beyonce uk tour review

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Beyoncé live at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium review: a bedazzled alien invasion and celebration of queer culture

Queen Bey’s return to London could never be quiet or without upheaval – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium breached its own license in order to host a full-blown, five night residency for the London leg of Beyoncé’ s Renaissance World Tour. And as Beyoncé took to the stage for the first time, she set forth the vision of a bedazzled alien invasion; our supreme mother coming to take us to a new planet.

Ahead of the show, there was a Pride progress flag on screen; an indication of the delights awaiting. Beyoncé emerged in a custom International Klein Blue gown by London-based designer Roksanda as she performed her own opening act – a set of Dangerously In Love, Flaws and All, 1+1, and I Care. Standing in front of a stage of mosaic mirror tiles, she delivered a dazzling vocal performance resplendent with riffs and melisma. “London is in the house!” she shouted. There was also a tribute to her icon Tina Turner , who passed away last week; a slow tempo rendition of River Deep, Mountain High.

The Renaissance show itself was an enthralling, dizzying display of spectacle – with references to the cyborgs of science fiction, the philosophy of time, and the linguistics of ballroom. The latter, explicitly pioneered by Black queer people, is one of the major sonic influences of the Renaissance album. Amid a spectacular run of I’m That Girl into Cozy, into Alien Superstar, Beyoncé was stripped by articulated robot arms. “Come build this we’re never pressed, no stress regret renaissance yes!” announced a ballroom commentator. As the arms lowered a silver frame, Beyoncé posed within it.

Beyonce | Renaissance | UK Tour 2023 | London

Such props made the show fun – the arms wafted fans for a rhapsodic performance of Heated, and after Cozy, Beyoncé fell into a silver duvet. For Partition, a lunar roving vehicle carried her through a red-lit stage like a visiting Martian. The real gag was the arrival of Beyoncé’s daughter Blue Ivy, fresh from her Paris debut. As she coolly joined the dancers for My Power and Black Parade, the crowd was thundering and emotional at her presence.

The show is narrated with the language and movement of black queerness. A ‘House of Renaissance’ ball takes place, walking through the categories old way, vogue fem, and sex siren. Beyoncé herself walked face (a category that is judged solely on the perfection of the contestant’s visage) the entire show, which also gleefully leaned into sex. At moments, the stage became a set of open robotic legs. For silky, elegant performances of Plastic Off The Sofa and Virgo’s Groove, Beyoncé lounged in a glittering clamshell, her skin-tight sparkling Loewe jumpsuit printed with arms reaching around her body.

The closing performance of Summer Renaissance was faithful to Beyoncé’s infatuation with the mythology of Bianca Jagger’s Studio 54 moment – she ascended on blinding, glittery horse, Reneigh. Later, the screens revealed an image of her mother and late Uncle Jonny (namechecked in Heated). Between this and the introductory flag, Beyoncé’s message was clear – this was a show indebted to Black queer people, past and present.

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Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour in Cardiff, review: First night in the UK turned the pop goddess human

In the first uk show of her renaissance tour, beyoncé lacked some of her usual physicality - but her vocal, and the spectacle, was as flawless as ever.

It is a known fact that Beyoncé is, in the cultural imagination, less a pop star than a god. She bestows; sparkles; moves in mysterious ways. In stark contrast to many of her contemporaries, she never gives interviews and posts on social media very rarely, always via her team. Her live shows, too, are often akin to a religious experience. Her very presence in the room leaves thousands of people hysterical, reaching for the smelling salts, unable to cope with the energy radiating off her. The word “icon” is thrown around a lot these days, but for Beyoncé, it still means something.

In Cardiff on 17 May, too – Beyoncé’s third show of her Renaissance tour and first in the UK – there was a feeling of pilgrimage. The roads in the city centre were closed to allow the 60,000-odd fans to descend (many of whom were clad in some combination of silver, mesh and cowboy hats, which comprises the Renaissance aesthetic). Beyoncé opened the show against a screen of blue sky, dotted with clouds, in head-to-toe iridescent silver. As she rose through the stage to screams of joy and awe, it seemed we were about to see the light.

Yet somehow she wasn’t quite at the top of her game. Since her show in Dubai in January, rumours have circulated online that she is recovering from surgery on her foot – a problematic prospect for such an intensely physical performer. There has been no official confirmation that that’s true, but she did seem relatively static during the show, often still as her dancers moved round her, and keeping close to the ground when she joined in with the choreo. While her shows have long involved monumental spectacle, the fundamental thrill of Beyoncé is that she is, on an individual level, our greatest living performer, and one of the greatest ever to have lived. She may be a creative genius, too – but mainly she is the best, really just the best, at singing and dancing.

Fortunately, despite something about the performance feeling ever-so-slightly off, even the fair-to-middling of Beyoncé’s game is still leagues above the top of everyone else’s. The advantage of her comparatively restrained dancing meant she could show off her ludicrously good vocal, which is still as honeyed and controlled as it was in the Destiny’s Child days. She switched easily between brassy riffs of 2011’s “Love on Top” to the house refrains of Renaissance – though this itself is a vocally diverse album, with falsetto runs, husky raps and disco choruses, and she hit every note with sickening ease.

Vasily Petrenko has made Elgar his own

The show, too, was phenomenal as a spectacle and musical event, a three-hour marathon that included Renaissance in full, plus past highlights, including hits like “Partition”, “Crazy in Love”, “Run the World (Girls)” and “Formation” (the famous choreography Renaissance -d up with chrome hats). There were frequent interludes for costume changes filled with impressive displays from her dancers, along with huge-scale graphics and video footage, often involving Beyoncé’s face or body displayed fifty feet tall on the screen.

Yet for all this iconography, it’s when she moves in real life that she’s electrifying. She opened with the ballad “Dangerously in Love” and followed with a few more downtempo songs that she sang standing, or sitting, still, creating a slightly strange atmosphere – but the moment that she simply walked across the stage in “I Care”, the whole thing came alive. She flicked her hips in “Break My Soul” and the crowd melted in her hand. In “Cuff It”, the Les Twins – a pair of dancers who tour with her frequently – formed a kind of human seat at the line “can I sit on top of you”, and she shared a genuine moment of laughter with them as she took a perch, arching an eyebrow. Her physicality, her presence, her flesh and blood, is what is truly special.

Of course, physicality is what Renaissance is all about. A continuous mix of disco and house using ’90s samples, the album celebrates hedonism, the intimacy of the dancefloor and the communal closeness of queer culture. Its image is the glitter ball, but it’s about the sex, sweat and dancing that happen underneath it – all evocations that have made Beyoncé’s past shows some of the greatest ever. Here, there is footage of the club and of Black communities inhabiting their spaces, and high-camp staging – such as the two songs she sings from within a giant, iridescent clam shell, and the disco-ball horse from the album cover. But again, as much as this imagery was powerful and impressive, it was moments such as the penultimate sequence – in which she emerged in a bee costume replete with bug-eye glasses, and fooled around with “Heated”, her “favourite song to sing”, and “Pure/Honey” – when you got a glimmer of the divine. We just wanted more of them.

As the show closed with “Summer Renaissance”, which samples heavily from Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”, she was, once again, clad in silver – ultimately flown over the crowd and carried into the heavens. Perhaps that’s where she belongs – or perhaps she’s at her best when she’s human.

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Beyoncé: Renaissance tour review — epic, overblown, captivating

A Beyoncé show was always going to be a big deal. Just how big it was took some getting used to, with enough dancers to form an unusually glamorous army, a screen that occupied a good chunk of Cardiff, and a megawatt performance from the woman herself that struck the right balance between high-octane dazzle and down-home charm.

The Renaissance tour is connected to Beyoncé’s 2022 album of the same name, a clubby celebration of black and gay dance culture. This three-hour show took those themes and expanded them into the equivalent of a Busby Berkeley musical: epic, overblown, captivating.

Beyoncé emerged from the floor amid a cloud of ice, so dwarfed by the vast stage that she looked like a tiny songstress in

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Beyoncé’s Renaissance movie review: A first look at her dazzling, spectacular concert film

Everything appears flawless, but the us pop titan offers a behind-the-scenes look at just how much work that takes, article bookmarked.

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“I have nothing to prove to anyone at this point,” Beyoncé declares in her new tour documentary, Renaissance . Charting her record-breaking 2023 tour, this film offers an inside-look (written, directed and produced by Beyoncé) at the hive required to build something as extraordinary as those live performances. Because Beyoncé doesn’t just put on a show. She puts on the show.

It was blamed for the surprise rise in inflation in Sweden back in June. Combined with the equally dominating force of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, the Renaissance shows sent the US economy temporarily surging out of its pandemic slump. Around 2.7 million concertgoers attended Renaissance over the course of five months, while the tour is estimated to have grossed close to half a billion dollars. She’s that girl.

At the glittering London premiere of her documentary , Beyoncé is supported by all manner of celebrity guests, including fellow pop titan Taylor Swift, who arrives in a sheath of silver. Inside, phones are stowed away in lockbags, while audience members are handed champagne, salted popcorn and Smarties (British chocolate, nice touch). Then, gasps as the woman of the moment (of the year, of the decade!) walks onstage and thanks those who followed her “formal opulence” dress code to the letter.

“Thank you for coming, thank you for dressing up,” she says, adding how proud she feels that the film is released on World Aids Day, in honour of her late uncle Jonny. “Feel free to dance, sing, cry... thank you.”

For anyone who doubts the neccessity of a concert film, well, prepare to stand corrected. This isn’t just a highlights reel. It’s a rare and remarkable look at the staggering, Spielberg-style production that goes into putting on a show like Renaissance.

Each two-and-a-half hour event involves myriad costume and set changes, a full troupe of dances, and a setlist spanning the 41-year-old’s career to date, from her Destiny’s Child days to her surprise 2013 album, Beyoncé , which celebrates its 10-year anniversary in two weeks. Renaissance the album, released last year, pays dazzling homage to the Black and queer pioneers of post-Seventies house and disco while also celebrating her own sexual liberation. Songs such as “I’m That Girl” and “Cuff It” are delivered in a luxurious murmur, like a big cat stretching its limbs out after a good meal. “You hate me,” she purrs on “Cozy”... “because you want me.”

“When I am performing, I am nothing but free,” she says in the Renaissance film. “The goal for this tour is to create a place where everyone is free, and no one is judged. Unique.” Regardless of this, it is impossible to deny that Beyoncé has harnessed a level of perfectionism we rarely see in any art form. Not since Prince has a musician wielded such control over their live show. Whether she’s exhibiting vocal gymnastics on “Dangerously in Love” or rising into the air on a silver horse while wearing a diamond-encrusted harness (Lady Godiva meets Studio 54), everything appears flawless.

To achieve this, production has to be handled with the utmost precision. Beyoncé spent four years working with choreographers, designers, crew, sound engineers, medics, security and caterers in the build-up to the tour’s launch in Stockholm, Sweden, on 10 May. “In order to perform as many times as we perform, we have three stages,” she explains at one point in the film. “As one is getting set up, the other two stages are travelling to the next city and getting built.” Watching women and men dangle from harnesses, assembling giant installations and working out complex floor plans, is like watching an entirely new city being built in real time.

Beyoncé allows no room for error. Far from painting her as the benevolent queen, Renaissance shows her in all her business and creative glory. She grills her camera crew: why can’t they find a wider lense? Even when there are mistakes, she turns them into new triumphs. The sound cuts out: she seizes the opportunity for yet another dramatic outfit change.

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Once the concert begins, for the audience it’s a case of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. Dancers whirl around the stage; a disco ball descends from the rafters; Beyoncé rides in on a lunar rover while her 11-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, dances in front. The tempo and sheer spectacle of it all leaves you breathless. No one compares.

