Beyoncé Is Releasing A New Album Called Renaissance Next Month
It has been over six years since Lemonade, Beyoncé’s last solo album. Not that she hasn’t been busy since. In 2018, she and Jay-Z released Everything Is Love. That same year, she gave her legendary Coachella performance, which was captured in Homecoming in 2019. And in that same year, she helmed the Lion King soundtrack The Gift, later releasing the visual companion Black Is King in 2020.
That’s a lot of Beyoncé activity, but it still isn’t a solo Beyoncé album. Now, the wait is about to end. All of Beyoncé’s socials have updated with the promise of a new project called Renaissance, out at the end of July. Accordingly, a bunch of streaming services have also tweeted reference to it. It’s billed as Act I, so who knows what else is going on. As usual with Beyoncé releases, there is no other information available about the nature of the album at the moment, though the fan account Beyoncé Legion claims it’ll be 16 tracks.
Other than that, all we’ve got for the moment is a product listing on her official site, detailing a deluxe package with a booklet and some other bonuses. Just when it looked like it might be a quiet summer after the frantic release schedule of Spring 2022, Beyoncé season approaches.
UPDATE: A brief British Vogue feature includes photos of Beyoncé seated on a giant disco ball, atop a horse on a tiled dance floor, and sprawled on a motorcycle. The magazine’s editor-in-chief Edward Enninful describes the shoot as “a fashion fantasia spun from the tropes of club life during the last century’s final quarter,” inspired by “the 1990s garage scene” and “’80s excess,” designed to convey a “glittering retro-futurism.” Enninful also describes the new album like so:
Instantly, a wall of sound hits me. Soaring vocals and fierce beats combine and in a split second I’m transported back to the clubs of my youth. I want to get up and start throwing moves. It’s music I love to my core. Music that makes you rise, that turns your mind to cultures and subcultures, to our people past and present, music that will unite so many on the dance floor, music that touches your soul. As ever with Beyoncé, it is all about the intent. I sit back, after the wave, absorbing it all.
UPDATE 2: According to Variety, Renaissance will feature both dance and country-leaning songs. The story also notes that the album includes contributions from pop super-producer Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, who co-wrote previous Bey tracks “Halo,” “XO,” and “I Was Here.”
Renaissance is out 7/29.