‘Love Drought’ sounds like background music in a club’s chill-out room. The lyrics are a semi-autobiographical memory of Beyoncé’s Texan childhood, describing how ‘daddy made me dance, daddy held my hand, and daddy liked his whiskey with his tea.’ There’s an infectious joy in the music making, despite the apt line: ‘My daddy warned me about men like you.’Īs the album progresses, we feel a kernel of optimism creep in. It’s as if we’ve stepped into the French Quarter of New Orleans and find a street band, complete with sousaphone. ‘Daddy Lessons’ is Beyoncé’s brilliant debut in country music drawing on her southern heritage. The drawling hip hop beat conjures up the dark underworld of strip clubs in which she works, accompanied by the chilling, high-pitched voice of the singer The Weeknd. ‘6 Inch Heels’ describes a strong working woman getting on with her life just fine without a man. Next are two stylized musical pictures, separate from the main narrative but related. The first is a kind of bargaining with her absent husband – ‘they don’t love you like I do’– whereas the second is blind rage from the first scream: ‘Who the f**k do you think I am? You ain’t married to no average bi**h, boy.’ The fury in Beyoncé’s voice is terrifying. ‘Hold Up’ and ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’ move through denial to anger, just like the stages of grief. Over a sumptuous string orchestra, she wonders: ‘What are you doing, my love?’ It’s a lonely, claustrophobic space as she begins to suspect something is going on. In ‘Pray You Catch Me’, we start inside Beyoncé’s head, literally, as she sings to her own backing vocals. We hear all of this, of course, via her voice, one of the most beautiful before the public today, at once fiercely powerful, tender and authentic. After several albums in which the musical content was largely driven by record companies’ desires to promote a sellable pop artist, Beyoncé emerges as a powerful narrator on her own terms: a web of unforgettable lyrics and a deliberately broad range of musical styles expressing unmediated pain and emotion.

It’s also a manifesto of personal creativity. During its twelve songs we accompany Beyoncé on her journey from denial and anger to emptiness and apathy, forgiveness and redemption. ‘Lemonade’ is a deeply personal testament describing Queen Bey’s discovery that her husband – the rapper Jay-Z – had been unfaithful. Since its release in April 2016, I’ve been mildly obsessed with one album: Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’. This summer I’ve been writing about the music I love beyond the classical bubble.

With me all night beyonce