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Beyoncé Renaissance tour review: Principality Stadium sees icon fly over fans in 'insane' show

Global pop star Beyoncé brought her Renaissance tour to Cardiff and put on one heck of a show

• 23:45, 17 MAY 2023
• Updated 00:08, 18 MAY 2023

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Queen Bey has arrived in Cardiff and wow, did she bring a show. It was quite simply insane. I have never seen anything like it.

The global pop star flew, quite literally, over the crowd, came out in a tank/car and danced to every single beat. All throughout she looked totally flawless and stunning.

The pop icon kicked off the show with Dangerously In Love which had the entire Principality Stadium screaming so loud my ears are still ringing now. Rising from beneath the floor, she hit the high notes perfectly.

READ MORE: Beyoncé is charging people £190 for a tracksuit and £35 for a tote bag from her Beyoncé Renaissance tour merch in Cardiff

This was a running theme of the night as there was not a single note she missed. She opened by telling the crowds they looked "beautiful" in their cowboy hats, a trademark look for a Beyoncé fan, and how much she appreciated them coming.

The show started off with some of her slower songs like 1+1 and I Care, where she sat on a sliver piano close to the crowd and connected with them. Silver was a running theme also throughout the show as many of her outfit changes including her coming out in yet another glittering, shimmering silver outfit.

1+1 was an emotive and moving performance, which the crowd went wild for, and then it was time for her to leave to stage for the first time. She re-entered the stage in a silver metallic costume, was freed out of a cage and launched into COZY.

Throughout the night the staging was simply insane. It was a full production, almost like watching a film being shot, with many different backgrounds, props and lighting. Between each outfit change were mini films, set with commentary, that showed different pictures and videos of Beyoncé and helped ease the transaction between the different vibes of the show.

BREAK MY SOUL had the crowd screaming the lyrics right back at her and for this she wore sunglasses, an accessory that accompanied many of her outfit changes and a shorter silver dress. A huge horse head was also placed on the stage as Beyoncé showed off her mastermind genius of putting on an amazing show.

Although she was only one person she totally commanded the Principality Stadium looking so powerful and quite frankly a girl boss. From watching her you can quickly understand why she is an icon for so many.

My favourite Beyoncé song has always been Run The World (Girls) and has often motivated me in the gym but live it was incredible. My only qualm is that she could have performed it for longer, simply because it's my favourite, and for some of her songs she only performed snippets.

Acknowledgment must also be given to her amazing dancers who brought the energy all night long and busted every move perfectly. Then, while performing MY POWER and BLACK PARADE, it really began to reach heights I have never seen at a concert before.

Beyoncé come out and sat high on top of this six-wheel car/tank. It was much nicer than the car I actually own. It was simply mental as she sang her heart out sat on top of this moving car that roamed around the stage and to the centre platform. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I also love Savage, which she did an amazing remix to while rocking on this car! I don't know how she did it but she did it very very well. Rather Die Young showed off her incredible vocal range as her powerful voice rang out across the Principality.

Performing Love On Top went down an absolute storm with the crowd as they all danced and screamed it back at her. Some of her other sets included her coming out in a shell, looking like the shiny pearl that sits in the middle.

Saying that HEATED was her favourite song to sing, Beyoncé really put her all into the song, giving the sass and power she has become known for. Finally, how she was not exhausted I do not know, after performing to a bee theme, she is Queen Bey after all, in a black and yellow outfit complete with sunglasses that looked like bee eyes, Beyoncé ended her show with yet another crazy stunt.

First, she came out on a silver fake horse. Then the horse flew up across the arena with Beyoncé still on it as she sang SUMMER RENAISSANCE. Then the horse landed in the middle and Beyoncé proceeded to fly above the crowd herself, without the horse and amongst silver confetti, as she looked down and waved at all her fans. Mental.

The superstar finished the show by thanking her fans, her dancers, her band and her crew. And what a show it was with everything from the production to Beyoncé's incredible vocal range to her passion for the music. A treat for everyone who went.

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• Principality Stadium
• Most Recent

Beyoncé Fans Had A Lot To Say About Her First 'Mind-Blowing' And 'Electrifying' UK Tour Date

Beyoncé fans said seeing the US singer live was “one of those mind-blowing, memorable moments” after an “electrifying” performance in Cardiff.

Thousands descended on the Principality Stadium on Wednesday night to see the “global icon” perform on the first UK date of her Renaissance world tour .

The show included video projections and animations, as well as robotic devices, silver moon rovers and pyrotechnics, plus multiple extravagant outfit changes from the singer.

Beyoncé’s setlist spanned her two-decade career, including tracks from last year’s Renaissance album, including Break My Soul and Cuff It.Throughout the performance the singer commanded the stage, smiling, laughing and at one point donning a striped black and gold bee outfit, paired with black gloves and sunglasses, paying homage to her nickname – Queen Bey.

Fans described feeling “so lucky” to have secured tickets for Wednesday’s show and said the atmosphere had been “buzzing”.

Nicola Stacey Jones, 54, from Risca in Wales, told PA that Beyonce’s voice was “like velvet”.

“The atmosphere is electrifying, the music is vibrating around the stadium so your heart bounces. Beyoncé is pitch perfect with moves to match,” she said.

At the time she spoke to PA, the singer’s hit song Crazy In Love had been playing, at which point Ms Jones said “everyone was on their feet”.

“It’s one of those tick box… mind-blowing, memorable moments – I was there sort of thing,” she said.

#RENAISSANCEWorldTour The moment #Beyoncé realises that she’s performing in the true land of song.. Vocals on point Cardiff 🏴 Key change 🔥 @principalitysta #beyoncecardiff pic.twitter.com/FqtbgRmsKx — Kevin Hughes (@Popprince) May 17, 2023

Sian Blackham, a senior media manager for a charity, said ahead of the show tracks by Beyoncé had been playing “in every bar” near to the stadium.

“She’s an absolute icon,” she told PA

Ms Blackham, 44, added: “I’m a huge Beyoncé fan and have loved her since her career took off with Destiny’s Child.

“I’m with my best friend, goddaughter and her auntie. This is our fourth time seeing Beyonce together, the first since the pandemic.

“We feel so lucky to be at her first show in the UK and I’m super grateful to my best friend and goddaughter who secured the tickets – no easy feat.”

Ms Blackham said she had hoped Beyoncé would play her hit song Halo, which was played for the first dance at her wedding in September 2012.

She told PA her husband Matt was now a Beyoncé fan “by association”.

Asked why Beyoncé continued to garner so much support from fans, she said: “She’s a global icon, a powerhouse – such a talented and gifted artist.

“She’s a role model and inspiration. She’s for everyone.”

🚨 BEYONCE SPOILERS 🚨 SO ABOUT LAST NIGHT 😍🥹❤️ WOWEE that was a moment, SO easy to see why @Beyonce is crowned a queen when you see her live 💅👑🐝 (Only recorded 2 vids as you really have to experience that with your eyes ONLY I... 🥹🙌) #Beyonce #BeyonceCardiff #Cardiff pic.twitter.com/gIzkFkQGMW — Matthew Jenkins (@MoleyHoleyMain) May 18, 2023

The Renaissance world tour is Beyoncé’s first in seven years and she is due to perform at other UK venues including London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Murrayfield in Edinburgh and Sunderland’s Stadium of Light.

She kicked off the tour in Stockholm, Sweden, with an explosive show in which she welcomed fans “to the Renaissance”.

US business magazine Forbes previously estimated the tour could earn Beyonce more than £1.6 billion.

More In Entertainment

Exclusive Review: Beyonce’s Electrifying ‘Renaissance Tour’ Reminds That She Is Peerless

Beyonce has long towered tall as the standard-bearer of performance in the modern music age.

As such, it’s of little surprise that immediate pandemonium greeted news of the launch of the ‘Renaissance World Tour.’

The buzz for Queen Bey has been at particular fever-pitch as she rides of the wave of momentum generated by the release of the trek’s like-titled studio album, ‘Renaissance’ .

Functioning as yet another culture-shifting moment for the icon, the summer stadium run serves as the first time the project’s material is being performed live.

It’s notably also Beyonce’s first solo tour in over six years.

That Grape Juice was on-hand at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the latest stop of the ‘Renaissance World Tour.’

Head below for our EXCLUSIVE review…

Beyonce has a well-documented penchant for torching the rulebook and it’s a trajectory that continues with her return to the stage.

For, instead of the expected high-octane opening, a blazing vocal showcase of powerful balladry kicks off what unquestionably qualifies as the superstar’s grandest showing yet.

At the top of the night, the GRAMMYs most-awarded winner declared that what would follow would not be about “perfection,” but rather “release.”

In reality, the ‘Renaissance World Tour’ delivers both bountifully.

Aptly anchored in the intergalactic, the nearly 3-hour extravaganza manages to be both out of this world and Beyonce’s most relatable live offering to date. True to form, Mrs. Carter (as she oft referred to herself throughout the concert) was fierce, ferocious, and potently precise. Yet, more than ever before, she was skilfully chilled. This eclectic combination of the scorching hot, the welcoming warmth, and the effortless cool render the ‘Renaissance World Tour’ a compelling exhibition of a seasoned superstar with a dedication to evolving.

Yes, there are the big choreographed moments (‘Cozy,’ ’Energy,’ ‘Formation’ ), but there is also beauty in the layered intricacies of the performer’s latest live blockbuster.

Of the many instances to draw from, perhaps most striking is her uncanny ability to interact with the crowd and personably acknowledge the sea of signs only to effortlessly hit her mark a millisecond later.

Make no mistake, though. For all its “girl next door” appeal, the ‘Renaissance World Tour’ is a well-oiled, slickly produced machine of a show that is befittingly majestic like the Queen at its center.

With over two decades on top, Beyonce has mastered the art of metamorphosis while savvily maintaining a qualitative throughline. With this trek, there quite literally is an iteration of “Beyonce” available for all. From the vocal fireworks of the unique ballad opening with ’Dangerously in Love’ to the nostalgic warmth of funkified cuts such as ‘Cuff It’ and ‘Love On Top’ to the braggadocios swagger of ‘Savage’ and ‘Diva.’ Whatever your flavor, there are bountiful servings of Bey to feast on.

For much of her tenure in the spotlight, Beyonce has come to mean so much more than a “singer” – she has ascended to the rightful status of a cultural light force. And oh did the capacity crowd at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium re-affirm that. The euphoria embedded in their full-volume renditions of ‘Love On Top’ and the beloved outro of ‘Heated’ captured this in earnest.

The ‘Renaissance World Tour’ (which features the Midas touch of industry heavyweights like Fatima Robinson, Es Devlin, and Chris Grant ) is one that has been pieced together with both purpose and intention. As a Pop show, it hits its marks with sniper-like precision. The spectacle is grand, the outfits stunning, and the scale gargantuan. Yet, most potently, it manages to encapsulate the heart of an album that many deem to be Beyonce’s most culturally resonating release to date. As a body of work, the LP functions as a melodic space of expression, self-love, safety, and a seismic celebration of the marginalized. These themes are woven throughout the entire show, both at a macro and micro level – with the epic ballroom segment towards its climax serving as one of the most emphatic exclamation marks.

With this show, Beyonce powerfully reminds that she is the mold and the master of the contemporary music climate. And, when it comes to blazing a stage, she remains peerless.

That Grape Juice Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5

That Grape Juice Highlights: Heated, Break My Soul, Cozy, Love on Top, Alien Superstar

@thatgrapejuice #Beyonce blazing London with #BreakMySoul at the #Renaissance World Tour! “Release the wiggle!” 🔥🔥🔥🔥 #fyp #renaissancetour #beyhive #foryoupage #blacktiktok #live #livemusic #breakmysoul #cuffit #americahasaproblem #queenbey @Beyoncé ♬ original sound – That Grape Juice

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[photo credit: ln / mason poole / andrew white].

