Beyoncé Takes the Stage

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This summer, the most anticipated tour (in close contest with Taylor Swift) is Beyoncé’s tour for her seventh studio album, “Renaissance,” which came out in 2022. Her previous record “was about the turbulence of [her] marriage and was in some ways a monument to marriage as an institution,” The New Yorker’s music critic Carrie Battan tells David Remnick. “Renaissance”—a homage to club music and queer culture—“is about breaking free of all of those chains. It’s about going to the club, and quitting your job and dancing and experiencing the ultimate freedom.” Battan talks through her favorite tracks on the record.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.4	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Summer has its downsides to be sure. Mosquitoes,
0:15.3	sunburn, humidity, picnics, if you want to know my honest opinion. But there's also many saving graces, and the best is music.
0:23.4	Summer is when the music festivals happen all across the country in any genre you can name.
0:29.2	Joining me to talk about the main event of the summer is one of the New Yorkers' music critics, Carrie Baton.
0:35.1	Now, there are two especially huge tours this summer. Taylor Swift has taken America,
0:40.6	of course, and the Renaissance tour with Beyonce that's already started in Europe and opens here
0:45.7	soon. Carrie, what are you hearing about the Beyonce tour? The main piece of news, besides the
0:53.6	tour being very extravagant and theatrical and ornate, was that she seemed to be working through an injury.
1:00.3	The tour was much less physical.
1:02.5	She did not participate in a huge amount of the choreography.
1:06.5	So that was a big change.
1:08.5	She hasn't spoken on whether or not she actually is injured, but right now
1:12.3	it is speculated that she's sort of like an elite athlete playing through a rolled ankle or whatever.
1:18.5	Before we get to some of your favorite moments and aspects of the album, what is the album overall about?
1:25.1	Very often, Beyonce has a theme running through an album, or she'll be paying homage to a period or a kind of music. What is Renaissance about?
1:35.2	Yeah, so Renaissance is sort of Beyonce throwing her voice in a way. We're used to thinking of her as, you know, she's in this relationship with Jay-Z, and her last
1:45.7	record was about her, you know, the turbulence of their marriage, and it was in some ways a monument
1:51.4	to, you know, marriage as an institution. But this record is about sort of breaking free of all
1:58.3	of those chains. It's about going to the club and quitting your job and dancing and just, you know,
2:04.2	kind of experiencing the ultimate freedom.
2:06.6	And a lot of it draws from, you know, the history of club music and dance music.
	...

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