Given her unassailable stature in pop culture at 40, it’s too tempting to take every word we hear from Beyoncé as a statement with great meaning for the wider world. Last month on her comeback single, Break My Soul, she sang: “I just quit my job.” Surely this was a comment on what has become known as the Great Resignation, the post-Covid career rethink that took place for millions?
On the evidence presented by her first solo album for six years, she meant that she was abdicating any responsibility for using pop music to make grand pronouncements. She boosted black culture on her companion album to Disney’s Lion King remake, and gave too much information about her shaky marriage to Jay-Z on her Lemonade album. Announcing Renaissance on Instagram, this striver for flawlessness wrote that the album is: “A place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking.” The first thing she says, on I’m That Girl, is: “I pull up in these clothes, look so good.” She’s ready to be superficial, appearing to have no bigger plan than lighting up the club on her most upbeat collection. Songs flow together like a club mix and while the beats shift across a wide range of dance subgenres, they rarely slow down. “Do not attempt to leave the dancefloor,” says a DJ at the start of Alien Superstar. You won’t get a chance.