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🐝 has approximately 4 Titles =

#QUEEN OF MUSIC #QUEEN OF CHRIST #VOCAL BIBLE #CELEBRITY TO CELEBRITIES

Meanwhile, your favorite don’t even have ONE 😆

#LEGENDARY 🏆

I’ll give her celebrity to celebrities but everything else is a stretch. She’s overrated. Her music is crap. Her vocals aren’t anything special. She can sing but nothing spectacular. No real soul or feeling. She does put on a great show but overall everything else is overrated. Her and her husband are masters at marketing.

If #MUSIC ROYALTY is overrated then so is MJ and if the CELEBRITY to celebrities is vocally overrated then so is Whitney. Fix your Ears, Eyes, brain and skull while yur at it 😆

All facts. Beywitched is the most overrated alleged artist to step in a stage. And this tour shows that. She is standing there with her props moving all around her as she hoarsely sings out these songs (not great songs to begin with) that would likely be pulled off by someone with a true vision. She’s not that and has never been. If she made good ballads, then that would be a lane to think about.

Queen of Christ? Chile, you about to be roasted on a heap of coals. This 304 got you gone.

Brandys the ONLY vocal bible and she sings CIRCLES around your fav

Lol, keep dreaming 🤣

Yes, girl. Let these people know. Beyonce can sing, and dance, and cast spells, and worship Satan, and have her hair blowing in the wind at all times, but she is no Brandy.

THATS RIGHT, BEYONCE HAS NO PEERS PLEASE SAY THAT AGAIN. HER LEVEL OF ARTISTRY AND DISCIPLINE IS ON ANOTHER LEVEL🐝

#MUSIC ROYALTY

Janet has been there, done that. Beyodel with her circus acts are TIRED

Usher says hello. Not to mention he is the better singer and dancer.

Unlike Aretha or Tina, Beyonce needs a massive production to distract from her averageness. Aretha is the vocal bible and Tina was her own special effect. Beyonce is smoke & mirrors with a side of Satan and song-credit stealing.

THE 32 GRAMMY AWARD WINNING QUEEN OF CHRIST 🐝 is 100% PEER-LESS so you mentioning those peasants like Aretha or Whitney will NOT be tolerated 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 💯

lmao at side of satan!! 😈

Kelly Rowland is better. Beyonce tries too hard and it came to bite her in the b*** in the end. Just look she’s being outsold and outgrossed by Longback Swift. She’ll never have respect that the older legends have.

THE RENAISSANCE TOUR IS ON TRACK TO GROSS $2 BILLION WW

The Queen of Christ 🙏🏽 🤲 🙏🏽 already proved that she’s THE GREATEST ARTIST OF TIME when she released FORMATION HOMECOMING BLACK IS KING BREAK MY SOUL & CUFF IT… 📖

Trying to debate this Fact is POINTLESS. 🤣

@paulo let’s keep it real, Beyoncé is a much better artist/entertainer than Taylor and many others. Since so many are jealous and hater of the star she doesn’t get the true support from people. But t none the less you just can’t keep her down.

That is why all the legends have a difficult time mentioning her in the conversation of greatness. When they do it’s usually for clout and pr.

The Queen of Christ 🙏🏽 🤲 🙏🏽 already proved that she’s THE GREATEST ARTIST OF TIME when she released FORMATION HOMECOMING BLACK IS KING BMS & CUFF IT… 📖

Trying to debate this Fact is POINTLESS. 😆

Beyonce is a certified Vegas showgirl act. No depth to her or her vapid music. “Drop it like a thotty” – wise words from a 45 year old cokehead wife and mother.

s been a lot of years, really think you’re getting one past me? I gotta fan myself off, I gotta fan myself off I gotta cool it down (heated), oh You got me (heated), heated, oh Never met a girl with a mind like this, no, no To give you space at a time like this, my love Never met a girl so fine like this, no, no, no, no, no With a waist that whine like this, my love Only a real one could tame me Only the radio could play me Oh, now you wish I was complacent? Boy, you must’ve mixed up our faces Oh, now you wanna have conversations? See how you testing my patience Yeah, yeah Got a lot of bands, got a lot of Chanel on me I gotta fan myself off, I gotta fan myself off I gotta cool down (heated, like stolen Chanel, put me up in jail) I gotta cool it down (heated, tip, tip, tip, tippin’ on) Got a lot of style, got a lot of Tiffany on me I gotta fan myself off, I gotta fan myself off I gotta cool it down (heated, I’m hot, hot, hot) You got me (heated), heated, oh Whole lotta reservations, whole lotta Whole lotta texting with no conversations Whole lotta playing victim and a villain at the same time Whole lotta, yeah, money, not a lot of patience Whole lotta n***** been waiting They want some time on it, now I wanna flaunt it Panty and a bra, we can get involved, boy You keep playing with my heart, boy I’m just as petty as you are Only a real man can tame me Only the radio could play me Only my baby Got a lot of bands, got a lot of Chanel on me I gotta fan myself off, I gotta fan myself off I gotta cool down (heated, like Coco Chanel, put me up in jail) I gotta cool it down (heated), heated Never met a girl with a mind like this, no, no To give you the space in a time like this, my love Never met a girl so fine like this, no, no, no, no, no (fan me off, I’m hot) With a waist that whine like this (hot, hot like Coco Chanel, put me up in jail) Tip, tip, tip on hardwood floors Ten, ten, ten across the board (with a waist that whine like it) Give me face, face, face, face, yah Your face card never declines, my God (ooh) Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it Mmh, yummy, yummy, yummy, make a bummy heated Make a pretty girl talk that s***** Whisky ’til I’m tipsy, glitter on my kitty (ooh) Cool it down, down, down, my pretty Ba-bad bitchy, make a bad b**** glitchy Fine, fine, fi-fine, fi-fine, fine, fine Liberated, living like we ain’t got time Yada, yada, yah, yada, yada, yah-yah Yada, yada, yada, bom-bom, kah-kah Blastin’ on that as, blast on that as Fan me quick, girl, I need my glass Fan me off, my wrist goes “click” Dimples on my hip, stretch marks on my tts Drinking my water, minding my biz Monday, I’m overrated, Tuesday, on my dck Flip-flop, flippy, flip-flop and ass b**** Fan me off, watch my wrist go “click” Fan me off, I’m hot, hot, hot Like stolen Chanel, lock me up in jail Cuff me, please, ’cause this ain’t fair Dripped in my pearls like Coco Chanel Uncle Johnny made my dress That cheap Spandex, she looks a mess Fan me off, I’m hot, hot, hot Like stolen Chanel, lock me up in jail Fingertips go tap, tap, tap On my MPC, making disco trap Uncle Johnny made my dress That cheap Spandex, she looks a mess

F*** off fattie😆

Aretha was a fat slob.. Whit was a crackhead Tina a c*** as she hated blacks Patti a lesbian

AND ALL OF THEM ARE MORE LEGENDARY AND RESPECTED THAN BOUNCY THE MIDDLE AGED STRIPPER

No one and I mean no one can touch her. Without a doubt she is the best entertainer of this generation, period. People always wants to hate on this female, but truth be told she’s always giving back, she’s about her craft and a true perfectionist making sure you will be entertained and left in awe 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Circus acts don’t make u legendary

Electrifying is a reach. Most of the time she seem like she over it. Like every show they have to convince her to do a bit more. We know she can sing but she barely moves. The dancers are sloppy and the highlight of the show is her daughter performing.

Lol, she is peerless yet she has stolen from Soo many and takes credit for it. Beyonce is nothing more than CULT! There are too many talented people who simply don’t get the credit because her Illuminati ass would do anything for fame! She needs to pack her bags and ride out on the camel (Jay-Z) that she rode in on!

You will bow to Beyonce, you will honor Beyonce and you will worship the ground Beyonce walk on.

Beyonce is a living Goddess and I rebuke you for such disrespect of our KING.

You are a lost person ..freak of theafyonce

Riiiiiight. Tell your king she is moving in slow motion but the tracks are 140bpm lol. What’s wrong?

You been tricked by all that backmasking bullchit she put in her music, chile. Single Ladies backwards says worship me. I see it worked on you too. Beyonce is the one who will be bowing with her demonic a$$.

Yes Bey has done it again.. better than ever in the 40/30 club 💪 ..not that her mining me aka bloodline in the Frontline..Blue Icy. Is rocking the stage too 👍😎

TLDR. Beyoncé is a fat and very ugly legacy act FLOP. How much did her album sell? Are people interested in her NEW music?

And Blu Ivy is even uglier than her mama and daddy. I feel like getting eye cancer just looking at it.

For a stadium spectacle, the show is entertaining and her American fan base is ravenous for the show to hit US soil. However, beyond the PRODUCTION the team did a fair job of translating those songs to the stage. It highlights how weak the material actually is (see the disappointing tweets for the tease of “Sweet Dreams” and “Freakum Dress” that transition from and into weaker songs). The ballad opener is classy and IMO is kind of a set up to be let down by what follows. The in-between videos are fantastic, tho. The choreography (with the exception of the Formation segment) is also not up to her usual standard. Should’ve never hired Fatima, she needed Parris Goebel and/or Luther Brown. Her dance captain Amari Marshall is PHENOMENAL. Keep that girl on retainer Parkwood! The dancers also are not “clean” in their movements, but rather all over the place but she does say “this show is not about perfection” (although it’s scripted to the nth degree like most stadium shows). Blue Ivy looks more comfortable on stage with each show but it still feels like something to keep people talking instead of an organic show-stopping moment. And finally, all that voguing just seems “been there, done that” at this point. We get it – feminine gay men stand up (yawn). Honey Balenciaga just seems like a distraction from what Beyonce is NOT doing (giving her own energy). Is Beyonce matchless among her peers? I’m afraid this show says “yes” because she can buy production but for sheer performance she (and the team) have done better. And I’ve seen 5 shows…

Come through Queen

There are no truer words and her legacy keeps growing because Biu, has illustrated that she possess the talent, technic, skill and attitude, to take Beyonce’s credentials to the next level. Her performance next to her mother was masterful, her rhythm, coordination,and timing was pure perfection; yet, age appropriate. Her natural capabilities were effortless synchronisation. She sings and sounds like her Mama also. I have got my seat ready for the mother, daughter duo and Rumi is already a big fan of her sister, she may emulate her big sister and Sir is as cool as his daddy. This maybe the next musical dynasty, I hope SO.

Where did u hear Blu Ivy sing?

Look at those cheap ass moves her daughter is doing and fools going like they gonna worship her now ..yall full of s*** beyonce Stan

Why are you so mad 😂

Beyonce sabotaged Chloe’s career because she knew Chloe could surpass her. No respect for that wannabe Latina woman

JLo puts on a far better show….

Than why isn’t she selling out stadiums worldwide?

• Juicy Comments

Beyonce has ridden triumphantly to the top of the Billboard 200 with her new album ‘Cowboy Carter.’

And, true to form, she’s made history in the process.

Full story below…

Beyonce has reaffirmed her status as UK royalty with the arrival of her latest studio album, ‘Cowboy Carter.’

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10 takeaways from Beyoncé's new album, 'Cowboy Carter'

Sidney Madden

Sheldon Pearce

Cowboy Carter is the hotly anticipated follow-up to to Beyoncé's 2022 album, Renaissance . Blair Caldwell/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Cowboy Carter is the hotly anticipated follow-up to to Beyoncé's 2022 album, Renaissance .

How long have fans been speculating over the details of Beyoncé 's new album? It depends when you start counting: Some began buzzing over it the second her previous record, the dance-centric Renaissance , was released in 2022 and touted as "act one" of a trilogy. But the chatter has been especially fervent in the past two months, as singles, visuals and other teases popped up during the Grammys, Super Bowl and on the artist's own social media. The Beyhive's busiest bees analyzed clues that pointed toward a country music-inspired sound; they dissected the history of that genre, and how Black musicians have often been written out of it.

