★★★ | Lemonade
So Beyoncé has released her latest album Lemonade, along with the visual film of it. I must say I was slightly apprehensive about it at first because her last couple of albums I haven’t really enjoyed apart from maybe a handful of the tracks.
I decided to go with the full experience and watch the visual version of the album, and I must say I was actually fairly impressed. The film tells a story so it’s something you have to watch the whole of to understand.
Now obviously as a proper fan I can quite safely say that while I absolutely love Beyoncé, I can also call her out for releasing some crap in the past (not sure why she’s drinking watermelon, and what’s a surfbort?) and for the first 20 or so minutes of the visual album I was not feeling it, she was going along with the hard edged style that is obviously influenced a lot by her husband Jay-Z, but track 4 (Sorry) came on, and while there was still a hard edge style to it, it didn’t seem so aggressive so my ears perked up and I thought you know what I’ll give this album a chance, but my dreams were slightly dashed by Track 5 (6 Inch) that went straight back to the style I didn’t like. I started to zone out slightly but I was determined to stay the distance of the album.
Suddenly I found myself jigging along to the track Daddy Lessons, this was so different from what had already been heard, it was bouncy, and almost a country style, and I was actually smiling while listening, and my hopes were well and truly raised, and the subsequent tracks I actually really enjoyed, and they all seemed to have different styles, from ballads to heartfelt gospel tracks.
For the visual album, people might not really understand what Beyoncé is trying to say, and like the Formation video, it is unapologetically black and supportive of black women especially, but is also personal where she seems to be talking about the fact her husband allegedly cheated on her and her journey towards forgiveness.
All in all, while the album isn’t on the same level as I Am…Sasha Fierce, Dangerously in Love or B’day it was enjoyable enough and I actually quite liked around half of the tracks and a few of them you’ll end up humming to yourself.
Lemonade is out now, available on Tidal, iTunes and with the potential of Spotify in the near future
