Beyoncé has given the people an anthem of cultural pride just when the world needs it most.

Following the unlawful death of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been sparked across the world. With all 50 states and 18 additional countries protesting for racial equality, Beyoncé has been a leading supporter of the movement. She has used her social media presence as a means of activism, encouraging people to sign petitions to get justice for others who have died at the hands of police brutality. In an open video message, she pleaded with her followers to be a part of this movement, and to help the families of the victims.

When Beyoncé surprised fans with a new song in the final hours of the 19th of June, she was bookmarking Juneteenth into history.

Juneteenth is the celebration of slaves being emancipated on the same date, in 1865. The song- named “Black Parade”- is a call to action for African Americans, as she lyrically encourages them to be proud of their roots, of where they come from. This is especially potent when she sings “I can’t forget that my history is her-story”. The song is rich in cultural references, coming from all over the continent of Africa. From the “Ankh” symbol that comes from Egypt to the West African goddess of love and femininity, “Oshun”. This broadens the horizons of who can relate to the lyrics, and who can emotionally connect with the song.

Check out Beyoncé’s New single above

When you listen to it, it’s almost overwhelmingly full of pride and emotion. It feels like a community breaking through and refusing to keep quiet about their culture anymore, and it’s absolutely beautiful. The essence of it reminds me of writers such as Toni Morrison and Grace Nichols, who both wrote about being proud of their roots, and embracing their history. When posting about the single on Instagram, Beyoncé wrote “Please continue to remember our beauty, strength, and power.” Black Parade” celebrates you, your voice, and your joy”.

Alongside the song came the BeyGOOD Black Business Impact Fund. This new campaign is made to support and promote black-owned businesses and elevate them during these hard times. The fund will be administered by the National Urban League. Alongside this announcement on her website came a directory of black businesses, ranging from Art and Design to Restaurants and Bars.

While the BLM movement continues to take over the world in a wave of justice, it’s important to help independent owners.

The song is so rich that I could spend hours analysing every word or image included in it. It is the perfect song to release and is exactly what people needed right now. Empowerment, freedom, and pride.

Words by Abigail Forrest

Graphics by Katie Janes

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After over four years, the highly anticipated and long-awaited sixth album by recording artists and living legend, Lady Gaga, is here. ‘Chromatica’ was promised to return Gaga and her sound back to her roots, on the dance floor, which it managed to do phenomenally. The album is packed from start to finish pure with flawless, intensely danceable songs. With not a single one standing out as a filler, each has its unique elements of perfection and all boast rich and exhilarating production, all built on the solid foundation of Gaga’s career, effortlessly danceable pop music.

On ‘Alice’, Gaga channels a dramatic euphoria with heavenly opening vocals before descending into a thrilling house-infused breakdown. The bridge sees Gaga vocals become to get intoxicatingly distorted before the beat drops once again. What may seem like a dated concept, Gaga has reimagined songs like ‘Alice’ by infusing her signature harsh voice and unapologetically pop hooks, making the songs sound more like musical explosions than dated beat drops. The core of every track in this album is the gripping pop sound Gaga has mastered, enhanced by the electrifying house/club influence and the abundance of rich production, allowing Gaga to deliver such eccentric and timeless bops.

The album continues to take the listener through the dystopian world of ‘Chromatica’, with the two singles ‘Stupid Love’ and ‘Rain on Me’ following suit and further engulfing the listener into the inescapably captivating dance-pop ecstasy. The album closes its first of three acts with ‘Free Woman’ and ‘Fun Tonight’, both boasting galvanising and extensive production. ‘Free Woman’ embodies Gaga’s empowered confidence, echoed in her previous albums ‘ARTPOP’ and ‘Born This Way’. The lyric, “This is my dance floor, I fought for.” is particularly representative of the mood of both this song and more broadly the entire album. ‘Fun Tonight’ is possibly one of the only times on ‘Chromatica’ Gaga presents a less joyful narrative to the listener. The lyrics, “you love the paparazzi, love the fame,” can possibly be seen as a reference to her previous work. She sings despairingly about being unhappy in a relationship with the added context of her stardom, all over a more mellow, tropical house beat.

Gaga’s transcendence as an artist is probably best exemplified in her collaborations on the record. The first of which is ‘Rain on Me’, a collaboration with budding pop princess, Ariana Grande, which you can read all about here (HYPERLINK). This is followed then by Gaga singing alongside K-Pop girl group sensation BLACKPINK; The verses and chorus on ‘Sour Candy’ blend seamlessly together over the warping sultry house beat, making the song infectiously catchy and utterly timeless. The final collaboration on the record is an unlikely one and possibly the most surprising song on the album. ‘Sine from Above’ captures Elton John and Gaga both singing about their troubled party-heavy lives over an explosive Eurodance beat; what some may have expected to be an empty ballad actually turned into one of the most dance-heavy songs on the album. Possibly the most notable thing about these three collaborations is Gaga’s ability to bring together each of these unique artists on one record, allowing the artists to maintain their distinctive sound whilst also pulling them outside of their comfort zones to create extraordinary, Avant Gmusic that transcends generations; it speaks to Gaga’s strength as a pop artist and also as a self-proclaimed “nonconformist’.

As Act One of the album closes, it transitions into one of three classical instrumentals titled ‘Chromatica I, II and III’ respectively. The transition between ‘Chromatica II’ and ‘911’ is nothing short of an explosive, sonic orgasm; with the classical interlude descending into the infectious, warping bass of the track harmoniously. If the listener is nostalgic for ‘The Fame’ era Gaga then look no further than this song, boasting the robotic vocals of familiar hit ‘Poker Face’ and the remorseless party-girl spirit of ‘Beautiful Dirty Rich’, ‘911’ garners this nostalgia to produce a mid-tempo, electronic, sassy bop.