After months of anticipation, Cowboy Carter has finally arrived. Is it a country album? In many ways, yes — but it's also a sprawling work filled with disparate influences and references, while remaining a Beyoncé album at its heart. Two NPR Music staffers, reporter Sidney Madden and editor Sheldon Pearce , have been listening since the stroke of midnight. They come to you now with the 10 most important things to know about exactly what Cowboy Carter is, and is not.

Beyoncé's new album is inspired by backlash to her entering the country music genre

1. It's a sprawling Western epic...

Just as Beyoncé's 2022 album, act i: RENAISSANCE , served as a world-building homage to the unsung Black queer youth who created house music, Cowboy Carter continues the lesson plan. In a statement soon after the album's worldwide release, the artist's Parkwood Entertainment shared that each song on the 27-track project is its own version of a reimagined Western film: "She took inspiration from films like Five Fingers for Marseilles , Urban Cowboy , The Hateful Eight , Space Cowboys , The Harder They Fall and Killers of the Flower Moon , often having the films playing on a screen during the recording process."

Each track, whether an interlude, collaboration or poignant solo, rides out like a full-length film full of scenic grandeur, character and conflicts that any Chitlin' Circuit aficionado or spaghetti Western cinephile can obsess over. As a whole, Cowboy Carter serves as a well of discovery, full of samples, sonic Easter eggs, Knowles family callbacks and, most importantly, an appreciation for pioneers in the country world.

2. ... with a searing image of its titular central character.

In the cowboy, Beyoncé finds her ideal figure of the American West and South. She cites the rodeo as the first place where anyone who loved country music and culture could gather and mingle and feel welcome. It's an image that runs counter to the experience that inspired the album: performing her song "Daddy Lessons" at the CMA Awards in 2016, where she has said she "did not feel welcomed ... and it was very clear that I wasn't." The Cowboy Carter character exists in conversation with the history of Black cowboys, the loaded meaning behind the term and its function in the American imagination.

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3. It's a country album...

There are plenty of categorically country sounds on Cowboy Carter . String instruments are its sonic heartbeat, and the do-si-do of the slide guitar on "DESERT EAGLE" and "TEXAS HOLD 'EM" feel perfectly matched with Bey's feathery vocals. The jovial wiggle of the accordions on "RIIVERDANCE" tip a hat to zydeco music and the artist's Creole heritage. "PROTECTOR" (featuring Beyoncé's youngest daughter, Rumi) is anchored by acoustic guitar. "SWEET HONEY BUCKIIN' " interpolates "I Fall to Pieces," the shuffling standard made famous by Patsy Cline . Compared to Bey's past work in an R&B world full of glitz and glamor, many moments on the album, even with their layered arrangements, feel like intimate jam sessions straight out of a Nashville writing camp.

4. ... and it's also not.

Across the track list, elements of hip-hop, bluegrass and Chicano rock, with pop, rock, Jersey club music and operatic runs. "YA YA" conjures the charisma of Tina Turner and Chuck Berry , while winking in the direction of Nancy Sinatra and The Beach Boys . "BODYGUARD" is a breezy surf-rock romp with Latin percussion and a little whiskey on its breath. "AMEN" rings to the rafters in true gospel splendor. "SWEET HONEY BUCKIIN' " stacks genre upon genre and yet never overwhelms, instead connecting the dots between them with dusty horse gallops. The production credits stretch far beyond the scope of country stalwarts, making the album a treasure hunt for fans and issuing a challenge to the ways country music has come to be defined.

5. It's got country and Americana icons to set the tone...

Voices from country lore appear throughout the track list, signposts for the album's deconstructions of genre. The outlaw country pioneer Willie Nelson , who once bucked the Nashville sound himself, stands in as the host of KNTRY Radio Texas, Beyoncé's fictional pirate station. Dolly Parton draws a line from Becky with the good hair to Jolene, and turns up again before "TYRANT," encouraging Beyoncé to light up a juke joint. In a prelude to one of the album's most adventurous cuts, "SPAGHETTII," Linda Martell, an undersung, trailblazing Black country star of the '70s, lays out a sort of mission statement: "Genres are a funny little concept, aren't they? Yes, they are. In theory, they have a simple definition that's easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined."

6. ... and it's flipping some old tropes.

There are covers of country classics here that stand out for how stealthily they're reimagined. Parton's 1973 hit "Jolene" shows up early in the album, but Beyoncé adds her own sauce to flip its storied narrative. A vigilant Bey (flip-flopping between being upset and unbothered) clocks the "bird" chirping round her man; unlike Dolly, who responds to a similar threat with a plea for mercy, she puts her rival on notice: " I'm warnin' you, woman, find you your own man / Jolene, I know I'm a queen, Jolene / I'm still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisianne ." This twist renegotiates the common push and pull of rolling-stone / damsel-in-distress infidelity that's historically been a hallmark in country standards, and has only recently started to shift (see also: Carrie Underwood 's "Before He Cheats").

Jay-Z and Beyoncé's blank space

7. It gives flowers to unsung pioneers.

When Linda Martell shows up in the opening moments of "SPAGHETTII" to pose her question about genres, the slick rhetorical framing cuts to the main conceit of Cowboy Carter and centers Martell herself as a case in point. As a pioneer in the country space, Martell made history with her 1970 album, Color Me Country , and was the first Black woman to perform on the storied Grand Ole Opry. But because of the racist aggression she endured when moving from pop to country, Martell soon left the business. Now, at 82 years old, Martell's getting her due. Her voice is immortalized on both "SPAGHETTII" and "THE LINDA MARTELL SHOW," both tracks that play hopscotch with a range of genres. "I am proud that Beyoncé is exploring her country music roots," the veteran posted on Instagram . "What she is doing is beautiful, and I'm honored to be a part of it. It's Beyoncé, after all!"

8. It shines a light on the stars of country's new age.

A recent study tracking country music programming from 2000 through 2020 revealed that only 29% of country songs played on format radio were by women artists, and of that 29%, 0.01% were Black women. And so along with honoring pioneers, Cowboy Carter platforms new stars in the field who are still working their way through its entrenched gatekeeping and redlining.

Rhiannon Giddens strums her banjo on the album's lead single, "TEXAS HOLD 'EM." Virginia's Shaboozey, whose 2022 release, Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die , offered songs for a post-"Old Town Road" country-rap world, cuts through two tracks with his unforgettable tone. "BLACKBIIRD" features the vocals of four Black women — Tanner Adell , Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts. This soulful cover of The Beatles ' classic about Black women's plights and resilience during the American Civil Rights movement puts its subjects in a spotlight that country radio rarely does, bringing home the reality that opportunities for artists like these have scarcely grown in the years since Martell broke ground.

9. It saddles up over the pop-country middle ground.

On Cowboy Carter , Beyoncé is a pop star actively in conversation with the idea of country music, and traversing the distance between those genres seems to have made her consider the existing relationship between them. In two moments on the album, she enlists singers who have been blurring that binary for quite some time: Miley Cyrus and Post Malone . Miley, of course, is the daughter of "Achy Breaky Heart" sensation Billy Ray Cyrus , and in her own pursuit of a pop identity, fiddled with Mike WiLL trap, Flaming Lips psychedelia, glam rock and country pop before settling on the centering sounds of last year's Endless Summer Vacation , which earned her a record of the year Grammy for "Flowers." For his part, Post broke out as a watercolor trap rockstar and has since shifted toward a sound more in line with his Texas roots. Both seem to resonate with the ambiguity Bey sees running through the music.

10. There's more beneath the rhinestone jewel case.

Beyond the many featured guests, other behind-the-scenes contributors help tell the story. The-Dream , Pharrell , No I.D., Raphael Saadiq , Ryan Tedder, Ryan Beatty and Swizz Beatz all helped produce the record. It also boasts an incredibly accomplished cast of supporting players: Pulitzer-winning folk revivalist Giddens , Grammy-winning soul man Jon Batiste , session luminary Nile Rodgers, gospel pedal steelist Robert Randolph , blues rocker Gary Clark Jr. , hip-hop banjoist Willie Jones and the incomparable Stevie Wonder . The incredible variety of names and skills is the secret sauce behind Cowboy Carter 's sprawling vision.

‘Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé’ Review: Concert Doc Highlights the Pursuit of Perfection, With Dazzling Results

Beyoncé's big-screen version of her 'Renaissance' tour is as much a documentary about the pursuit of perfection as it is about the show itself.

By Steven J. Horowitz

Steven J. Horowitz

Senior Music Writer

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The impression of flawlessness is a tough standard to maintain. It’s what audiences have come to expect of Beyoncé since she debuted as one-fourth of Destiny’s Child in 1997, not merely because of her era-defining music and performances but because she executes it with such seeming ease. Surprise plays a role: It’s part of the reason why her unprecedented 2013 surprise-drop, self-titled album rewrote the release strategy playbook for the music industry, and why her elaborate headlining slot at Coachella in 2018 was instantly historic. She’s the bar, and has been for the past decade — and she’s raised it time and again.

“It’s always been about using my art and my influence to really celebrate all of our differences,” she says during a voiceover vignette in “Renassaince: A Film,” her concert movie that weaves a breathless amount of footage from various dates on her record-setting Renaissance World Tour. “My ultimate goal is to create a space where everyone is free and no one is judged, and everyone can be their childlike selves, their sexiest selves. They can all be on that stage. They are the vision. They are the new beginning. That’s what ‘Renaissance’ is about.”

“Renaissance: A Film,” releasing to AMC Theatres on December 1, celebrates her community, interspersing slick performances with interludes that lift the curtain on what inspired both the album and tour. Written, produced, and directed by Beyoncé herself, the two-and-a-half-hour movie revisits the meticulous show that she says took four years to create, highlighting what the public saw in real-time and on social media (i.e. the heavy choreography, the surgical-cut vocal runs), but also the hesitations and self-doubt she faced while assembling it.

In addition to the eye-popping performances, the film features Beyoncé speaking candidly about her decisions in a way that music fans have come to expect from such concert films, most recently reaching full cultural throttle with “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” documentary . Her family, for one, is a centerpiece, with frequent appearances from her mother Tina Knowles, daughter Blue Ivy Carter, and even her twins, Rumi and Sir. But she also reveals details about how far she’s come as an entertainer and where she sees herself heading, a creative with a clear vision of what she wants to accomplish without any of the “people pleasing” she describes as a former cornerstone of her business approach.

“The biggest growth in my artistry has come from overcoming failure, conflict and trauma,” she says. “But the next phase of my life, I want it to come from peace and joy. I am who I am, and you take me, or you don’t. It’s a really beautiful place to be as a woman… It’s the best time of my life. I thought I was there at 30, but nah, it’s getting better. Life is getting better. I spent so much of my life a serial people pleaser, and finally, I don’t give a fuck.”

One of the more poignant moments from the film focuses on her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, who appeared on tour to perform with her mother on “My Power.” Beyoncé explains that she only wanted the 11-year-old to do just one date, worried for her exposure at such a young age and hesitant to give her the opportunity without having had to work for it. And then, one of Blue’s friends showed her negative reviews of her dancing online. It only fueled her ambition further, and Beyoncé details the growth she saw as the tour progressed. We witness it through stitched-together clips that show determination may run in the Knowles family.

The vision of the “Renaissance” show comes across clearly: It includes nearly every song from the concert , and many of the performances are montages between separate shows with different costumes; the editing is stark. The seamless fast cuts in “Move” and the tight close-ups during “Pure/Honey” are riveting, and the stitching across the 56 tour dates makes it feel unified.

But the film truly excels in its portrayal of life beyond the stage. Beyoncé invites viewers to join her on a trip to her native Houston, where she chows on local cuisine and visits her family home, unlocking memories lost to time. She speaks of her Uncle Johnny who she sings of making her dress on “Heated,” with her mother Tina Knowles describing his influence on a young Beyoncé and her sister Solange. But she also knows how much to give, and shows vulnerability in ways that undercut yet emphasize her perfectionism. Prior to the “Renaissance” tour, she underwent surgery on her knee from a stage accident that happened nearly two decades ago, and we see her in rehab working in double time to be able to perform on stage.

