Beyoncé Hits the Lab for Her “Disco-Trap Experiment On RENAISSANCE
Listen to my track-by-track review on the podcast.There’s something about a pop diva crossing certain age thresholds that result in music that is uninhibited and adventurous. There’s an understanding that they have nothing more to prove and the right side of the brain takes over. Deviating from the politically charged harangue of her previous album Lemonade (2016), Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE is a reappraisal of dance music history that attempts to intersect all of its sub-genres to create something new. “Future, renaissance / Check my technique,” she sings on “PURE/HONEY,” a duplex track that starts with modern house and trails off with classic disco. But Beyoncé’s experimental vision is more evident on songs like “ENERGY” and the Drake co-write “HEATED” in which she best consummates her “disco trap” lab experiment. (She coins the term on the latter track.)
Other genres that Beyoncé has dabbled with in the past are present here as well, like Louisiana bounce music on “CHURCH GIRL” and afro beats on “MOVE.” But, mysteriously, you can find echos of each genre in every song to one degree or another, further proving the point that all dance genres are shards of the same disco ball. “SUMMER RENAISSANCE,” the closing track, summarizes this concept by heavily sampling the Giorgio Moroder produced cornerstone “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer. By closing the album with a new take on “I Feel Love,” the first EDM pop song ever, it shows that RENAISSANCE is playing homage to all of the history that has been birthed since.
The album is a far cry from anything Beyoncé has released in the past, but some vestiges of self-reference can be glimpsed. Take the slinky, roller-rink ready “VIRGO’S GROOVE” and how it hearken’s to “Gift from Virgo” from her solo debut album Dangerously In Love (2003) — both are pining declarations of love on two polar ends of a spectrum. Or “AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM” and how the only thing overtly political about it is its title, meaning there’s something to decipher in its lyrics about questioning the sufficiency of one’s love. This theme was the crux of Lemonade, which juxtaposed her depiction of infidelity in a marriage with America’s disloyalty to the black female experience (“the most neglected person in America” as she described it with a Malcolm X quote).
Though the album is 100% quality, it’s hard to argue that it’s 100% original (which isn’t a bad thing, but something we’ve come to expect from The Greatest Living Performer). “ALL UP IN YOUR MIND” is an experimental trap song that sounds like something Travis Scott or Juice WRLD would’ve put out (but with a bit of polished pop sensibilities). Then we have “CUFF IT,” the most straightforward disco track that sounds like it could be played on contemporary playlists alongside Dup Lipa and Lizzo’s more recent hits. But before one questions, “Is Beyoncé jumping on a bandwagon?” Remember that her song “Blow” off her 2013 self-titled album was a disco song that preceded the current nu-disco boom.
RENAISSANCE is part one of a three-album project. In this installment, we see Beyoncé simultaneously at her most blithe and most intentional. Blithe because the project isn’t as incendiary as her last studio album (she skillfully samples “I’m Too Sexy” on “ALIEN SUPERSTAR” in case she needed to remind us that we were invited to the campiest of shindigs). But intentional because she sought to take dance music one step in a new direction. Will the next two parts seek to dismantle and reassemble other genres? Will they contain message music that elucidates a narrative we aren’t yet seeing? Whatever the case we can be sure of one thing: it will be music that reminds us who’s the queen of the party.
