Buckle up, 'cause Beyoncé's back. Well, almost. Last night, the pop icon announced a new album called RENAISSANCE, which is set to arrive July 29 according to a product listing on her website. The album appears to be subtitled "act i," but in classic Beyoncé fashion, all other details are scarce.
The only hint at what the album might sound like comes from a new British Vogue cover story from Edward Enninful, which features the following description:
Instantly, a wall of sound hits me. Soaring vocals and fierce beats combine and in a split second I'm transported back to the clubs of my youth. I want to get up and start throwing moves. It's music I love to my core. Music that makes you rise, that turns your mind to cultures and subcultures, to our people past and present, music that will unite so many on the dance floor, music that touches your soul. As ever with Beyoncé, it is all about the intent. I sit back, after the wave, absorbing it all.
Vocals and beats? Culture? That certainly sounds like music! The vagueness is understandable, as Beyoncé's team probably has extremely strict parameters of what can and can't be said about this new era. The Vogue shoot itself is flamboyant and somewhat disco-inspired, so that could mean something!
The RENAISSANCE box set listed on Beyoncé's site includes a CD, T-shirt, and a collectible box, which features a 28-page booklet and mini poster. After blanking out her profile pictures yesterday (June 15), fans began speculating that a graphic tweeted by Beyoncé's nonprofit Beygood was a hint at new music. In a grid of album covers, only one square showed an unexplained, never-before-seen image: a gloved red hand, pointing towards the album cover to its left, which was Brandy's 2020 album B7. And now we know that B7 — Beyoncé's seventh album — is RENAISSANCE. She's really good at this.
Beyoncé obviously hasn't been totally quiet since releasing Lemonade back in 2016 — she and JAY-Z dropped Everything Is Love in 2018, she released Homecoming in 2019, and she appeared in the film and soundtrack of Disney's revamped The Lion King, executive producing the companion compilation The Lion King: The Gift. In 2020, she released another accompanying visual album, Black Is King.
Let Beyoncé season officially commence.
The only hint at what the album might sound like comes from a new British Vogue cover story from Edward Enninful, which features the following description:
Instantly, a wall of sound hits me. Soaring vocals and fierce beats combine and in a split second I'm transported back to the clubs of my youth. I want to get up and start throwing moves. It's music I love to my core. Music that makes you rise, that turns your mind to cultures and subcultures, to our people past and present, music that will unite so many on the dance floor, music that touches your soul. As ever with Beyoncé, it is all about the intent. I sit back, after the wave, absorbing it all.
Vocals and beats? Culture? That certainly sounds like music! The vagueness is understandable, as Beyoncé's team probably has extremely strict parameters of what can and can't be said about this new era. The Vogue shoot itself is flamboyant and somewhat disco-inspired, so that could mean something!
The RENAISSANCE box set listed on Beyoncé's site includes a CD, T-shirt, and a collectible box, which features a 28-page booklet and mini poster. After blanking out her profile pictures yesterday (June 15), fans began speculating that a graphic tweeted by Beyoncé's nonprofit Beygood was a hint at new music. In a grid of album covers, only one square showed an unexplained, never-before-seen image: a gloved red hand, pointing towards the album cover to its left, which was Brandy's 2020 album B7. And now we know that B7 — Beyoncé's seventh album — is RENAISSANCE. She's really good at this.
Beyoncé obviously hasn't been totally quiet since releasing Lemonade back in 2016 — she and JAY-Z dropped Everything Is Love in 2018, she released Homecoming in 2019, and she appeared in the film and soundtrack of Disney's revamped The Lion King, executive producing the companion compilation The Lion King: The Gift. In 2020, she released another accompanying visual album, Black Is King.
Let Beyoncé season officially commence.
