RENAISSANCE

OK Beyoncé on the back of a crystal horse has my interest piqued. Listening to this album has me realizing why she is such a goddess of music. I can imagine she has the resources at her disposal to do nearly any thing she wants… and what she apparently wants is to make incredibly cool music. This album had me feeling like I was in the coolest dance club in town… with nods to history while making something that felt totally fresh. Terrific!

Actually a very interesting album 4

Rating: 10/10

Super strong entrance, though solid throughout I didn't feel like it kept the same intensity throughout. The last Beyoncé offering on this list I c9mplained of it being overproduced in that way mega-superstar pop (of whatever genre) tends to be, this I felt less of that. She's the real deal, no doubt of that.

I'm not the target audience. But I get why they love her. It's energizing, empowering and well produced

What a great glow up compared to her album on the main 1001. This album has great energy, and is non-stop with its infectious beats and raunchy lyrics, all with a confident strut that really brings the whole thing together. No wonder this was such a big deal a few years ago, this album is good as is, and would be perhaps fantastic with some of the filler trimmed. Still, really great and once again another album from 2020s that deserves to be here.

RENAISSANCE is an album of Beyoncé, someone who needs no introduction: a great singer, performer and personality on stage. Also an artist that does not really write her own music or lyrics, but makes very small adjustments in music, arrangements and lyrics to justify co-writing credits. This way of acting does not affect the quality of the songs of course. The usage of various different writers has it's limitations though as getting a incoherent album is a serious risk. That is the problem for me on this one. Earlier albums as Beyoncé and Lemonade sounded as a collection of songs of one artist with one artistic direction. This is a messy combination of lots of different styles and ideas and that does not make a good (but still decent) album despite having several good songs.

This is Beyoncé at her true self in my opinion. A strong pop album with heavy production and female empowerment. Kind of ironic this album precedes her country album. Overall this is quintessential Beyoncé and for her followers Id imagine this is a great album. I however am not of the hive. This is a pop album I wouldn’t listen to again as none of the songs really hit that catchy fun level. 5.7/10

easy listen! 5, unless I hit a mood.

7/10 look, I’m not the biggest Beyoncé fan, but I’ll admit this album actually had some surprisingly good production that’ had me pleasantly surprised she’s had a few songs in the past with great production (Single Ladies does NOT deserve all the hate it got, that production is fucking insane if you know music theory) but I’ve heard several projects from her that just bugged the shit out of me, so I’m glad something like this was actually nice and refreshing :)

Yep, that was the blockbuster album of 2022 -- that's right, as much as "monoculture", as the term was understood in the last century, is now dead and buried for good, you still have such watershed, coffee machine moments music-wise today (at least if you can still leave a door open to the "mainstream"). Truth be told, I felt a little annoyed by the critical rave at the time. When you're aware of the promotional powerhouse that's behind Beyoncé, you're tempted to roll your eyes at such a "capitalist" machine. But then I listened to this album with all the attention it deserves, and I can only agree that it's very good -- even excellent at times. Like on the two previous Queen Bey LPs, you have spectacular hits (yay), "committee writing" (sigh), overall flair in the vocal performance (obviously pyrotechnic / impressive / spectacular), crisp production values (basses slap on my hi-fi, as usual with her), some experimental twists and turns emphasizing the sonic journey in all the right manners, along with (admittedly) a certain amount of fillers that could have been trimmed so as to make the project more cohesive (mostly in the middle of the record here -- but once again, you still have an album having a "normal" length once the two or three underwhelming moments are taken out...). That last gripe of mine is also mitigated by the terrifically dynamic nature of the tracklist, constructed like a DJ set. Which is only fitting for a record paying tribute to disco and other related genres aiming to give a voice to African American and/or gay or queer culture. Concept-wise, this is quite flawless. Which makes you automatically forgive Mrs. Carter when she pillages hits of the past and the present to create her own music. All in all, a joyful and even relevant celebration of quite a few strands of popular music from the five last decades or so. "Act 2", *Cowboy Carter*, have since tried to accomplish that celebratory feat again for country-related genres, but it wasn't as successful overall on an artistic viewpoint. Yet you can't blame Beyoncé for her ambition, either there or back in 2022. I wish I had the time to go track by track, but as I said, the "mixtape" nature of this album allows to take it as a whole in spite of its rare low points. And the thing is, tonight is new year's eve, and I'm celebrating with friends myself. Who knows? Maybe I'll play *Renaissance* at some point, at least of people start dancing... Happy new year to everyone!!!! 4/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 9/10 for more general purposes (5 + 4) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 66 (including this one) Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 85 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 160 ---- Post-scriptum to this user: you're a little narrow-minded when it comes to your music tastes, aren't you? Or maybe you're just opinionated... and well, in that case... more power to you. Here's me hoping that inclusivity can lead you to discover more flavors later in life. But even if that doesn't happen, we can still celebrate the things we agree on. In this day and age, it's more important than splitting hairs, is it not? ---- Emile... Je viens de lire ta dernière réponse. Je vais essayer de trouver le temps de rédiger la mienne pendant la période des fêtes. D'ici-là, ben bonne année aussi !

