poll Bigger era: Lemonade or Renaissance?

[bijonse]

Was talking to somebody on Twitter about this. Which one is bigger?

 

LEMONADE had the Super Bowl, formation and black panther drama, hella press because of the cheating rumors, higher first week sales, IFPI #1 album of 2016, platinum or higher in 10 countries, VISUALS

 

RENAISSANCE had two GLOBAL hits, more weeks on the charts, the tour made over twice as much money and sold more tickets, cuff it challenge silver on the runway and mute challenge taking over the GP last year, platinum or higher in 8 countries (including diamond in Brazil)

 

which one was bigger? 
 

Edited 21 hours ago by bijonse

[Relampago.]

Lemonade culturally but a hunch tells me Renaissance might have bigger numbers in the end. 

 

Renaissance is the better album too so talent won  

[bielneira]

To me, 'Lemonade' era felt bigger, but numbers indicate 'RENAISSANCE'

[Edonis]

I feel like Renaissance resonated more with the girls and gays, while Lemonade seemed to be more appealing to the GP.  Overall I think Lemonade edges this one out. 

[Popboi.]

Just now, bielneira said:

To me, 'Lemonade' era felt bigger, but numbers indicate 'RENAISSANCE'

Numbers indicate Lemonade is much bigger though 

 

Lemonade bigger album, RENAISSANCE the bigger tour.

 

[Burn]

Renaissance.

 

It has a #1 single.

 

Cuff It is the longest running song on the Billboard Hot 100 in her career.

 

Renaissance spent 91 weeks on the Hot 200 and Lemonade spent 87 weeks.

 

Renaissance World Tour grossed $579m vs. Formation World Tour $256 (even if you adjust for inflation that would be $325m today) with a similar amount of shows.

 

Who knows how Lemonade would've done if she didn't sabotage it with the Tidal release and hiding the Formation video though.

[bielneira]

5 minutes ago, Popboi. said:

Numbers indicate Lemonade is much bigger though 

 

Lemonade bigger album, RENAISSANCE the bigger tour.

 

RENAISSANCE is almost catching up to Lemonade's certification tho, while being only 2.5 years old. And it had a better performance for singles worldwide.

Edited 21 hours ago by bielneira

[ArtDeco]

Personally Renaissance had me by the throat, Lemonade was giving Love and Hip Hop story line mess

 

Edited 21 hours ago by ArtDeco

[bijonse]

I have to agree with the girlies saying renaissance

 

numbers wise it's not far off from lemonade (9 year old album) and it felt way bigger culturally. Real global hits! Lemonade had nothing like cuff it and mute challenges, silver for summer, everyone on socials pressing her over the visuals etc. 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by bijonse

[Trent W]

Lemonade felt bigger because it was scandalous and it sparked a lot of cultural conversation it was an event in 2016

 

Renaissance is still bigger imo, it was zero scandals and all about the music, it had several hits unlike Lemonade and it has a lot more replay value

 

The Renaissance tour was also way bigger, it has like 2x-3x the the tour gross

 

Renaissance seems like it will also be more remembered 

 

[Kimi]

Lemonade - 7M units

Ren - 4.6M

 

Lemonade is renowned as her best album too. What kind of question is that?

[Truth Teller]

Lemonade was a monumental era and everyone was talking about it and bowing down to it. It just had no longevity because nobody was signing up for Tidal past the free trial to listen to it and because most of the album is not good.

 

Renaissance was not really an event of that sort, it felt like she did nothing for it. The music was A+ so it did reasonably well, but did it do well enough to compete with Lemonade's impact, at least in its time? Break My Soul feels completely forgotten and Cuff It is a legit hit but it's also not doing all that well in recurrent streams nor does it have the significance of "Formation". Lowkey her best album though, and we needed 6 singles

[Popboi.]

54 minutes ago, bielneira said:

RENAISSANCE is almost catching up to Lemonade's certification tho, while being only 2.5 years old. And it had a better performance for singles worldwide.

