Every track on Beyoncé’s Renaissance, ranked

Though many will be loath to think of it in these terms, Renaissance is perhaps culture’s first great work of pandemic-era literature. It’s been a year since the music video-less release of Beyoncé’s retro-futurist vision, a moment that seemed to usher in a vibe shift; one in favour of “treat brain” and a zeitgeist-y hedonism – the temporarily inaccessible dancefloor canonised and endlessly mused over – coinciding with a long-overdue reevaluation of the terms of human existence. Having wrestled with capitalist notions of time and productivity, rusty relationship models and retrograde perceptions of gender, the world is now seeing a tremendous moment of resistance catalysed across a growing number of professional sectors.

It’s no small coincidence that lead single “Break My Soul” features a worn-down worker Beyoncé: growling, indignant, and determined to “find new drive.” She enlists Big Freedia’s timbre to lay out her mission statement: “Release your job, release the time / Release your trade, release the stress / Release the love, forget the rest!” The intention for Renaissance was to create a space “to be free of perfectionism and overthinking […] to scream, release, feel freedom,” she explained in an uncharacteristically lengthy Instagram caption. “I hope you find joy in this music. I hope it inspires you to release the wiggle.”

Its arrival was not a moment too soon. Beyoncé is “holding defibrillator paddles” over what the New Yorker characterises as “a culture gone inert”: drunk on nostalgia and ‘second screen’ streaming fare, deprived of pleasure and now thirstily, greedily taking it all in. She’d never condemn us for it. Rather, she’s encouraging us to come out of ourselves. Beyoncé wants us to want, and to want more: “If that’s your man,” she asks, bewildered, on the glimmering “Alien Superstar”, “then why he over there?” 

She is in turns funny, raunchy, and startlingly real. Beyoncé is searching for ecstasy on Renaissance, imbuing each sequinned track with research, references, and her characteristic, immense star power. But only one song can triumph out of the 16. Here is every song on the floor-filling, Grammy-sweeping record, ranked.

16. Plastic off the Sofa

Beyoncé thee crooner returns. This breathy ode is a sweet love song for Jay-Z: “Ah we don’t need the world’s acceptance,” she scoffs on the track’s first verse – but it’s also perhaps the least danceable song on an impeccable dance album. So, let’s move swiftly on.

15. I’m that Girl

The album opens with a reminder of Bey’s exceptional status: “It’s not the diamonds / It’s not the pearls / It’s not my man,” she warns the mistaken, over dreamy synths and a jagged, hypnotic beat. While Beyoncé is certainly and undeniably that girl, there’s an element of this spoken-word self-mythologising that’s ever so slightly Hamilton-esque. Sorry.

14. All Up in Your Mind

Beyoncé gets the inevitable A.G. Cook treatment. She does a fine job growling about obsession and unreciprocated affection over industrial PC Music beats, but if Renaissance is a night out, “All Up In Your Mind” ultimately feels like the point when people start flagging.

13. Church Girl

Religious trauma or no, everyone can relate to the joyful rebellion Beyoncé conjures on “Church Girl”: an energetic song primarily about the value of cutting loose and having a good time regardless of where you need to be come Sunday morning. It’s a cute, fun time with an Oscar-worthy delivery of “Must be the cash ‘cause it ain’t your face!” – if a little repetitive – the true Renaissance bangers lie further afield.

12. Thique

Over a playfully menacing trap beat that was reportedly made in 2014, Beyoncé sings about existing in abundance, still wanting more, and asking for it. The highlights of “Thique” happen when the pace picks up (a notable breakdown sitting between the second verse and bridge) and you can tell Beyoncé is having the time of her life cooing about her “jelly,” “chocolate ounces” and “champagne and cherry, baby.” She’s right and she should say it, but everyone who elects to skip is valid in that decision. 

11. Energy (feat. Beam)

An oddly enchanting two minutes with a few of Beyoncé’s finest bars. Describing the luxury aesthetic of her posse (“gold links, raw denim”) she makes some lightly political jibes, taking aim at “Karens […] turned into terrorists” and the American electoral system. “Poppin’ our pain and champagne through the ceilin’ / Sippin’ it up, flickin’ it up,” she sings. It’s definitely a tune, but all a little too liberal.

10. America Has a Problem

An interesting take on the opioid crisis for sure. Drug lord Beyoncé is keeping her man supplied with love, and hers is the most potent one out there. Rapping in quickfire over a sample of “Cocaine” (borrowing the stark chords of the 90s track originally performed by rapper Kilo Ali) she brags about the superiority of her own product: “Your ex-dealer dope, but it ain’t crack enough!” A bit corny, sure, but an undeniable earworm, especially when you pull Kendrick Lamar into the mix.

9. Alien Superstar

Beyoncé borrows language from ballroom competitions to make the assessment: “Category… sexy bitch, I’m the bar.” It’s a nod to her position as an icon in queer culture – and the cultural debt dance music owes to LGBTQ+ artists – as much as it is a restating of her exceptional talent as a performer. Then, she makes it sexy. “I’m stingy with my love,” sings Bey, “too classy to be touched.” But when it comes to her ride-or-die, it’s “head on a pillow, hike it in the air.” That’s love, baby! Unique!

8. Break My Soul

Perhaps the status of “Break My Soul” suffers a little for being overplayed, but it dropped during something of a musical drought – and Big Freedia yelling about leaving it all behind will never get old. Perhaps the best representation of the themes at play in Renaissance (resistance, yearning, self-belief, escapist fantasy) as well as an apt encapsulation of the anti-work ideological shift, it is more than worthy as the album’s lead single. Consider it Beyoncé’s manifesto for fun: now, go, release the wiggle!