And she does so, quite literally. Beyoncé’s resilience is just one of her superpowers, and she simply shrugs off the hardships. Highlights include Beyoncé riding on her glittering disco horse over the crowd on “Summer Renaissance,” and the moment during “Energy” where everybody goes on mute — when the whole stadium goes quiet, including Cardi B, whose participation in the challenge went viral. We also see Beyoncé the boss, whether offering instructions about the backup singers’ harmonies or how the horns should crash in at just the right time. At times, mostly near the end, the performance clips can drag out, even when the artistry is at the highest level. Fans likely won’t tire of it, but the film’s long duration may leave some viewers restless.

Of course, the audience is a main character in the film, and their reaction is as rapturous as one would expect: We see tears, flashy outfits and knowing nods when Beyoncé sings certain lyrics — and that extends to her crew members and dancers, singers and musicians. All of them lavish praise on her throughout, although it’s not hard to see why. Beyoncé pores over every detail but takes it all in stride. It’s water off her back when the mic cuts out during a performance — extra time to do a spontaneous costume change, a stagehand suggests — and she blames it on not having her “pregame sandwich” and ginseng shot beforehand.

Throughout “Renaissance,” as ever, Beyoncé is in complete control of her narrative — that impression of flawlessness doesn’t happen by itself, and despite the film’s intimacy, we never truly get a glimpse behind the curtain. It’s satiating enough — there are tears, laughter and reflections — and delivers morsels of what it takes to be one of the biggest stars in music. It’s satisfying without being indulgent, but most of all, it’s a monument to Beyoncé’s status as one of pop’s most enduring figures, and everything it takes to get there.

Reviewed at Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Los Angeles, Nov. 25, 2023. Running time: 148 MIN.

• Production: (Documentary) An AMC Theatres release of a Parkwood Entertainment production. Producer: Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.
• Crew: Director, writer: Beyoncé: Knowles-Carter.
• With: Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.

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Critics say Beyoncé's new album 'Cowboy Carter' is a virtuosic riff on the country genre — but it could have used some editing

• Beyoncé released her eighth studio album "Cowboy Carter" on Friday.
• She described the country-inspired project as a "continuation of 'Renaissance'" and "an experience."
• Critics are raving about the album's ambitious scope, especially on "Ya Ya" and "II Most Wanted."

Beyoncé has once again changed the game with a digital drop, unveiling her eighth studio album, "Cowboy Carter," on Friday to overwhelming praise.

The second installment in a three-act series that launched with " Renaissance " in 2022 draws heavily from Southern iconography, folk, blues, soul, and Americana influences. The tracklist boasts features from Nashville legends like Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Linda Martell .

"I hope that you can hear my heart and soul, and all the love and passion that I poured into every detail and every sound," Beyoncé wrote on Instagram . "I hope this music is an experience, creating another journey where you can close your eyes, start from the beginning and never stop."

Reviews for "Cowboy Carter" are rolling in. Here's what critics are saying so far.

The sonic palette of "Cowboy Carter" is more diverse than its title may suggest.

"Country, gospel, soul, blues, R&B, pop, psychedelic rock, and more all find themselves as key members of Beyoncé's country. Her country is more dimensional and multifaceted than Nashville could ever dream of, because Black folks in the country had to imagine and conjure worlds that did not even exist during enslavement and sharecropping in the heavily segregated Jim Crow South." — Taylor Crumpton, The Daily Beast

"Across 27 tracks, almost all with compellingly muscular melodies, she whips and neigh-neighs through every conceivable form of classic and modern country, roping in elements of opera, rock and hip-hop at her commanding, virtuosic whim." — Helen Brown, The Independent

"It's a deep stylistic smorgasbord that gets scattershot in the final third of the album's 27 tracks (several of them interludes) with trap beats and fiddles vying for the front row." — Melissa Ruggieri, USA Today

"With this endlessly entertaining project, she gets to be a warrior of female and Black pride and a sweetheart of the radio. Because being Beyoncé means never having to pretend to be just one thing." — Chris Willman, Variety

"So what kind of album is it? It's a journey." — Shane O'Neill, The Washington Post

The album's length works against it, though it doesn't ruin the overall effect.

"It could have used some editing. For its five-year gestation, nearly 80-minute runtime, and history-making ambitions, 'Cowboy Carter' still feels somewhat undercooked." — Chris Kelly, The Washington Post

"At 1 hour 18 minutes long, it's a lot to take in one sitting and being in the saddle does start to chafe, but there's enough gold here to keep the stars and stripes aloft." — Alan Pedder, The Line of Best Fit

"There are moments when it starts to feel less like a coherent statement than one of those long 21st-century albums that offers listeners a selection box of tracks to pick and choose playlist additions from. Or perhaps its wild lurches into eclecticism are the point. Unwieldy as it is, it displays its author's ability to bend musical styles to her will." — Alexis Petridis, The Guardian

"Some of the time — not most, but some — 'Cowboy Carter' is boring . It's too long . There are too many ballads. There are too many sketched-out acoustic lullabies that almost function as skits.

"But even when it's boring , 'Cowboy Carter' is nowhere near bad . The whole thing is put together so meticulously." — Tom Breihan, Stereogum

Despite its ambitious scope, the album still feels intimate. "Cowboy Carter" doubles as a political statement and a personal ode to Beyoncé's roots.

"Hitting her stride immediately with powerful curtain raiser 'Ameriican Requiem,' Beyoncé wastes no time in laying out her country credentials and pain at having them so coldly dismissed . But it's not sympathy she's after; if mainstream country can't stand her, she'll leave it choking in the sawdust as she hoedowns on regardless." — Alan Pedder, The Line of Best Fit

"Throughout it all, Beyoncé's hands are confidently and charismatically on the reins. The righteous zeal of her mission, and the giddy range of sonic adventuring, repeatedly gave me chills I haven't felt since the release of 'Lemonade.' Back then she was fighting for her marriage. Now she's fighting for a major culture shift." — Helen Brown, The Independent

"Legacies — musical ones, family ones — have been a theme of Beyoncé's music. Sometimes she's correcting artistic history and blending genres. Sometimes she's inserting her children into her art. One way or another, she's always tugging at roots." — Helena Andrews-Dyer, The Washington Post

"Beyoncé leans into the art of storytelling that is so central to country music, reflecting on authenticity, roots, legacy, and purpose—and offering a sharp contrast to the unassailable pop star veneer we typically see from the singer." — André-Naquian Wheeler, Vogue

"'Cowboy Carter' is such a grand statement of intent that it feels like it could be her ultimate say on identity and purpose. The fact that it's coming from outside her usual wheelhouse makes it even more impressive." — Neil Z. Yeung, AllMusic

"Ya Ya" is an eclectic highlight, blending Beyoncé's soulful voice with nods to Nancy Sinatra and The Beach Boys.

"What do you get if you take a sample of Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin,' mix it with an interpolation of the Beach Boys' 'Good Vibrations' and douse the whole concoction in the essence of Tina Turner?

"Well, you get 'Ya Ya,' of course, the best song on 'Cowboy Carter.'" — Kyle Denis, Billboard

"On the bonkers 'Ya Ya,' she tells us she's above 'petty' prejudice because she's 'a clever girl.' A boast she then backs up by spinning a sample of Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots are Made for Walkin' into quotes from The Beach Boys' 'Good Vibrations,' staking her family's claim to life in America and calling on her ladies to 'pop it, jerk it, let loose' to a funky country soul groove." — Helen Brown, The Independent

"The best song on 'Cowboy Carter' is 'Ya Ya.' Following another snappy introduction from Martell, Beyoncé basks in an echo effect on her girlish vocals as she finger snaps and calls for a beat. You can picture the video of her high-stepping and hair-flinging as she slinks and slides around the retro groove." — Melissa Ruggieri, USA Today

"The song is sure to be a showstopper when she gets her ya-yas out on tour." — Mankaprr Conteh and Joseph Hudak, Rolling Stone

"II Most Wanted," a duet with Miley Cyrus, is another critical favorite.

"'II Most Wanted,' on the other hand, feels effortlessly top-drawer country. Miley Cyrus was born with this kind of song in her mouth, and Beyoncé more than holds her own." — Alan Pedder, The Line of Best Fit

"Beyoncé magnanimously offers Cyrus the opening verse, and the twosome trade lines, not sparring, but complementing. Sometimes they sound like a modern-day Thelma and Louise ('I'll be your shotgun rider 'til the day I die'), steeped in limitless loyalty as they reflect on aging and love. The skipping acoustic guitar is a mere backdrop to these vocal powerhouses, with Cyrus' gravel the equilibrium to Beyoncé's honey." — Melissa Ruggieri, USA Today

"It's the reimagining of 'Landslide' as a Bonnie-and-Clyde anthem, 'II Most Wanted,' that most deftly melds the past and the present. Miley Cyrus and her whiskey rasp hold their own as two pop chameleons ponder a day when they won't be young." — Chris Kelly, The Washington Post

"As two of contemporary pop's most powerful voices, they could have easily tried to out-diva each other — but the resulting track is tastefully restrained." — Shaad D'Souza, Pitchfork

Business Insider's senior music reporter rates the album a 9.3/10.

The sequel to "Renaissance" is yet another feat of vocal finesse, archival research, and most of all, sonic cohesion.

Considering Beyoncé's exceptional discography, this shouldn't be surprising. But her ability to reference her forebears, assemble a diverse team of collaborators, and still create a lucid, unified project — like a conductor leading an orchestra — will never fail to boggle my mind .

Even the interludes on "Cowboy Carter" aren't skippable. However brief, they're always essential to the album's narrative and pulse. Amid the free-flowing brilliance, standout tracks include "Bodyguard," "Jolene," "II Most Wanted," "Ya Ya," and "Tyrant."

Beyoncé's big-picture vision is also what allows her to thrive in so many musical styles. She sees connective tissue and subtle shapes where other artists do not. Beyoncé doesn't simply adapt to a genre; she unspools, analyzes, interprets, and refashions it in her own image.

There's a very good reason she declared, "This ain't a Country album. This is a 'Beyoncé' album."

"Cowboy Carter" is explicitly invested in subverting the very notion of genre, with all its constraints and contrived prestige. It argues that each artist's unique approach is more important than any label or wrapper.

It's a winning argument.

Worth listening to:

"Ameriican Requiem"

"Blackbiird"

"16 Carriages"

"Protector"

"Texas Hold 'Em"

"Bodyguard"

"Spaghettii (feat. Shaboozey)"

"Alliigator Tears"

"Just For Fun"

"II Most Wanted (feat. Miley Cyrus)"

"Levii's Jeans (feat. Post Malone)"

"Oh Louisiana"

"Desert Eagle"

"Riiverdance"

"II Hands II Heaven"

"Sweet Honey Buckin"

Background music:

"Smoke Hour with Willie Nelson"

"Smoke Hour II"

"The Linda Martell Show"

Press skip:

*Final album score based on songs per category (1 point for "Worth listening to," .5 for "Background music," 0 for "Press skip").

• Main content

Beyoncé's Renaissance Tour Is Her Greatest Achievement

It's an athletic feat, a work of art, and even a pseudo-communion. Even with another mega-tour sweeping the world this year, we've never seen anything like it—and may never again.

That's me. I was introduced to Beyoncé at six years old, shortly after the release of her debut album , Dangerously in Love . I still remember holding the CD from my car seat, marveling at a mysterious woman in a glittery top, whose heavenly vocals boomed through our stereo. Twenty years later, Beyoncé is still a mystery to me—maybe even more so, following most recent album, 2022's Renaissance . At 41 years old, Beyoncé has three children and seven albums under her belt, but she can still sing like there’s an angel trapped in her throat. (She hasn’t let go of the sparkly outfits either.)