Certifications are not really the best way to compare albums. Lemonade's streams are 3/4's of Renaissance's (we all know why it's low there) but has over 5x the pure sales. The gap in units is too big to ever catch up.

 

Rennie wins in hits, but remember all of Lemonade's songs have big digital downloads (it was cheaper to buy songs individually than buy it all with the film).

[Nazareth]

44 minutes ago, ArtDeco said:

Personally Renaissance had me by the throat, Lemonade was giving Love and Hip Hop story line mess

 

 

Renaissance ate Lemonade up with minimal effort and lack of strategy by Bey. Renaissance definitely resonated with the public more imo. Whenever I discuss lemonade with people they always say that they didn't understand it and or prefer Renaissance & ST. 

[BGKC]

Lemonade. 
 

Debuting Formation at halftime was bold af. That and the tour announcement that followed was epic. Then there's the fact that it was a whole film and ended up with the most physical purchases of the year (during a very competitive period) 

 

It was still sabotage by being exclusive to Tidal, but it won her a Peabody award nonetheless. It was a monumental body of work. The music itself is VERY mood based and not something I go back to in full very often, but the film can't be denied as the most vulnerable statement of her career. 
 

Rennie had all the elements to be twice as big as it was (easily bigger than Lem), but she squandered it and left it to fend for itself on TikTok until she went on tour. If she didn't tour it, it would have been one of her most eraless eras. It deserved to have 5 singles along with some award show performances to really ingrain it into the minds of the GP, but oh well. 

 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by BGKC

[ScorpiosGroove]

renaissance literally had no era so 

[DevilsRollTheDice]

This seems very obvious to me, Lemonade is a much bigger album. Units, culturally, the era. Renaissance has a bigger tour and slightly better streams because of the different release circumstances. The tour difference is more of just Beyonce becoming a bigger touring force each era as an individual and brand than something specific about the Renaissance album. 

 

Which is a better album is a much harder question as both are excellent.

Edited 17 hours ago by DevilsRollTheDice

[bijonse]

1 hour ago, Nazareth said:

 

Renaissance ate Lemonade up with minimal effort and lack of strategy by Bey. Renaissance definitely resonated with the public more imo. Whenever I discuss lemonade with people they always say that they didn't understand it and or prefer Renaissance & ST. 

Let's talk about it. The public left lemonade behind after 4:44 when jay ruined it. The film as a whole - while excellent, arthousey, ambitious and tying together the concept of the album together beautifully - does not hit the same at all the second watch. Most of individual videos are excellent though. With renny the MUSIC hit the public like crack I still hear cuff it and bms at work everyday 

Edited 19 hours ago by bijonse

[ericcartman]

Lemonade felt bigger, but I have a feeling the numbers favor Ren

[Yog]

2 hours ago, Kimi said:

Lemonade - 7M units

Ren - 4.6M

 

Lemonade is renowned as her best album too. What kind of question is that?

But that's the thing, Renaissance had multiple hits to maintain the momentum, thus a bigger era, in my opinion, what makes an era is really the single choices & it's performances, it's like saying Taylor's TTPD being a bigger era than Midnights when it's singles say another story. 

[Chaos Angel]

Lemonade culturally and as an album

Renaissance singles and touring wise

[Chris]

Lemonade won AOTY so that.

[Iaintsorry]

It's really hard to say because even if we think about it objectively (by the numbers), there's varying factors that affected both album's performance. Formation had the advantage of more promotion, but Renaissance has the advantage of being more accessible (available on streaming right away). 

[McNulty]

Lemonade gave us Becky with the good hair and Beyonce turned Black

[brenda-walsh]

Lemonade definitely felt bigger in the year of its release and Beyonce was more relevant in 2016 than 2022, however Renaissance had more longevity and actually got her music out into the GP with radio hits and everyone's silver/chrome looks to the tour going viral on tiktok