7. Move (feat. Grace Jones and Tems)

Painting a colourful picture of the scene (“fireworks and champagne / Chantilly lace / broken glass in the disco”), Beyoncé descends on the club with her girls in tow. Not even she’s immune to the lack of space endemic in nightlife spots, but as anyone who’s gone out in a group knows, crowd control is always necessary – especially when touchy-feely creeps are prowling about. “When the queen come through, part like the Red Sea!” Beyoncé commands. Yes ma’am.

6. Cozy

The gas-up anthem of our times, the natural predecessor to “Feeling Myself” (2014), “Cozy” is the true album opener, really. “Dancin’ in the mirror, kiss my scars / Because I love what they made,” she sings, in her self-love influencer bag. Describing the “green eyes” that envy her, “purple drank and couture gowns”, painting the world “pussy pink” and the town “red like cinnamon” fans have noted that Beyoncé is not just describing the colours of the standard pride flag, but specifically Daniel Quasar’s “Progress” pride flag. She’s a god, she’s a hero, and she’s an ally.

5. Cuff It

Whatever SSRIs are meant to do, “Cuff It” probably does it better. A Pulitzer, please, for the line: “I wanna go missing, I need a prescription.” “‘Cause I feel like falling in love!” Bey declares, ready to romance the world through its nightlife. Who among us has not been in the mood to fuck something up? It’s the exact kind of glittering, disco ball funk-pop you can get well and truly lost in. Splendid closing credits music for the TikTok generation.

4. Summer Renaissance

Using a sample of “I Feel Love” to great effect, Beyoncé gives herself over to pleasure on “Summer Renaissance”, a beautifully raunchy album closer that seems to sonically emanate sunshine. “I’m a doc’, I’m a nurse / I’m a teacher / Dominate is the best way to beat ya,” she quips. The vision is finally complete: “Can you see my brain open wide now?” Bey asks. The implausible, mock French-accented triple rhyme of ‘Givenchy’, ‘Beyoncé’, and ‘raunchy’? Just perfect. But not quite as perfect as…

3. Pure/Honey

It’s Friday night and I’m ready to drive! Throw me them keys, baby let’s go! Beyoncé takes us on the best kind of musical journey with “Pure/Honey”: the song’s mischievous bounce beat samples Kevin Aviance’s “Cunty” alongside snippets from ballroom DJ Mikeq, and the late Moi Renee’s “Miss Honey.” Now categorised as a ballroom track, “Miss Honey” is considered by some to be the original “bitch track” – an early subgenre of house music characterised by “raunch or cunty humour.” Beyoncé plays with double entendre and image to get her own dirty points across; in the Renaissance era, Queen Bey is finally embracing her apian leanings: “I’ll get you stuck in my love / Stuck in my honey,” she warns. She’s also “four, three, too fucking busy” – and aren’t we all?

2. Virgo’s Groove

At six minutes and eight seconds, “Virgo’s Groove” is the longest track on the record, because Beyoncé has a lot to say about the great love of her life. She pushes the instrument of her voice to new limits, trilling, rapping and gasping along with the narrative: an epic, decade-spanning romance that continues to thrill and change. But “I need more nudity and ecstasy”, says Bey, straight to the point on the refrain. “I can be the one that takes you there / On this magic ride…” She’s nudging her partner to be a little wilder, to feel as loose as she does: “Baby, you can hit this / Don’t be scared,” she implores, “It’s only gonna get you high!” Finally, a monogamy bop worth belting from the treetops.

1. Heated

I know it, you know it, Kevin Bacon knows it. The ultimate best track on Renaissance could only be “Heated”, a song that announces itself with a summer-y, ethereal electric guitar and never loosens its hypnotic grip on your attention. Drake haters, for once, hold your tongues! As we know well by now, a broken clock is infrequently correct, and he can co-write the hell out of a moody club track. As Vulture’s Craig Jenkins put it, we get Beyoncé in “raucous commentator mode,” laying out her exceptionalism as a romantic partner as well as a performer: “Only a real man could tame me / Only the radio could play me,” she sings archly. “I’m just as petty as you are…”

She’s in God mode, but nonetheless minding her biz, sweating it out on the dancefloor with the rest of us. Beneath all this self-belief, however, lies panopticon-induced insecurities (“Monday I’m overrated, Tuesday on my dick”) and an undercurrent of classic night out drama: “Whole lotta reservations, whole lotta / Whole lotta texting with no conversations / Whole lotta playing victim and a villain at the same time.” Bey blames it on “money” and “not a lot of patience” (of course, sometimes shit go down / When it’s a billion dollars on an elevator). We get glimpses of her past as they haunt her, gossipy chatter about “cheap spandex” and being dismissed as “a mess”, could perhaps be about her, though it’s the kind of detail Beyoncé will never clarify.

Beyoncé credits her late cousin Uncle Jonny for introducing her to the house and ballroom scenes that inform Renaissance’s tribute, as well as sewing her apparently-maligned senior prom dress. She remembers Jonny, who passed from AIDS-related illness in the late 90s, as a godmother and caregiver. In a 2019 speech at the GLAAD Media Awards ,she called him “the most fabulous gay man I’ve ever known.” She continues, “He was brave and unapologetic during a time when this country wasn’t as accepting and witnessing his battle with HIV was one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever lived. I’m hopeful that his struggles serve to open pathways for other young people to live more freely.” 

Renaissance is an inherently hopeful album in this respect and multiple others. Stylishly silly, dramatic, and ridiculously infectious, “Heated” is arguably the record’s emotional zenith: a dance track with true narrative heart, borne from years of grind, hard-earned confidence – and let’s not forget that face card that never declines, my God.