10 years ago today: Beyoncé surprise-released Lemonade

Originally published in Hot Press in 2016:

Of the many, many questions raised by Lemonade, Beyoncé's surprise-released, deeply troubled new masterpiece, surely the most pertinent pertains to Bey's marriage to Jay-Z and our collective investment therein. Who'd have guessed humankind had hedged so much on pop's most glamorous union staying the course?

Lemonade wrenchingly chronicles a tempestuous relationship seemingly plunged into a fatal tailspin by infidelity and doesn't really tell us what to do with the information. For the gossip-industrial complex the record is of course the gift that never stops of giving. The internet has across the past week worked itself into delirium speculating over the identity of "Becky with the good hair", a mysterious paramour called out by Beyoncé in the closing verse of '6 Inch', her comfortably numb duet with The Weeknd.

But by the time Beyoncé gets around to pointing the finger, she has already painted a portrait of a marriage as a smoking ruin, and frankly we no longer care WHO caused it all to go south.

This is a fait accompli and there's little point getting all CSI on the specifics. "Who the fuck do you think I is/ You ain't married to no average bitch boy?" Beyoncé banshee-wails on 'Don't Hurt Yourself'. "Keep your money, I got my own/ Get a bigger smile on my face, being alone."

You stagger away with the sense of having been party to one of the great break-up LPs, no matter that couple haven't technically broken up yet.

This speaks to the great contradiction Beyoncé embodies. She's an international superstar invested in increasingly challenging, even avant-garde music; an adroit manipulator of her own image who lays her big bleeding heart out on a slab. She isn't mingling art and commerce so much as forging a new kind of celebrity, blending unattainable glamour with an everyday vulnerability with which we can all identify.

Even if you could care less for the TMZ angle, though, Lemonade is worth losing yourself in. Collaborators such as Jack White, Kendrick Lamar and Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig are testament to Beyoncé's creative curiosity (she draws from the ether without sucking the life, Madonna style, from her inspirations).

Even the album's call-backs have a seductive lustre, with 'Hold Up' pinching the chorus from Yeah Yeah Yeah's 'Maps' and '6 Inch' sampling Animal Collective's 'My Girls'.

The mission to splice the artistic and the mainstream reaches its glorious zenith on 'Forward', an untethered hook-up with James Blake in which their vocals interweave in a disembodied swirl.

It's strange and glorious and will floor you even if you couldn't give an airborne expletive whether Bey and Jay are on speaking terms this morning.

Revisit Lemonade below:

Some reflections on Lemonade – selected from interviews in the Hot Press archives

Ezra Koenig:

On co-writing 'Hold Up'

“Around the time Vampire Weekend were getting big, there was a real blurring of the lines between alternative and mainstream. A lot of pop people were looking to the indie world for inspiration, a lot of indie people were hoping to make the leap to becoming pop writers.

"On paper, it sounds better – I don’t have to tour constantly, I can go write songs. It sort of became fashionable to say pop music was cool and indie music sucked! I related to that, maybe out of self-hatred, but I got it.

"As somebody who is a fascinated fan of that world, I was very lucky that I could, with Diplo, start what I thought would be a Vampire Weekend song. Then, without any hustling, without any sitting in rooms, it became a Beyoncé song, and for me that’s about as good as it gets.

"Maybe I’ll write for other people, because there’s something enchanting about that world, the big mainstream song. Beyoncé is an icon and she makes works of art. It was a pretty great way to scratch that itch.” (2019)

Biffy Clyro:

“Beyonce’s Lemonade is as edgy as any rock album in years... You’ve got James Blake too, who’s changed the conversation in pop music." (2016)

Former Minister Paschal Donohoe:

"This weekend I was at Beyoncé in Croke Park on Saturday night. I’m not a typical member of the 'Beyhive' – but I do think Lemonade is a great album..." (2016)