As Beyoncé finishes her speech, 80,000 fans erupt in a thunderous cheer. The floor shakes. Glitter floats through the air. Looking at the jumbotron, I swear there's tear in her eye. Beyoncé beams back at the audience, and everyone roars again. She doesn’t have to say much else. We get it. Beyoncé is a legend. Now, it's simply time to celebrate Renaissance .

The Renaissance Tour kicked off on May 10 in Stockholm, Sweden. From there, Beyoncé and co. traveled across Europe before making it to North America. By the time Beyoncé reached New Jersey, clips from her previous shows leaked online. Even a glimpse at the silver-hued concert hinted that the Renaissance Tour may stand as Beyoncé’s best work yet—and her most popular show ever.

Forbes predicts that the Renaissance Tour could earn around $2.1 billion by the time it wraps in September. If Beyoncé pulls it off, that will make her the highest-grossing female act of all time. That title currently belongs to Madonna, who—in July 2022—had earned $1.4 billion from her shows. Taylor Swift is next in line with a projected $1.9 billion in sales from her currently-running Eras Tour. According to Billboard , Beyoncé is well on her way to nabbing the top spot, earning more than $154 million from her European tour dates alone.

Like everyone else in the crowd, I attended the Renaissance Tour as a fan. But I was a fan on a nearly 20-year-long mission. We all know Beyoncé is Beyoncé (you don’t earn $154 million on a whim), but I wondered what I'd learn from seeing her live—dancing and singing along with her, plus, of course, mingling with the Beyhive.

One of the first people I run into is Zahir, who is proudly donning a sequined top. I simply ask why he loves Beyoncé. He says, “Her Blackness. She’s so in tune with her womanhood and voice.” The next person I talk to is Rickey Mile, a self-proclaimed superfan. He gives a dumbfounded look, as if any questions about Beyoncé's greatness go without asking. “She’s timeless,” he explains. According to Mile, it doesn’t matter when you see Beyoncé, what’s going on in her personal life, or which era of her career she’s in—the woman always puts on a good show.

After seeing the Renaissance Tour, I have to agree. The concert (and the album) is a homage to Beyoncé’s uncle, Johnny—a gay man who introduced her to house music. To say Renaissance would make him proud is an understatement. It’s one giant, queer party, filled with references to drag icons Kevin Aviance and Moi Renee, along with a cameo from viral ballroom dancer Honey Balenciaga. The stadium shook for three straight hours , with fans bouncing and rocking along to each song.

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Given Beyoncé’s expansive catalog, there is a smattering of oldies woven throughout the show. But don’t be fooled. This isn't anything like Swift's Eras Tour. Instead of selecting songs chronologically, Beyoncé presents a mix of her favorite hits. The show opens with a powerful rendition of “Dangerously in Love,” which bleeds into the yearning ballad “1+1.” Then, just when you’re ready to profess your love to someone in the crowd, Beyoncé switches gears, performing the self-assured Renaissance track, “I’m That Girl.” The whole thing exudes rich aunt energy. Pure fun. No rules. And the atmosphere? Well, it’s like a reunion. After all, the last time the Beyhive convened was during 2016's Formation Tour.

You know that moment at a family party, when you see someone you don’t recognize, but feel an intrinsic connection to? That’s what attending Renaissance is like. Everyone is a stranger, yet also a cousin. I suppose that makes Beyoncé our matriarch. Just ask the troves of fans yelling “Mother!” during her set.

Perhaps that maternal energy stems from Beyoncé’s dedication to lifting others up. Along with the references to the aforementioned queer icons, Beyoncé uses Renaissance to celebrate Black women. During the show, she sings, “Break My Soul (The Queen's Version), featuring Madonna. The remix praises every Black performer who inspired them: Bessie Smith, Lauryn Hill, and Nina Simone, among many others. Later on, Beyoncé brings her daughter, Blue Ivy, on stage to celebrate their heritage, with the songs “My Power” and “Black Parade.” The Renaissance Tour feels like one giant love letter to Beyoncé's community—and because of that, every moment has a purpose.

Though the Renaissance Tour is art, and even a pseudo-communion, it's also an athletic feat. Any time you think Beyoncé has reached her peak, she surprises you with something else. At one point, she’s singing riffs you’ve never heard. In the next moment, she’s dancing in stilettos. If you look away for a second, you'll miss a surprise costume change or an exciting set design. It’s magic.

After the concert, I see a teenage girl dab her eyes with her sleeve. “‘Formation’ broke me for some reason,” she tells her friend. “I continued to cry for the rest of the show.”

Those who weren’t crying in the presence of Queen Bey were screaming instead. Case in point: “Energy.” The thumping club track arrives midway through the show. When she sings, "Look around everybody on mute," the crowd is told to shush for dramatic effect. It would have been cool, but everyone was too busy singing to oblige. Beyoncé didn’t seem to mind. She just laughed and carried on. Legendary status aside, Beyoncé is a human being who can’t help but giggle when things go wrong.

On my way home, looking at my notes from the night, I found a few words from my conversation with a kind man named Herby. I met him earlier that night and complimented his outfit—a sparkly silver number that Beyoncé would surely approve of.

“Why do you love Beyoncé?” I asked.

“She represents the dichotomy of being a human person with limits, but she feels limitless,” he said. “That inspires me."

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Beyoncé’s Country Is America: Every Bit of It

On the bold, sprawling “Cowboy Carter,” the superstar plays fast and loose — and twangy — with genre.

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By Jon Pareles

The first song on “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé’s not-exactly-country album, makes a pre-emptive strike. “It’s a lot of talking going on while I sing my song,” she observes in “Ameriican Requiem” over guitar strums and electric sitar, adding, “It’s a lot of chatter in here.”

That’s an acknowledgment that a pop superstar’s job now extends well beyond creating and performing songs. In the era of streaming and social media, Beyoncé knows that her every public appearance and utterance will be scrutinized, commented on, cross-referenced, circulated as clickbait and hot-taked in both good faith and bad. Every phrase and image are potential memes and hyperlinks.

It’s a challenge she has engaged head-on since she released her visual album “Beyoncé” in 2013. For the last decade, even as her tours have filled stadiums, she has set herself goals outside of generating hits. Beyoncé has deliberately made each of her recent albums not only a musical performance but also an argument: about power, style, history, family, ambition, sexuality, bending rules. They’re albums meant to be discussed and footnoted, not just listened to.

“Cowboy Carter” is an overstuffed album, 27 tracks maxing out the 79-minute capacity of a CD and stretching across two LPs. It flaunts spoken-word co-signs from Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton that interrupt its flow; it includes some fragmentary, minute-long songs. Its sprawl is its own statement of confidence: that even half-finished experiments are worth attention.

The “Cowboy Carter” album cover is an opening salvo, brandishing western and American symbols: Beyoncé holding an American flag while riding a white horse sidesaddle, with platinum-blond hair proudly streaming. In a red-white-and-blue outfit, high-heeled boots and a pageant sash that reads “Cowboy Carter,” she’s a beauty queen and a white-hatted heroine claiming her nation — her country, in both senses. The politics of her new songs are vague and glancing, but the music insists that every style is her American birthright. As a pop star it is: Pop has always breached stylistic boundaries, constantly exploiting subcultures to annex whatever might make a song catchier.

Beyoncé grew up in Texas, where country music has long mingled with styles from jazz to blues to hip-hop — and where, in fact, early cowboys were enslaved Black men . Beyoncé met a racial backlash when she performed “Daddy Lessons,” a country song from her 2016 album “Lemonade” about gun-toting self-defense, with the (then-Dixie) Chicks at the 2016 Country Music Association Awards. Presumably that’s what she alluded to when she wrote on Instagram that there was “an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed.”

She wasn’t daunted. Instead she pushed further, and the mere prospect of Beyoncé releasing a country album stirred things up. Even before its release, “Cowboy Carter” prompted reminders of country’s obscured Black roots — like the African origins of the banjo and the genre’s long cross-pollination with the blues — and pointed at, yet again, its historical exclusion of nonwhite performers, despite a handful of exceptions like Martell, Charley Pride and, more recently, Darius Rucker, Mickey Guyton and Kane Brown.

What Beyoncé drew from country is productions that feature hand-played instruments — guitars, keyboards, drums — rather than the programmed beats and glittering electronics that propelled her 2022 album “Renaissance,” which also had Beyoncé on horseback on the cover and was subtitled “Act I.” That album was Beyoncé’s time-warped, multilayered homage to the electronic dance music that emerged from Black gay subcultures. “Cowboy Carter,” subtitled “Act II,” also scrambles eras and styles, with samples, electronics and multitracked vocal harmonies unapologetically joining the guitars.

The advance singles from “Cowboy Carter” paired “16 Carriages,” a booming arena-country song about Beyoncé’s industrious career and artistic drive, with the foot-stomping, banjo-picking “Texas Hold ’Em,” about enjoying Texas-style good times away from home. “Texas Hold ’Em” seized No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, making Beyoncé the first Black woman to do so, and topped the all-genre Hot 100.

If Beyoncé had merely wanted to make mainstream country hits, she could have hired a seasoned Nashville producer and had her pick of expert Music Row songwriters. But “Cowboy Carter” has different aspirations, and Beyoncé brought her own brain trust, including producers known for hip-hop and R&B. “This ain’t a Country album. This is a Beyoncé album,” she wrote on Instagram. That’s true.

“Cowboy Carter” leans into its anticipated discourse, openly interrogating categories and stereotypes and pointedly ignoring formulas. With historical savvy, Beyoncé enlisted Linda Martell — the Black country singer whose 1970 album, “Color Me Country,” included the first charting country hit by a Black woman, “Color Him Father” — to provide spoken words. For the intro of “Spaghettii” — which features Beyoncé rapping — Martell says, “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they? Yes, they are. In theory, they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined.”

Beyoncé gathers young Black women currently striving for country careers — Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tiera Kennedy and Tanner Adell — on a remake of the Beatles’ veiled civil-rights song, “Blackbird.” It’s a careful gesture, though it might have been more substantial to write a new song with them.

The album includes some understated, largely acoustic contenders for country or adult-contemporary radio play — notably “II Most Wanted,” a duet with Miley Cyrus that harks back to Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide,” and “Levii’s Jeans,” a boast about being a “sexy little thing” that she shares with a besotted Post Malone. In the steady-thumping, Motown-tinged “Bodyguard,” Beyoncé plays an amorous, jealous but selfless partner in an uncertain romance. And in “Protector,” an acoustic-guitar lullaby, Beyoncé personifies a loving, supportive parent singing about “lifting you up so you will be raised.”

Beyoncé also reworks Parton’s “Jolene” — a country classic about a dangerous temptress — by turning it inside out. Where Parton’s 1973 original had her “begging” Jolene to stay away, in 2024 Beyoncé isn’t one to cede power. She starts out by “warning” Jolene and raises the threat level from there, reminding her target, “I know I’m a queen.”

Martell returns to introduce “Ya Ya,” explaining, “This particular tune stretches across a range of genres. And that’s what makes it a unique listening experience.” The song is a hand clapping, 1960s-flavored garage-rock stomp that samples Nancy Sinatra, quotes the Beach Boys and brandishes lines like “There’s a whole lot of red in that white and blue/History can’t be erased,” then moves on to dancing and lust. It’s not geared for any radio format. It’s just a romp.

It’s the odder, genre-fluid songs that give the album its depth. “Just for Fun” — a hymnlike duet with Willie Jones, a Louisiana songwriter who draws on country and R&B — plunges into Beyoncé’s somber low register as she sings, “I need to get through this/Or just get used to it.” “Riiverdance” deploys intertwined Celtic-tinged guitars and close-harmony backup vocals to sketch an enigmatic relationship that encompasses murder and resurrection and weekend seductions. And “II Hands II Heaven” is equally cryptic and celebratory; using an electronic pulse drawn from Underworld’s “Born Slippy (Nuxx),” it has Beyoncé and backup voices singing about whiskey, coyotes, God, sex and “Lost virgins with broken wings that will regrow.”

