Everything is Love

It's also a sonic master class in marital counseling and commitment, wherein Beyoncé emerges with the upper hand and a contrite Jay is lucky she's so gracious. Vocally, it's a similar story: Beyoncé shines here, balancing light rap verses ("Apeshit" and "Nice") with some of the prettiest vocals she's recorded in years ("Friends"), while Jay offers his standard braggadocious bars that nonetheless make an impact for their occasional honesty and humility.

Nothing is off limits, and their chemistry on wax continues to be just as powerful as it is in real life. It's not only a top-to-bottom banger, but it's also relationship goals.

Both artists’ high standards guarantee that the songs are musically and melodically on point.

Everything may lack the emotional depth of Beyoncé’s last two solo records, but it more than makes up for it in holy-shit-Beyoncé moments. ... Only Jay’s own work with Kanye (and Drake and Future’s collaborative 2015 takeover of rap radio) even approach what the Carters have done here, at least as far as fusing their disparate personae into an appealing whole.

It’s a testament to how a complicated love survived through self-reflection, compromise, and ruthless honesty.

Things feel all the sweeter knowing how hard they fought to get here: through relationship troubles and against the systemic racism Jay alludes to throughout. It might lack urgency, but it’s an accomplished, glossy finale.

At times an opulent spectacle and at others a full-bodied avowal of devotion, Everything Is Love stands as a monumental testament to keeping it real.

As each conflicting quality is reconciled, it’s never compromised or downplayed. They sound both aware of and immersed in the culture surrounding them while fully settled into their own reality as billionaires. In essence, they are Black, rich and famous, in that order.

Everything is Love may lack the immediate impact of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s respective solo latest records, but it’s still interesting to see two of the biggest stars in the world relax. ... There’s nothing glitzy here; it all just works.

While the album doesn’t muster the ambitious and intense highs of its two predecessors, it is one of the most satisfying event-albums in some time, and it feels like a labor of love.

On Everything Is Love the two flex their muscles like it’s an Olympic sport. ... The inside references and the happy proximity to current rap also work in service of a larger point, which is thinking about black achievement in the context of a cultural and political system designed to hinder it. ... Mainstream art makes too little room for stories like that, especially when the grown-ups in question are people of color. But the Carters won’t be denied on Everything Is Love. For them, this hard-won encore is also a beginning.

The braggadocio heard on this track and throughout is like an extension of that confidence in “Formation” from Lemonade. ... Closing with “LOVEHAPPY”, Beyonce and Hov are at their most transparent about the moment that almost broke their marriage.

With their new album as the Carters, Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter) and Beyoncé are once again a united force, celebrating their success on every front: artistic, financial, marital, erotic, historic. ... This is more familiar, less vulnerable and less exploratory territory than the zones where Beyoncé and Jay-Z ventured on “Lemonade” and “4:44.”

Beyoncé impressively matches her superstar rapper husband in terms of lyrical swagger, rhythmic flow and verbal bounce. That she does it to a backdrop of samples constructed around her own extraordinary singing lends the record's mantric grooves the luxurious sheen of high-end pop.

This isn’t an album of ‘Crazy In Love’ or ‘Drunk In Love’ successors. It’s an album of love, and all the forms it can take in and outside of you.

There’s a sense of immediacy and even unpredictability in the most restless moments on Everything In Love, which saves the album from being a rather static and defiant contemplation of The Carters’ victories.

It isn’t always the most substantial record, flexing and braggadocio abound, but it’s an enjoyable collection of tracks from the power couple.

Despite its heavy-handedness, the end of the album offers an equitable, full-circle resolution to this human drama: how to love, how to forgive, how to move on. ... However, on this album, compromising for her marriage also means compromising the art she creates.

Calculating it may be, but it’s hard to think of anyone who’s turned prurient public interest in their personal lives to their advantage quite as adeptly as the Carters have.

As an album it’s almost entirely soporifically dull though beautifully appointed throughout (and it’s a joy to hear Beyoncé rapping) by some smart production from both main protagonists and some slick grooves from the Daptone band. [Aug 2018, p.68]