michael Jackson, and also Michael’s younger sister Janet Jackson, to name a few. What exactly catapults them to reach this status is a little hard to pinpoint, but they all possessed that particular "it" factor on top of having talent, classic songs and phenomenal stage presence.
Based on rating 4.5
With a consistently hedonistic vibe from start to finish, here is your invite to a party as opulent as it is debauched Much virtual ink has been spilled about pop star / rapper / icon Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, but less has been written about her awkward transition to the digital age. Both 2013's Beyoncé and 2016's Lemonade had their engagement stunted by album-only purchases and exclusivity deals respectively, causing a spike in piracy but more importantly cordoning off access to one of the most high-profile artists in the world. In this respect Renaissance really is a rebirth, and the genre-hopping of those records has been replaced with a consistently hedonistic vibe from start to finish, your invite to a party as opulent as it is debauched - "knocking Basquiats off the wall", indeed.
Opinion: Fantastic
On 'I'm That Girl', the opening track from her long-gestating seventh album 'RENAISSANCE' – the first act of a planned trilogy – Beyoncé offloads a series of hubristic declarations as an audibly frantic sample of Tommy Wright III's and late Memphis rapper Princess Loko's 'Still Pimpin', ripples like an engine underneath. A slow rapture of self-love unfurls as Beyoncé's announces "all these songs sound good". Is she wrong? No, she isn't.
'Renaissance'
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