Beyoncé was the life of the party in 2022. Pulling from the baddest gay nightclubs and the respective music history, RENAISSANCE maintains a steady pulse with dance beats that permeate the 1-hour runtime. I like it! It's fun and filthy and free. I commend Beyoncé for eschewing the standard pop/R&B sound that she was riding out the past few years to actually innovate and bring something new to the table (even if it is largely a tribute to what has already been done). I remember listening to this when it first came out and thinking it was pretty good, but not worth much hubbub. Now, in the retrospect of Charli XCX's Brat Summer, I have to wonder if RENAISSANCE was sort of the pre-party to the Brat party? I also enjoyed it more this time around. Great music for when it starts to warm up again. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: Not really. Beyoncé's career-defining albums are her self-titled and Lemonade, imo. This one is fun but not all that notable.

Fundamentally it's coffee shop music that talks dirty to you, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't pretty fun

Identifying Beyoncé - it’s Beyoncé!

I definitely wanted to listen to this, but I didn't love this like I hoped I would. It didn't bring the energy I thought it would and I got kind of bored with the never-breaking club mix while the all-caps song titles screamed at me. PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA! Maybe it just wasn't the right day or I needed to listen to it with my B-idolizing niece.

Fuck me there was some unnecessary swearing on this album.

Good af

This was good. Best Beyoncé album I've heard so far. Much more interesting and creative than you'd expect.

One feels bludgeoned by all the excess, primariliy the ambition. Musically, there are only a few minutes. Fine to switch this out for Janet Jackson (not Solange, though) on the list proper for when it comes to celebrities of this scope and weight one can't muster much caring.

Decent, but too long. Also, I'm not sure why she's shouting all the titles - maybe she's worried people wouldn't pay attention otherwise!

Generally not a fan of over produced pop, but this was fun. I get it. I like Alien Superstar

More cohesive song structure than other albums she has. Some keepers

It is better the second time I'm listening to it, but still not exactly what I can call a classic. I like the idea of paying homage to the creators/important artists from dance pop in a more cohesive album. The entire project idea (RENAISSANCE + Cowboy Carter) looks promising and begs for a third act, but the album alone is a 3-star in its best.

Ok I guess

Heresy to admit - but I am not a Beyoncéist. I am aware that she's loved by many, but I've never been able to buy into what she's selling - she's just never been able to sucker me in. This is better than anything I've heard previously from her, but I'm informed that her next album is - ew - country, so I doubt I'll hear anything as good after this.

Renaissance is equal parts interesting and disappointing, because it's a really ambitious and different effort for her, but a direction I don't really like that much and don't think comes close to her best work. Think it lands somewhere in the middle at a 3 because there's a high floor of quality, the production is good, it's very listenable but I prefer so much of her other work that little of it really stands out, and quite a bit of it sounds very samey.

Put off listening to this for a long time because I just absolutely cannot stand Beyoncé as a public figure and I always find her music so mid. I always hate her music much less than I think I will but also it never really defies my expectations.

Dance, house, pop, R&B. No me gusta el pop comercial. Un 2.

I’m not a huge fan of “if you can’t beat them, join them” when it comes to certain things, and music is one of them.

Consistently feel that Beyoncé's incredible vocals are wasted on uncreative, derivative songwriters. So many unnecessary, repetitive refrains around what studio execs think the lowest common denominator wants to hear. There's still the focus too on these weirdly minimal, rhythmic backing tracks without any melodic meat to dig your teeth into – 'CUFF IT' was one of the more enjoyable tracks since it had actual melody, and even that was pretty standard coffee shop-fare. The whole LP just feels like corporate studio product rather than artistic statement, thank goodness 'Cowboy Carter' rectified a good deal of these issues and felt like an actual attempt at art.