As I write this on the afternoon of Saturday, April 23, Beyoncé’s HBO world premiere event, Lemonade, is only a handful of hours away. Yet not much is known about what it even is or what we can expect to see. Very few details have leaked, but we do know that, whatever it is, it’ll be an hour long. It could be a dramatic film, it could be another docu-concert like Beyoncé Jay Z: On The Run, or it could be a free-form hour where she talks about Red Lobster. Who knows. Who cares? Beyoncé could tap dance on a board while whistling commercial jingles for 60-minutes, and it would be the most riveting thing in the world.
Last Wednesday, The Atlantic posted a lengthy article called “The Stakes of Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’,” in which writer Spencer Kornhaber revealed that when he reached out to HBO in an effort to obtain a review screener of Lemonade, he was told by the channel’s rep that there was “nothing available to screen.” As far as anyone knows, we’ll all be seeing/hearing this for the first time together, which is both an exciting move and a PR gimmick that Beyoncé is first in her class at perfecting. Between dropping her surprise self-titled album without having a whisper of its existence leak to the press and taking over the internet a day before the Super Bowl with “Formation,” Beyoncé is exploding what’s previously been expected of traditional release cycles and introducing a new way, her way: she doesn’t just release videos and singles — and whatever the hell this is — she’s pleasure bombing.
In a few hours, I’ll return to my laptop for a real-time review of Lemonade. You’ve heard of live-tweeting before? Well, this will be live-blogging. Alright, I’m gonna go nap now, because I don’t know what else to do with myself.
🍋 There are still 40 minutes to go and I’m filled with nervous energy like maybe Beyoncé is coming to my actual house. Should I be dusting? Brushing my teeth? I’m totally prepared with cheap red wine and lemon creme cookies on hand. I keep checking HBO Now on my Apple TV to make sure it’s real and I actually have it, even though I know I do. I might pass out before this even starts.
🍋 Oh my god. To see ‘Lemonade Trailer’ switch over to ‘Lemonade’ almost gave me a heart attack. It’s happening.
🍋 I’m already crying and she’s just walking through some corn in a hoodie.
🍋 She appears to be doing some spoken word business in the swamps of New Orleans. I feel like watching this is going to make my house haunted. I can’t watch this closely enough and my glasses are steaming up.
🍋 Each segment of this has a theme. So far there’s been Intuition, and Denial. I’ve never been so emotionally inspired in my life. Oh shit, she just said “menses.”
🍋 I would pay her one million dollars to hit me with a baseball bat.
🍋 So I’m guessing we can all agree at this point that this is an album’s worth of new material. Poor Prince.
🍋 This current theme is Anger and shit’s getting spooky. My TV can’t handle how loud I want to make this. There was just a nip slip but I’m not gonna make a big deal about it. There are a lot of shots of intense things happening in parking garages.
🍋 “Bomb pussy.” That’s what she just said. I’m glad it’s showing her dancing in a chair right now because I’m doing the same thing, only on a couch. I randomly wish that I could be roller skating around the house. People are already printing up shirts that say “He better call Becky with the good hair” I bet. That’s what she said, right?
🍋 Shit just got so sexual that my feet went numb. Whatever is happening right now is my favorite part. I just realized that I should probably be describing things more rather than just saying how numb my feet are. Well, she was just waving a red light bulb over her head while looking like she wants to kill everyone. Now she’s driving around while wearing a big hat. Does anyone else have numb feet? These songs are more down low gritty dirty than any of her other songs. Hands down.
🍋 I hope everything is okay between Beyoncé and Jay Z. It seems like she’s hinting at some stuff here. Hopefully it’s just a statement at large about how to treat your woman right, and not something closer to home.
🍋 This “daddy said shoot” song is my least favorite so far. Not like I could ever have a least favorite Beyoncé song, but if I had to pick, that one would probably be it. It feels like too far of a reach.
🍋 Someone I had drinks with here in New Orleans met Beyoncé once and said you wouldn’t believe how small she is in real life. Watching her perform makes that impossible to believe because she’s so larger than life in everything she does. I bet she fills a room just being the only one in it.
🍋 Why did this 40 minutes feel like five seconds but five seconds on my rowing machine feels like five years?
🍋 What if she just turned to the camera and was like “I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT, WE’RE GETTING DIVORCED!”
🍋 Emotional tambo.
🍋 I did an online tarot reading today to see if I’m gonna get this writing gig I want, so I feel like this is really speaking to me with its voodoo swamp vibes. And I can say “voodoo swamp vibes” because I’ve lived in New Orleans for exactly one year.
🍋 This is the hit right here. I wish there was a tracklist. I guess we’ll be getting that by the end of the night.
🍋 “Nothing real can be threatened.” I wish that would fit as a knuckle tattoo.
🍋 If every time I turned on my TV this was the only thing playing I’d be fine with that. I’m so satisfied with this past hour of my life. Oooof. And Tidal just announced that the album is streaming now. So there it is. This is the best night of the year.
Thanks for sharing this emotional time with me/us. Now let’s all go figure out how to get Tidal.
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