Beyoncé has been a stalwart of the full-length album, sequencing and juxtaposing songs in synergistic ways. But “Cowboy Carter” is a bumpier ride than “Renaissance,” “Lemonade” or “Beyoncé.” It suggests that Beyoncé wanted to pack all she could into one side trip before moving on elsewhere. Perhaps she’s already immersed in Act III.

Beyoncé “Cowboy Carter” (Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia)

Jon Pareles has been The Times’s chief pop music critic since 1988. He studied music, played in rock, jazz and classical groups and was a college-radio disc jockey. He was previously an editor at Rolling Stone and the Village Voice. More about Jon Pareles

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Lewis hamilton regrets turning down tom cruise for ‘top gun: maverick’ role, ‘renaissance: a film by beyoncé’ review: an intimate yet extravagant exploration of beyoncé’s latest world tour.

By Katie Campione

Katie Campione

TV Reporter

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Beyoncé knows what her fans have gone through to make it to her Renaissance World Tour.

As she says in Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé , she herself has been changed by seeing her idols perform live.

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Seeing Beyoncé perform live might be akin to a religious experience. Need proof? Just look at the reactions of fans across the world, who are front and center in this film, as they bask in her presence on stage throughout the show.

The visuals and lighting are stunning on screen and even more immersive than they appear in the venue during the live show, as the camera often appears to be engulfed by the monstrous screen at the back of the stage. Instead of tricking audiences into thinking this film was shot over the course of one or two nights, Beyoncé chooses to highlight numerous stops on her tour from Las Vegas to Barcelona, primarily through her outfits, which often changed mid-song on screen.

But as breathtaking as every facet of the performance is, the most fascinating elements of the film are those that fans never got to see from their seats.

Beyoncé, who also directed the film, takes viewers behind the scenes of the creation of the Renaissance World Tour, starting from the very beginning. It took four years and countless iterations of her massive, mind-bending stage to settle on the final product. She not only celebrates her own accomplishment, but those of her crew — many of whom are women, as she proudly points out.

In addition to Beyoncé the performer and creative director, audiences will also get to see plenty of heartwarming footage of Beyoncé as a mom. Blue Ivy, her oldest daughter, took the stage with her nearly every night of the tour, which is a decision that Beyoncé explains she didn’t take lightly.

Younger siblings Rumi and Sir were also in tow for many of the stops on tour. As she leaves the stage and the applause of 70,000 fans behind each night, Beyoncé goes into mom mode, making sure her babies are taken care of, and the cameras follow.

Considering Beyoncé generally stays out of the public eye, the intimate insight into her life at this stage in her career is a special treat. She speaks about the trials she’s faced in her 27-year career and how she’s navigated her life as a mother, businesswoman and recording artist. At times, one might be left longing for even more vulnerability as the footage transitions back to another performance from the Renaissance Tour.

With so much behind-the-scenes footage, it should come as no surprise that not every song from her live concert is included in the film. But, fans will be treated to many of the highlights, including most of the Renaissance album. Audiences can also expect some of her greatest hits, like “Drunk in Love,” “Partition” and “Formation.”

Also included are special guest performances by Megan Thee Stallion in Houston and Kendrick Lamar in Los Angeles (a redemption for Lamar, since audio issues prevented audiences from hearing most of that performance live). And, of course, they could not forget to feature Diana Ross taking the stage to sing “Happy Birthday” to Beyoncé during her Sept. 4 Los Angeles tour stop.

Whatever is missing won’t leave audiences lacking, though. The film captures all the spectacle and energy that makes Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour feel legendary.

Renaissance means rebirth. Through her show, Beyoncé says she hopes fans will leave feeling renewed and liberated. That is likely how viewers will leave the film, too.

Title: Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé Distributor: AMC Theaters Release date: December 1, 2023 Director: Beyoncé Cast: Beyoncé Rating: Not rated Running time: 2 hr 48 min

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Album review: Beyoncé’s imagination is unlocked on the freewheeling ‘Cowboy Carter’

A costume, an accent, a narrative mode, a homecoming: For Beyoncé, country music is all that (and more) on “Cowboy Carter,” the pop superstar’s boot-scooting blowout of a new studio album. It’s as sprawling and as rigorous as we’ve come to expect from the most intellectually ambitious artist in music; it also can make you wonder – and this of course is easy for me to say – whether Beyoncé should stop seeking the approval of those who’ve shown themselves unworthy of bestowing it.

Determined as always to introduce her work on her own terms, Beyoncé wrote on Instagram before the LP’s release on Friday that “Cowboy Carter” was “born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed” – a reference, presumably, to the racist backlash that greeted her performance of her song “Daddy Lessons” with the Dixie Chicks at the 2016 Country Music Assn. Awards. The episode led her to immerse herself in the “rich musical archive” of country music’s undersung Black pioneers, just as she’d studied the Black and queer roots of dance music to make 2022’s “Renaissance.” (“Renaissance” and “Cowboy Carter” are billed as the first and second acts in a proposed trilogy, though Beyoncé’s reign as pop’s foremost musicologist really began with the tribute to HBCU tradition she brought to Coachella in 2018.)

As a proud Houston native – “the grandbaby of a moonshine man,” as she puts it in the new album’s opener, “Ameriican Requiem” – Beyoncé’s connection to country music runs deep: “Got folk down Galveston, rooted in Louisiana,” she sings in “Ameriican Requiem,” a surging march layered with guitar, sitar and the hum of an electric church organ. “Used to say I spoke too country / Then the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ’nough.” The same went for “Renaissance,” whose excursions into house, disco and ballroom music she linked to her close relationship with a gay family member named Uncle Johnny.

And, indeed, it’s the particulars of Beyoncé’s identity that give her music much of its cultural weight – that position her here as a Black woman endeavoring to make space for people of color in a field that’s long proved inhospitable to anyone other than straight white men. Already she’s been criticized by some on social media for doing less than she could in that regard on a record that prominently features Miley Cyrus and Post Malone while it convenes four Black female country singers – Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts – to serve as her backing chorus in a moving cover of the Beatles’ “Blackbird.” Other guests include Shaboozey and Willie Jones, both country-rap fusionists, and the country elders Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Linda Martell, all of whom provide spoken interludes.

Yet it’s the pop star’s prerogative to borrow freely from whatever and wherever she likes; the determinist thinking around Beyoncé can downplay pop’s true promise, which is that one’s talent and ingenuity are all the license one needs. Certainly, that freedom is enjoyed more readily by the likes of Malone (whose presence on November’s CMA Awards appeared to rankle nobody) and Morgan Wallen (who’s done as much as any country act to import elements of Black creativity into a putatively white genre – always a more frictionless process than the reverse). But the most thrilling moments on “Cowboy Carter” aren’t feats of reclamation so much as achievements of invention: hard-to-classify songs such as “Sweet Honey Buckiin’,” in which Beyoncé croons Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” over a thumping Jersey club groove, or “II Hands II Heaven,” a celestial trance-folk fantasia that evokes a long night in the desert.

As a grand statement on America – the kind the album’s cover sets you up for with its striking stars-and-bars symbology – “Cowboy Carter” feels a bit mushy. Beyoncé sings in “Ameriican Requiem” about “a pretty house that we never settled in” and notes in “Ya Ya” that there’s “a whole lot of red in that white and blue”; the latter tune, which quotes Nancy Sinatra and the Beach Boys and summons memories of Tina Turner, also lamely addresses the anxieties of people exhausted from “working time and a half for half the pay”: “We gotta keep the faith,” Beyoncé advises. Oh, is that all?

She’s said that each song was conceived in response to a specific Western film (among them “Urban Cowboy” and “The Hateful Eight”), which means they might be less strictly autobiographical than Beyoncé has trained us with LPs like “Lemonade” to assume. The breezy “II Most Wanted,” for instance – with Beyoncé and Cyrus harmonizing about smoking cigarettes while “flying down the 405” – may well be a riff on “Thelma & Louise.” (Two highly personal exceptions are the stately “16 Carriages,” about the youth she spent building a career on the road, and “Protector,” a tender acoustic ballad in which she describes the bond between mother and child – and which starts with Beyoncé’s daughter Rumi asking her mom for a lullaby.)

Yet that slightly gimmicky storytelling approach seems to have unlocked her imagination; it’s gratifying to hear her lean not just into country music’s history but into its wit and style and pageantry . “Levii’s Jeans” – all these double i’s are evidently meant to reinforce “Cowboy Carter’s” Act II status – is a sexed-up duet with her and Malone trading cheeky lines about the charms of hip-hugging denim; “Riiverdance” blends programmed beats and a speedy finger-picked guitar lick like nothing since Rednex scored a left-field hit with “Cotton Eye Joe” in 1995. Her singing is just as vivid and varied across the LP, with gutsy growls and breathy trills against multitracked harmony vocals that approximate the heavenly abundance of a gospel choir.

Like “Renaissance,” “Cowboy Carter” reflects the great care Beyoncé takes in structuring her albums: Witness the way she moves from “Bodyguard,” a ’70s-style soft-rock jam, to an interlude by Parton, whose “I Will Always Love You” was covered by Whitney Houston in “The Bodyguard,” to a rendition of Parton’s “Jolene,” in which Beyoncé remakes the original lyric as a bare-knuckle threat, to “Daughter,” a stark murder ballad that explores a family’s legacy of violence.

That belief in the potential of the album format is one reason that Beyoncé’s tortured past at the Grammy Awards, where she’s lost album of the year four times, remains such a vexing part of her story up there with the CMAs incident that set “Cowboy Carter” into motion. Still, it’s hard not to cringe when she evidently refers to her most recent defeat in album of the year – AOTY for short – with the eminently deserving “Renaissance.” “A-O-T-Y, I ain’t win / I ain’t stuntin’ ’bout them,” she raps in “Sweet Honey Buckiin’,”

Beyoncé used that motivation to deliver the fascinating “Cowboy Carter.” But no gatekeeper can take credit for her vision.

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Beyonce’s ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ Rebounds to No. 1 In U.K.

Three tracks from "Cowboy Carter" impact the U.K. top 10 -- a career best result for Bey.

By Lars Brandle

Lars Brandle

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Benson Boone

Garry van egmond, legendary australian concert promoter, dies at 82, trending on billboard.

As reported earlier , Cowboy Carter is a history-making No. 1 on the national albums tally, and Bey’s fifth solo leader.

Beyoncé previously managed two simultaneous U.K. top 10 entries on two separate occasions – in 2008 with “If I Were A Boy” and “Listen,” and again in 2009 with “If I Were A Boy” and “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).”

Meanwhile, Hozier’s “Too Sweet” (Island) enjoys a sugar rush, improving 8-4 for a new high. That’s the Irish singer and songwriter’s highest-charting single since his signature song “Take Me To Church” hit No. 2 in 2015.

British singer, songwriter and producer Artemas snags his first U.K. top 10 single with “I Like The Way You Kiss Me.” The viral number improves 13-6.

And finally, Benson Boone enjoys a third U.K. top 40 appearance with “Slow It Down” (Warner Records), up 42-27. It’s the followup to the Washington singer and songwriter’s No. 1 hit “Beautiful Things.”

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Review: In concert film ‘Renaissance,’ Beyoncé offers glimpse into personal life during world tour

L OS ANGELES (AP) — In Beyoncé’s concert film, she describes her recent Renaissance World Tour as being run like a machine: From lighting to set design, the superstar had a hand in everything production-related to ensure her stadium tour exceeded expectations after four years of preparation.

As a perfectionist, Beyoncé was tirelessly determined — working almost 50 days straight — to create an epic concert experience. This becomes clear in her movie “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” which chronicles the massive tour in support of her seventh studio album.

