Lemonade: all the news on Beyoncé’s latest album – The Verge

Beyoncé’s Lemonade is a dazzling social drama with a decent soundtrack

2016-04-27T14:49:49-04:00

The bulk of the popular conversation surrounding Beyoncé's new album Lemonade has revolved around the specifics underpinning the record's central drama. Is "Becky with the good hair" Rachel Roy, Rita Ora, or no one at all? (We know it's not Rachael Ray.) When did her marriage fracture for good, and when was it put back together? Just how much black girl magic did she have to use to make Jack White interesting again? They're salacious and puffy lines of inquiry - the unavoidable consequences of a public and celebrated life and marriage - and they're obscuring the roots that snake through Beyoncé's discography and hold Lemonade up.

The album' …

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The Lemons is hilarious Beyoncé fan fiction, aware of its own absurdity

2016-04-26T13:45:15-04:00

Floating in the wake of Beyoncé's Lemonade, one feels the urge to react. Our options are limited mostly to tweeting, blogging, crying, or talking to Mom. But conversation and off-the-cuff criticism don't feel like enough - Lemonade is a call to make something, not to chit-chat. Great art inspires more art.

"The Lemons," a piece of fan fiction published on WordPress yesterday, is art. It imagines the fallout of Lemonade as it transpires between an amazing cast that includes actor Taraji P. Henson, director Ava Duvernay, Beyoncé's sister Solange, most of the Kardashians, Kanye West, Beyoncé's mother, and of course, Beyoncé and Jay Z. It is wr …

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Beyoncé’s ‘visual album’ Lemonade sets a new standard for pop storytelling

2016-04-25T17:47:03-04:00

It's tempting to look at Beyoncé's new "visual album" Lemonade as a show of celebrity force that's without parallel in pop music. No one's ever used an hour on premium cable to unveil an album-length airing of marital grievances so potent fans thought it might be coupled with a divorce announcement. (It's a testament to Beyoncé's command over the public imagination that the idea of a promotional divorce announcement wasn't completely insane in the first place.) It's a hyper-ambitious political gesture and an unyielding study of a troubled marriage, and the music - did you forget about the music? - isn't half-bad either.

Beyoncé isn't the on …

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The hot sauce in Beyoncé’s bag is not hot sauce

2016-04-25T10:30:29-04:00

Plot twist: when Beyoncé told us "I got hot sauce in my bag / swag" she was not talking about a condiment. She was talking about a baseball bat, which she uses to bust up car windshields and fire hydrants and wig store security cameras, singing, "I don't want to lose my pride but Imma fuck me up a bitch."

Well, okay!

Hot sauce in my bag swag pic.twitter.com/NOEowJkvno
- roxane gay (@rgay) April 24, 2016

This is bad news for Hillary Clinton, who has really been capitalizing on the fact that she carries hot sauce in her bag, and that she had the good sense to establish this fact four years ago.

This is good news for anyone who wants to feel …

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Beyoncé’s Lemonade is now available to everyone for $17.99

2016-04-24T15:42:58-04:00

Even though the album is only available on Tidal for streaming listeners, fans and non-subscribers willing to buy Beyoncé's new album Lemonade are now able to enjoy it. Tidal just announced that both the record and the film that aired on HBO last night are now available for download worldwide for $17.99. Users who pick up the album will also be given a 90-day free trial for the streaming service.

The news comes as a boon for Bey fans who've up until now hesitated to sign up for Tidal. According to the company, making the visual album available for download opens it up to fans around the world, including areas where the service hasn't launch …

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Beyonce’s new album Lemonade won’t stream on other platforms anytime soon

2016-04-23T23:23:08-04:00

If you were hoping to wait a week and stream Beyoncé's new album Lemonade on Apple Music or Spotify, you can give up on that dream. Lemonade will be exclusively streaming on Tidal in perpetuity, a source confirmed to The Verge.

This is the second album from a major artist that Tidal has locked down a major streaming exclusive for, following Kanye West's seventh album, The Life of Pablo, which streamed exclusively on the service for six weeks before becoming available on Spotify and Apple Music. But right now, there is no timetable for Lemonade to become available on competing streaming services.

It's also unclear when Lemonade will be avai …

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Beyoncé’s new album Lemonade is now available on Tidal

2016-04-23T21:53:08-04:00

Surprise! Beyoncé just released her new album Lemonade, putting an end to speculation that began in earnest when she released the single "Formation" a day before performing as part of the Super Bowl halftime show. The release of Lemonade comes minutes after Beyonce's HBO special of the same name - which turned out to be a visual album - finished airing. It's her sixth studio album and first since 2013's celebrated Beyoncé, an album she released without any promotion or warning in December of that year. Lemonade is exclusively available on Tidal.

#LEMONADE the Visual Album. https://t.co/8LM6jOwNKe pic.twitter.com/eV32dUg7Pj
- Beyoncé Knowles …

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Watch an extended trailer for Beyoncé’s HBO special Lemonade

2016-04-18T10:17:09-04:00

If you find yourself thirsty for more Lemonade after watching the brief teaser Beyoncé released on Saturday afternoon, you're in luck: she made an extended trailer for her mysterious HBO special available last night. (It aired on HBO just before Vinyl's season finale, meaning there was at least one reason to watch Vinyl's season finale.) It's clear that Lemonade is both cinematic and hyper-ambitious, even if its link to Beyoncé's expected new album isn't as definite.

The minute-long clip is full of compelling imagery: stormy skies, blood-red corridors, buildings going up in flame. It feels more like a horror movie than a music video, and th …

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Beyoncé teases Lemonade, a special airing on HBO next Saturday

2016-04-16T12:45:02-04:00

Beyoncé is expected to release a new album any day now, and the singer just teased a "World Premiere Event" a week from now. Lemonade will air on Saturday, April 23rd at 9PM ET on HBO, and you can see the short teaser video above. It's truly a teaser in that it doesn't show much of anything - Beyoncé leaning up against a car saying "what am I gonna do?" - but it's at least a solid indication that her new album is imminent. Beyond the teaser for whatever this project is, she's also on deadline to release the album considering the Formation World Tour begins April 27th in Miami.

Since releasing "Formation" a day before performing at the Super …

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Beyoncé released a surprise new single just in time for the Super Bowl

2016-02-06T16:14:05-05:00

The Super Bowl halftime show just got a little more interesting. Beyoncé, who is scheduled to perform tomorrow alongside Coldplay and Bruno Mars, just released a mesmerizing new single. "Formation," which she released as a surprise on Saturday, plays as an extended tribute to the people and culture of New Orleans. The song, which was produced by Mike Will, is built on a sample from New Orleans bounce artist Big Freedia. You can find it on YouTube, but if you want to download it, you'll have to visit Tidal, where she has posted it as an exclusive.

"What happened after New Orleans?" begins the track, which finds Beyoncé in a variety of striki …

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