It's that time again, again...
As you may know that Beyonce has released her sixth album called Lemonade.
Now then, according to Wikipedia, "Lemonade is the sixth studio album by American singer Beyoncé, released on April 23, 2016, by Parkwood Entertainment and distributed through Columbia Records. The record is Beyoncé's second "visual album", following her eponymous 2013 record, and a concept album. While its predecessor featured individual music videos for each track, Lemonade was accompanied upon its release by a one-hour film aired on HBO. The album encompasses genres including R&B, pop, hip hop, blues, rock, soul, funk, country, gospel, and trap. Streaming service Tidal described the Lemonade concept as "every woman's journey of self-knowledge and healing." It features guest vocals from James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd and Jack White.
Lemonade was made available for online streaming on April 23 through Tidal, which Beyoncé co-owns, and released for paid purchase through the service the following day. It was later launched for purchase by track or album to Amazon Music and the iTunes Store on April 25 and at physical retailers May 6. The record was preceded by the release of the single "Formation" on February 6, 2016. In April 2016, Beyoncé embarked on the Formation World Tour to promote the album. Lemonade debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 485,000 copies in its first week (653,000 with additional equivalent-album units)."
Boy, talk about more Beyonce. Especially after people listen to Beyonce 24/7 non-stop. OK then, let's continue.
As Wikipedia applied, "The album title was inspired by Beyoncé's grandmother Agnéz Deréon, as well as her husband Jay Z's grandmother, Hattie White. At the end of track "Freedom", Hattie White is heard speaking to a crowd at her 90th birthday party in April 2015. During the speech, Hattie says "I had my ups and downs, but I always found the inner strength to pull myself up. I was served lemons, but I made lemonade."
The album was accompanied by the release of a 60-minute film of the same name, which premiered on HBO on April 23, 2016. The film is divided into eleven segments: Intuition, Denial, Anger, Apathy, Emptiness, Accountability, Reformation, Forgiveness, Resurrection, and Hope and Redemption. It uses poetry and prose written by expatriate Somali poet Warsan Shire; her poems which she adapted were "The Unbearable Weight of Staying", "Dear Moon", "How to Wear Your Mother's Lipstick", "Nail Technician as Palm Reader", and "For Women Who Are Difficult to Love". It also features Ibeyi, Laolu Senbanjo, Amandla Stenberg, Quvenzhané Wallis, Chloe x Halle, Zendaya, and Serena Williams.[15] HBO plans to submit the film for an Emmy in the Variety Special category.
The album addresses the Black Lives Matter movement. The mothers of Trayvon Martin (Sybrina Fulton), Michael Brown (Lesley McFadden), Eric Garner (Gwen Carr) are featured holding pictures of their deceased sons.
The film features a wide diversity of images, most including Beyonce herself, from studio-lit dance numbers, to poetic nature sequences in the American South, to urban night footage, to stock footage, to Beyonce's home movies. The images vary greatly in lighting, style, color and black and white, and vary dramatically in aspect ratio to super widescreen to 4:3. Like the lyrics and poetic interludes, the visuals provoke complex and at times cryptic ideas about race, gender, power, marriage, infidelity, parenthood, and the experience of black women in America. The film was shot by seven different cinematographers and edited together by Bill Yukich."
Woah, the album accompanied by the release of a 60-minute film of the same anme, which premired on HBO on April 23, 2016? Count me in. Also, there will be 2 2016 singles which Beyonce released, Formation which came out on February 6, 2016 and Sorry which came out on May 3, 2016. This will knock Avril Lavigne out the window. Especially during 2003, 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013. I guess pop music don't care for Avril Lavigne and stick with Avril Lavigne-less pop music, including Beyonce. OK, let's move on.
As I talked about the background and visuals, the music and lyrics, Wikipedia replied, stated that, "The album features musicians such as bassist Marcus Miller, Jack White, and Kendrick Lamar, and sampling from folk music collectors[clarification needed] John Lomax, Sr. and his son Alan Lomax on "Freedom". Beyoncé and her team reference the musical memories of all those periods[clarification needed] including a brass band, stomping blues-rock, ultraslow avant-R&B, preaching, a prison song (both collected by John and Alan Lomax), and the sound of the 1960s fuzz-tone guitar psychedelia (sampling the Puerto Rican band Kaleidoscope).
The Washington Post called the album a "surprisingly furious song-cycle about infidelity and revenge", referencing the classical compositional genre defined in German lieder by Schumann, Schubert and Brahms. The Chicago Tribune described the album as not just a mere grab for popular music dominance, rather it is a retrospective that allows the listener to explore Beyoncé's personal circumstances, with musical tones from the southern United States, a harkening back towards her formative years spent in Texas. AllMusic wrote that Beyoncé "delights in her blackness, femininity, and Southern origin with supreme wordplay." According to The A.V. Club, the tracks "encompass and interpolate the entire continuum of R&B, rock, soul, hip-hop, pop, and blues", accomplished by a deft precision "blurring eras and references with determined impunity." The Guardian and Entertainment Weekly both noted that the album touches on country music, and Entertainment Weekly noticed the use of avant-garde musical elements. Consequence of Sound wrote that the album's genres span "from gospel to rock to r&b to trap"; both Isaac Hayes and Andy Williams are sampled. PopMatters noticed how the album was nuanced in its theme of anger and betrayal with vast swathes of the album bathed in political context; however, it is still a pop album at its essence with darker and praiseworthy tones", and according to critical reception on Wikipeda page, "Lemonade received widespread acclaim from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 93, based on 29 reviews." Cool. Let's talk about Beyonce's performance. Shall we?
As Wikipedia suggests, "In the United States, Lemonade debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 485,000 copies in its first week (653,000 with additional equivalent-album units). Subsequently, she broke the record she previously tied with DMX, by becoming the first artist in the chart's history to have their first six studio albums debut at No. 1. In the same week, Beyoncé became the first female to chart 12 or more songs on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time, with every song on the album debuting on the chart. She passed the previously held record of 11 with Taylor Swift's Speak Now album.
The record debuted at number one in the UK selling 73,000 copies, 14% of the sales accounting for streaming equivalent sales, the largest ever for a number one album since the chart included streaming.
In Australia, Lemonade sold 20,499 digital copies to debut at the top spot and becoming her second consecutive number one album."
There goes Taylor Swift despite Taylor Swift is bigger than Beyonce. I guess people like kids started to get tired of Taylor Swift and stick with junky music including Beyonce despite Taylor Swift is a music legend. Oh well, that's what Swifties are for. Also, congrats on Beyonce's Lemonade debuting at number 1 on the Billboard 200 which sold 485,000 in its first week in the US. When Ariana Grande released Dangerous Woman on May 20, that Ariana Grande album will get dipped really fast causing the album to lost Ariana Grande's money. Even if Ariana Grande sold Dangerous Woman at around 200,000 copies in its first week. OK, let's talk about the tracklist for Lemonade.
Here's the track listing that Tidal revealed.
Lemonade - Disc one (audio)
1. "Pray You Catch Me"
2. "Hold Up"
3. "Don't Hurt Yourself" (featuring Jack White)
4. "Sorry"
5. "6 Inch" (featuring The Weeknd)
6. "Daddy Lessons"
7. "Love Drought"
8. "Sandcastles"
9. "Forward" (featuring James Blake)
10. "Freedom" (featuring Kendrick Lamar)
11. "All Night"
12."Formation"
Lemonade – Disc two (visual)
1."Lemonade"
Pretty cool. If you like Beyonce, I recommend checking this one out. Trust me, you might like it.
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