Written, directed and produced by Beyoncé, “Renaissance” perfectly captures her dazzling performances for the big screen and includes some intimate behind-the-scenes footage from the normally private singer, who has rarely done interviews in the past decade.

Beyoncé released her nearly three-hour “Renaissance” movie through AMC Theaters in similar fashion as the “ Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour ” film, which opened with a record-breaking $97 million domestically for a concert film last month. But unlike Swift, whose project primarily focused on her onstage performances, Beyoncé offers more insight into her personal life.

“I’m really excited for everyone to see the process,” she says in the film.

With “Renaissance,” Beyoncé displays more of her human side like in her 2019 Netflix film “Homecoming,” which delved into the singer headlining the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. This time, she goes a step further into her story as arguably music’s hardest-working performer, who attempts to juggle being a mother of three while she maintains her mental and physical fortitude during her tour.

Beyoncé expressed frustration with challenges to her lofty aspirations for her tour and felt she wasn’t being heard because she’s a Black woman. The tour ultimately grossed around $500 million, according to Billboard. She opens up about having surgery on her knee, which forced her into rehabilitation a month before her first opening show in Stockholm.

Unlike her tour, Beyoncé confesses, she’s “not a machine.”

But through her aches and pains, Beyoncé — who is the most decorated Grammy artist in history — showed up and performed at a very high level. It’s what she demanded of herself and others who mirrored her mentality to make each show come into fruition.

The film showcases a few big-name performers who accompanied Beyoncé onstage, including Megan Thee Stallion in Houston. During her Los Angeles stint, Kendrick Lamar was a special guest along with Diana Ross, who sang to Beyoncé for her 42nd birthday.

But out of all the celebrity appearances, the one who stole the show was Beyoncé’s 11-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, who made her presence felt as a background dancer. Initially, the singer was opposed to pushing Blue into the limelight of performing in front of tens of thousands.

“She told me she was ready to perform, and I told her no,” Beyoncé says in the film.

She eventually agreed to give her daughter one chance to show her stuff. Her first performance, however, was subjected to heavy criticism on social media. But Blue Ivy used that to train harder. She gained confidence as the tour progressed and gained more standing ovations each time she hit the stage.

Blue Ivy’s growth brought joy to Beyoncé and to Mathew Knowles, the proud grandfather who is shown saying, “Now, that’s a Knowles!”

During a stop in Houston, Beyoncé along with her mother, Tina Knowles, drove around her old Third Ward neighborhood before they stopped by her childhood home. The return to her hometown marked another reunion between Beyoncé and all the members of the girl group Destiny’s Child — which included Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams, LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson, who was once ousted from the group.

Now, it appears there’s peace among them. There were no words exchanged on camera except for a collective hug, which Beyoncé called during her narration a “new birth for us. A lot of healing.”

Beyoncé along with her mother shared heartfelt moments of the singer’s late uncle Johnny — a Black gay man who introduced her to house music as a child and made her a prom dress. She dedicated the “Renaissance” album to him.

The film squeezes in Beyoncé’s appreciation for her devoted Beyhive fanbase who are often shown in the audience in various cities. During her shows, she expresses her gratitude for them, calling them “beautiful faces.”

Despite the presence of jams like “Alien Superstar,” “Church Girl” and “Cuff It,” not every song performed on tour made the cut for the film.

And that’s just fine. “Renaissance” is more about getting a glimpse into Beyoncé’s life — even for just a little bit.

“Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” an AMC release, is not rated. Running time: 168 minutes. Four stars out of four.

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When will ‘Renaissance’ be streaming? How to watch every Beyoncé documentary and concert film

With the release of 'cowboy carter,' beyoncé is ushering in a new era. but what about 'renaissance'.

Beyoncé is moving on to a new era in her music. If you haven’t listened to the singer’s new album , Cowboy Carter, yet — seriously, what are you doing reading this? Just a few months after her concert film/documentary, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, broke box office records, the Queen Bey announced that we were “ready” for her new music during a Super Bowl ad , officially ushering in Act II, AKA Cowboy Carter , AKA the sequel to Renaissance . Now that we’re in a brand new, distinctly Country era , fans may be wondering when the singer’s smash hit documentary capturing the making of Renaissance will be available to stream at home. Unfortunately, there’s no official word on when (or even if) Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé will be hitting HBO’s Max or Netflix or another popular streaming platform yet.

But when it comes to documentaries and concert films, Renaissance   was in no way Beyoncé’s first rodeo. The musical icon has put out many projects offering her audience a glimpse of what goes into the making of her albums and world tours, as well as unforgettable visual albums and concert performances. So while you wait for Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé to become available to watch online, why not revisit some of the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer’s past projects? Here’s how to watch all of Beyoncé’s documentaries, concert films and visual albums.

Beyoncé: I Am… World Tour (2010)

In celebration of her successful world tour for her album I Am… Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé: I Am… World Tour (2010) immortalizes the 110-show tour. Footage focuses primarily on Beyoncé’s performances of hit songs including “Single Ladies” and “Halo,” but also includes behind-the-scenes clips shot by Beyoncé herself.

While I Am... World Tour isn't streaming on any platform right now, you can rent the concert film from Apple or free with a free trial through Amazon (and find it uploaded on YouTube ).

Watch free with Quello free trial $3.99 at Apple

Beyoncé: Year of 4 (2011)

Year of 4 focuses on the making of one of Beyoncé’s most iconic music videos, “Run The World (Girls).” This 20-minute short documentary film is available to watch totally free on YouTube.

Watch free on YouTube

Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream (2013)

This full-length follow-up to Year of 4 takes a more intimate look at Beyoncé’s life in 2011 and early 2012. Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream covers her decision to part ways with her father as her manager, the making of her fourth album, the miscarriage the star suffered right around the release of 4 , and the birth of Blue Ivy Carter. You can watch Life is But a Dream free with a free trial through Amazon (and find it uploaded on YouTube ).

Watch free with Quello free trial

Lemonade (2016)

While not technically a documentary or concert film, you can’t discuss Beyoncé’s on-screen work without including Lemonade. This hour-long film/visual album is "a conceptual project based on each woman's journey of self-knowledge and healing." You can watch the Lemonade film on Tidal (free with a free trial).

Watch free with Tidal free trial

Black Is King (2019)

Another can’t-miss visual album/film, Black is King is a companion musical film piece executive produced, and directed by Beyoncé, created as a visual companion to the 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift , which was curated by Beyoncé for the 2019 live-action remake of The Lion King . Black is King is streaming exclusively on Disney+.

Stream on Disney+

Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift (2019)

This ABC special captures the behind-the-scenes process of making The Lion King: The Gift. The special is not currently streaming anywhere, but you can find the behind-the-scenes documentary uploaded on YouTube .

Watch on YouTube

Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé (2019)

In 2018, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to headline Coachella. Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé documents all the work that went into the singer’s historic performance, including the full setlist and all the behind-the-scenes effort. You can stream what is undeniably one of Beyoncé's most-popular documentaries/concert films on Netflix.

Stream on Netflix

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé (2023)

Beyoncé’s most-recent film release, the box office record-breaking Renaissance, once again combines documentary and concert film into one, looking at the process of making Renaissance the album , creating the Renaissance World Tour and then the actual tour performances.

Unfortunately Renaissance is not out on digital or streaming yet. But at least you can listen to ACT II: Cowboy Carter while you wait for the concert film to drop online.

When does Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé   come out?

The film initially premiered in theaters on Nov. 25, 2023. Currently, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé does not have a streaming or digital release date set.

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Beyoncé: Cowboy Carter review – takes country music by its plaid collar and sets it on fire

(Parkwood/Columbia) The Texan superstar’s eighth album is a thrilling 27-track journey through and beyond America’s roots music, and it feels like a genuine feast

E ver since Beyoncé – to quote the lady herself – “changed the game with that digital drop” via her self-titled fifth album , released without warning in 2013, she’s become the fixed point around which popular culture oscillates. Bandwidth-swallowing think pieces, detailed decoding of every lyric, plus an increasingly vexed right-wing America have kept her name on everyone’s lips. She wasn’t exactly a cult concern before, but the last decade has seen her move beyond mere superstar status, aided by 2016’s internet sleuth-facilitating infidelity opus Lemonade and 2022’s liberated, post-lockdown dance party, Renaissance .

That last album was billed teasingly as Act I, and now arrives the second part of a mooted trilogy. While Renaissance , with its celebration of the oft-ignored influence of Black queer dance pioneers, facilitated a healthy amount of debate, you could cobble together a hefty book on the discourse that’s already swirling around Cowboy Carter . Inspired by a less than welcome reaction to the Texan’s performance of her country single Daddy Lessons at the 2016 Country Music Awards – where she was dismissed as a “pop artist”, seemingly code for “Black woman” – it’s an album that takes country music by its plaid shirt collar, holds up its (mainly) male, pale and stale status to the light and sets it on fire.

Thrilling opener Ameriican Requiem – a slow-burn, country-rock opera – references that CMA controversy directly (“Used to say I spoke too country / And the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ’nough”), before making broader statements on who gets to call themselves a “true American” (“A pretty house that we never settled in”). It is followed by a cover of the Beatles’ folk-y Blackbird (here retitled Blackbiird, a consistent motif used throughout the album to denote it being Act II), a song that was inspired by the experiences of nine teenage Black girls attending an all-white school in post-segregation 1957, featuring vocals from upcoming Black country singers Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell and Tiera Kennedy. It’s an opening salvo ripe for music scholars to unpick.

But Cowboy Carter is never just one thing. Nor does its scholarly detail weigh it down. Just as it uses country music as a backdrop to explore other genres, it also utilises anger and injustice as shades of a bigger picture. There’s fun to be had via the playful, thigh-slapping single Texas Hold ’Em , which makes more sense preceded by an introduction from a stoned Willie Nelson. The unhinged Ya Ya is a freewheelin’ sprint through social and economic disparity that channels the electifying spirit of Tina Turner, and samples Nancy Sinatra and the Beach Boys.

While Beyoncé’s take on Jolene by Dolly Parton (or Dolly P as she’s recast here) loses some of the original’s desperation by morphing into a glint-eyed warning, it’s still a hoot to hear her spit lines like “Jolene, I know I’m a queen, Jolene / I’m still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisiane.” Daughter is a deliciously camp revenge fantasy that suddenly breaks into – and this is one of Beyoncé’s many vocal flexes on the album – a snatch of the 18th-century aria Caro Mio Ben, sung in Italian.

By swapping the tightly packed synth and drum programming of Renaissance for live instrumentation (including percussion made from the click-clack of Beyoncé’s nails), Cowboy Carter has a looser, baggier feel than its predecessor. The excellent, loved-up Bodyguard unspools like a lost Fleetwood Mac classic, all rippling 70s soft-rock melodies, while the sweet Protector , dedicated to her daughter Rumi Carter, sounds like it was knocked out around a campfire. II Most Wanted , meanwhile, finds Beyoncé and pop-country maven Miley Cyrus trading odes to their ride or dies as if sharing the same mic.

If this all sounds decidedly mid-paced, Cowboy Carter isn’t solely about rustic shuffles. Spaghettii , which features Linda Martell , the first Black country star to perform on the Grand Ole Opry stage, is a trap-infused head knocker; II Hands II Heaven rides a soft electronic pulse and samples Underworld; while the finger-pointing Tyrant fuses fiddle filigrees with rib-rattling bass, perfect for a sweat-soaked dosey doe at Club Renaissance.

Cowboy Carter ’s scope and scale can be overwhelming, as can its 27-track runtime – the shorter interludes-as-songs cause a dip in excitement midway through – but there’s something about its construction that pleads with you to consume it as a whole; a journey not just through, and beyond, American roots music, but through various moods, shades and emotions that coalesce as a celebration. It feels like a feast at a time when pop is offering up scraps. As she mentioned herself when announcing the album to a mix of anger, intrigue and confusion: “This ain’t a country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.” It’s also her fourth classic in a row.

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