Lemonade tastes bittersweet

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Photo credit: www.huxtonst.co

By Anna Post, Print Editor

Watch out and fear the defiant wrath of Beyoncé’s new visual album Lemonade.

The album is dynamic.

It contains similar sweet beats to Bey’s previous hits while adding a zest of flavor with her new ones. Chilling tunes like “FOWARD” are mixed with vivacious melodies such as “6 INCH”. The final product is a sweet blend that certainly isn’t hard to swallow.

After three years of patiently waiting for the arrival of Beyoncé’s new masterpiece, her Beehive finally gets to engross themselves in her second visual album and individual tracks. Hip-hop icons like The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar partake in Beyoncé’s lyrical upheaval and add their own unique mood to each ballad. Each song is consolidated into an hour of beautiful yet disturbingly inciteful events in Beyoncé’s life. Ranging from the birth of her daughter to the realization that her husband was having an affair, the music painted astounding images for the mind and was the lens that gave her fans a different perception to invoke them to find their inner happiness.

From fierce songs like “DON’T HURT YOURSELF”, Bey releases her inner fire as she and blues icon Jack White spit words that make listeners crave more of the mighty power laced within each lyric. In the film, Bey is recklessly stomping through the streets as she swings a bat and shatters the windows of cars and buildings then laying in an elegant gown and walking through a field of roses the next. She transitions from expressing her anger through song to acting innocent and apologetic. Each set represents Bey’s struggle and ultimately ends with her rising up from her pain and realizing her inner power as a woman. Her profound dominance throughout the film is expressed through her actions and her outfits as well. When she’s angry, she accentuates the boisterous beats found in her previous album BEYONCÉ with fast tempos in popular tracks like “All Night” and “Formation”. When she’s singing about being vulnerable and her life issues, she sings slower and more folksy tunes like “SANDCASTLES” and “DADDY LESSONS” to add a vintage vibe to the album as well.

Although the combination of rustic beats and twenty-first century hip-hop was an interesting mixture, it didn’t taste as good as it looked.

From Beyoncé’s modern jam “LOVE DROUGHT”, the next track didn’t follow the similar mood that was set before it. It was like this abrupt change in style that made a sour transition between tracks. The film would change from Bey walking along the shore in white linens to her running through a ring of fire. The content was incredible, however the way each song was placed in order should have been more strategically planned and didn’t flow well with each set.

Despite the awkward setlist, the film mimics the attitude portrayed through each song, creating one of the most beautiful pieces of lyrical art. Beyoncé’s Lemonade consisted of a fresh new taste music fanatics were lacking. Her masterpiece was what quenched the music industry and set the bar in modern day hip-hop.

4.5