2022: Writing about a Beyonce album is like having review site on lesser know sodas then doing a review on Coca Cola. I mean that in that she is one of our times truly ubiquitous artists. Still I’m not placing a record here if I don’t like it. Ill say this Renaissance is really good, thought it doesn’t quite measure up to her 2016s masterwork Lemonade #372 . But an artists best work usually comes from a place of pain.

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd at Pitchfork writes: Beyoncé’s seventh album is not just a pop star’s immaculate dance record, but a rich celebration of club music and its sweaty, emancipatory spirit.

Over the last decade, every Beyoncé project has become an integral part of a larger Beyoncé Project. Though she hasn’t released a proper studio album since 2016’s sprawling visual statement Lemonade, she’s made a film (Black Is King), released a collaborative record with her husband Jay-Z (Everything Is Love), lent her voice to a Disney film (The Lion King), dropped a series of singles, and masterminded her sportswear line Ivy Park—all while making clear that she’s intensely focused on celebrating the long legacy of Black musicians and artists, of which she is a part and beacon. Her global reach is a reminder that Beyoncé, the billionaire pop icon, does not and could not exist in a vacuum.

Recall 2019’s Homecoming, the live album and concert movie documenting her vaunted “Beychella” festival set, in which she indelibly framed her entire discography within the larger history of contemporary Black American performance. By centering her music within the context of HBCU culture, incorporating a massive marching band, a step show, and J-setting choreography, she delivered a tectonic performance that also ensured all her fans would see the lineage of Black art receive the credit it’s due.

And when the pandemic hit, Beyoncé caught on to what her fans missed most: the unfettered joy of gathering together in the club, rolling face and sweating as a collective body. As our biggest pop stars increasingly turn to dance music for inspiration, Beyoncé focused her famous work ethic on the nuances of club culture for a challenging, densely-referenced album that runs circles around her similarly minded, Billboard-charting peers. For nearly a decade she has made pop music on her own terms, uninterested in the dusty edicts of the music industry and pointed about her intended audience; now pop fans bend to Beyoncé, not the other way around.