Following ‘911’ is possibly the best track on the album, ‘Plastic Doll’. A galvanising, emotional and unapologetically bubble-gum pop song, providing commentary on female beauty standards in the music industry. The chorus is as anthemic as it is liberated, complimented by an infectiously danceable beat. ‘Plastic Doll’ exudes the unabashed confidence of an accomplished Gaga and continues to showcase her allegiance to pop music by producing potentially one of the best pop songs in recent history.

Act Two of the album closes with two more incredible songs. The closest one can get to Gaga’s fifth album, ‘Joanne’, ‘Enigma’ exquisitely showcases Gaga’s beautiful voice over a downtempo, euphoric beat and warping, stimulating bass-heavy chorus. ‘Replay’ opts for a rousing, disco-heavy instrumental and distorted vocals, possessing all the sensuality of Dua Lipa’s ‘Hallucinate’ or even Kylie Minogue’s, ‘Spinning Around’, while still authentically Gaga by exhibiting with her signature powerhouse vocals. These tracks act as a refreshing come-down to the exuberant ‘Sour Candy’ previously, adding to the albums vast diversity whilst still maintaining its cohesion and dance-pop undertones.

Possibly one of the best things about ‘Chromatica’ is how different each of the songs are, it makes it difficult for me to compare any of the songs to each other because in reality, no two songs on this record sound the same. Another example of this, ‘1000 Doves’, displays Gaga experimenting with EDM by adapting a Kygo-inspired broken word chorus. Gaga’s beautiful vocals on the track, complimented by the tropical EDM beat, make the track a blissful euphoria.

The album closes with possibly one of the most rumoured tracks since ‘Chromatica’s announcement, ‘Babylon’. Another entirely shocking track, ‘Babylon’ borrows strong gospel and jazz influence as Gaga sings about ‘Battling for your life in Babylon’. The track is an observation of the gossip many pop stars, including Gaga, herself have to endure. Gaga presents it as a metaphor of a battle, where she appears victorious. ‘Babylon’ is the perfect closer to such an emancipated record; presenting an accomplished Gaga winning the metaphorical battle and triumphantly returning the listener to the normal world after an ecstatic 43-minute journey to the euphoric ‘Chromatica’.

Coming at a time when pop is almost obsolete on the charts, instead of shying away, Gaga instead decided to entirely embrace dance-pop in all its forms, producing possibly one of her best bodies of work in her entire career. ‘Chromatica’ is a musical ticket to Gaga’s dystopian camp euphoria, a personal album that explores love, courage and healing; all whilst bringing the listener back to where they fell in love with Gaga, the dance floor she fought for.

Check out the official music video for one of Lady’s Gaga’s new songs, ‘Stupid Love’, from her Chromatica Album here:

Words by Joe Gardner

Graphics by Katie Janes

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As we finish our 8th week of quarantine, it is inevitable that some of us at home have taken it upon ourselves to attempt to make good use of our self-isolation by investing time and effort into personal passion projects. For some it may be baking or sewing and for electropop princess Charli XCX this involved releasing an entire album.

‘How I’m Feeling Now’ is a gripping insight into Charli’s thoughts, a playful perspective of her life in quarantine. Sonically espousing the new wave of PC music, the album is packed from start to finish with hyper-electronic, sometimes confusing beats and robotic vocals, which is admittedly shocking and off-putting to a virgin listener. However, Charli’s loyal following of internet-twinks seem to be intoxicated by the seeming messiness of the songs, songs like ‘Click’ from her 2019 album ‘Charli’ have become fan favourites and almost folklore in the young gay clubbing scene, with the song itself being sampled on this album, on possibly the most PC track on the album, ‘c2.0’. Charli’s approach to her music, highlighted in this album, shows her championing PC music and embracing it in its entirety. This unapologetically electronic attitude has opened the door for many other artists to embrace this sound including Kim Petras, Slayyyter and Dorian Electra; thus, creating a distinctive, niche sound adopted almost entirely by young LGBTQ+ listeners.

The lead single, “Forever” is a sonic explosion of electronic excellence and possibly best showcases the essence of Charli’s distinguished music style. The surprisingly catchy hook and soft verses are engulfed in an overwhelming, harsh whirlwind of unfamiliar noises. The track, like many other on the album, feels as though its mocking pop music by taking a generically good pop song and metamorphosising it into an undistinguishable yet surprisingly captivating reincarnation. This can also be seen in the dreamier, ‘Detonate’ and euphoric, ‘Visions’.

My two personal favourites from the album, ‘Claws’ and ‘Pink Diamond’, possibly both perfectly exemplify the puzzling excellence of Charli’s music. ‘Pink Diamond’ is filled to the brim with uber-confidence and sass with Charli speak-singing “I just wanna go real hard. I just wanna go real hard” on repeat to a stirring background of computerized noises. although at some points the disorderly beat can leave the listener lost, the songs’ chao somehow makes it all the more stimulating to the listener. ‘Claws’, arguably the best song on the album, is purely and wholeheartedly a playful, refreshing interpretation of PC music. the chorus and verses seamlessly flow together in a melodic, excessively computerized blend of catchy, mesmerising pop music goodness. Definitely a potential hit and is currently as we speak, the song garnering the most streams out of all three singles.

Possibly the most impressive thing about ‘How I’m Feeling Right Now’ is how it manages to bridge the gap between experimental and generic pop music in such a unique way it is almost unexplainable. It is a talent that Charli has managed to harness to create a solid body of work, one that helps her to continue to establish herself as a musical pioneer and a queer icon simultaneously.

Words by Joe Gardner

Graphics by Georgia Walters

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