My favorite (and honestly most underrated) moment of the album is the "come back" outro in 6 inch. In the song she is hustling and grinding to forget the heartbreak but in the end she realizes that burying herself with work isn't actually healing anything---she misses her husband.

Brilliant! It's so rare to see that level of nuanced emotion in pop music IMO.

Edited April 23Apr 23 by Havoc

We all remember where we were

Career defining moment for her and still in her top three albums of all time.

What a tour de force of an album! Truly felt like an established artist at the top of their game releasing a project at the peak of their artistic vision. This album dropped while I was in college and I remember everyone talking about it. An essential album to my college years.

This was totally robbed at the Grammys for AOTY

The fact this album was such a hit even with everyone around Bey trying to sabotage her, starting with the album only being on Tidal lmao.

52 minutes ago, Stra said:

Lemonade and Renaissance are unmatched, both should have won AotY (not CC).

Hmmm....

Beyoncé really did something HUGE with this.

If you were not there in that first HBO viewing, you'll never truly understand what it was like to see it in real time, have no clue what's going on, dealing with being confronted by such intense personal revelations while also consuming brand new music AND amazing videos. No one knew for sure it was an album or even a visual album. We only know it was something. It was wild and thrilling and emotional and intellectual and jaw-droopingly gorgeous.

Like you were sitting there thinking, "IS SHE ANNOUNCING A DIVORCE?!"... and then the story unfolded, and then you understood what she was doing.

8 minutes ago, tiagol88 said:

The fact this album was such a hit even with everyone around Bey trying to sabotage her, starting with the album only being on Tidal lmao.

I don't believe anyone was trying to sabotage her with the Tidal exclusive. That was her decision. I think the real sabotage is everyone involved in Tidal not meaningfully putting as much effort and exclusivity into the platform as she was, thereby making her exclusivity become a bigger hindrance to its accessibility for the public. If everyone took the app as seriously as she did, it could have been at least a bit more successful, it would have had more users, etc.

Even Jay-Z, the actual owner, kept 444 a Tidal exclusive for seven days. Beyoncé kept her's for over a thousand days.

Edited April 23Apr 23 by swissman

Her best work to date imo, it is top tier musically, lyrically, emotionally…

I may be biased tho because my relationship was on the rocks at the time, so it spoke to me on a spiritual level

45 minutes ago, WhatWasThat! said:

This is the last time she was semi relevant when you truly think about it

and yet since then she's had two multi-week #1 hits, one of which was also a Global 200 #1...

7 minutes ago, swissman said:

Beyoncé really did something HUGE with this.

If you were not there in that first HBO viewing, you'll never truly understand what it was like to see it in real time, have no clue what's going on, dealing with being confronted by such intense personal revelations while also consuming brand new music AND amazing videos. No one knew for sure it was an album or even a visual album. We only know it was something. It was wild and thrilling and emotional and intellectual and jaw-droopingly gorgeous.

Like you were sitting there thinking, "IS SHE ANNOUNCING A DIVORCE?!"... and then the story unfolded, and then you understood what she was doing.

I will never forget seeing her throw that ring at the camera.... "Gag" isn't strong enough a word

happy birthday lemons

this was such a collapse too bad all of her albums since have not even come close to this goat

15 minutes ago, swissman said:

Beyoncé really did something HUGE with this.

If you were not there in that first HBO viewing, you'll never truly understand what it was like to see it in real time, have no clue what's going on, dealing with being confronted by such intense personal revelations while also consuming brand new music AND amazing videos. No one knew for sure it was an album or even a visual album. We only know it was something. It was wild and thrilling and emotional and intellectual and jaw-droopingly gorgeous.

Like you were sitting there thinking, "IS SHE ANNOUNCING A DIVORCE?!"... and then the story unfolded, and then you understood what she was doing.

Idk if yall remember but the way ATRL went in on her a few years prior for teasing something and it turned out to be her going vegan or sum **** i refused to believe she was releasing a full record at that point i thought the teaser was just gonna be her debuting a tell all documentary of how Jay Z ruined her or sm ****, but THIS?! i was too busy defending taylor swift during the kimye hate train i forgot the queen was releasing a new record nnnnn

still pissed off she stayed w him tho

1 minute ago, Ms. Togekiss said:

this was such a collapse too bad all of her albums since have not even come close to this goat

They've come closer than anyone else has since...

RENAISSANCE and COWBOY CARTER are albums only someone who has made Lemonade could make.

Edited April 23Apr 23 by swissman

31 minutes ago, Just a Gay on ATRL said:

What a tour de force of an album! Truly felt like an established artist at the top of their game releasing a project at the peak of their artistic vision. This album dropped while I was in college and I remember everyone talking about it. An essential album to my college years.

This was totally robbed at the Grammys for AOTY

Madonna's Ray of Light, Beyonce's LEMONADE, Mariah Carey's Daydream, Taylor Swift's folklore, Britney Spears' Blackout, truly artists in their artistic prime whew

sorry still goes off

1 minute ago, Swiftienator13 said:

Idk if yall remember but the way ATRL went in on her a few years prior for teasing something and it turned out to be her going vegan or sum **** i refused to believe she was releasing a full record at that point i thought the teaser was just gonna be her debuting a tell all documentary of how Jay Z ruined her or sm ****, but THIS?! i was too busy defending taylor swift during the kimye hate train i forgot the queen was releasing a new record nnnnn

still pissed off she stayed w him tho

Ya hah that vegan thing was hilarious! But it wasn't really her fault, the network hyped up her appearance because she was in her "no interviews" era and she was just there to promote a vegan chef's book lol.

Man I want to watch the film today. It's been a while.

She literally dropped the trailer for the album a WEEK before release date and then went on to tour four days later.....

What a moment that was!! Watching live had us SHOOK. I remember almost like having an out of body experience cuz the lead up to it was insane since formation. The hate, boycotts, confusion, unavailable song with link only video, and all the endless buzz around how she would or even COULD follow up the masterpiece and release of ST.

I remember halfway through dont hurt yourself thinking that she's gonna upload divorce papers live on HBO

One of my fave visual moments of the film is during Don't Hurt Yourself, the gown she's wearing looks like a wedding dress, and given the context, we assume it is that.

It even looks like her actual wedding dress (more or less).

But then the scene appears in color at the end... in this video about anger and fury. And the dress is actually red.

Edited April 23Apr 23 by swissman

2 minutes ago, Chris said:

She literally dropped the trailer for the album a WEEK before release date and then went on to tour four days later.....

I remember the Base was so upset about this... they were mad because they thought no one would know the words to the new songs by then lolol

3 minutes ago, swissman said:

I remember the Base was so upset about this... they were mad because they thought no one would know the words to the new songs by then lolol

I just made a new thread in the base.

Musically one of the most jaw-dropping moments was the intro to Daddy Lessons. When I heard the country strums mixed in with Louisiana flare, I knew she was onto something big... and that song led her to create COWBOY CARTER.