As the old adage goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. In 2016, that’s precisely what Beyoncé Knowles-Carter did. Lemonade, Beyoncé’s sixth album, garnered enormous praise and widespread pop cultural attention for both its raw and open lyrical content - exploring the aftermath of infidelity - and for demonstrating her most ambitious musical palette yet.
Across its 12 tracks, Beyoncé blended a smorgasbord of musical touch-points, meshing them with her renowned penchant for crafting (and delivering) hugely effective pop songwriting. From the spiky, lo-fi blues rock of Don’t Hurt Yourself to the country-tinged Daddy Lessons (a song which kickstarted a stetson-toting journey that culminated in her most recent release, Cowboy Carter) to the zippy electronica of the Mike Dean-produced Love Drought, Lemonade was as musically fearless as its lyrical heroine.
