First single from forthcoming album Renaissance preaches freedom but gets stuck in some familiar musical tropes
The last major musical statements the world heard from Beyoncé were Black Parade, an electronic growl of anger at police brutality and racism that slowly built into a euphoric celebration of African American and African culture, and Be Alive, her Oscar-nominated contribution to the soundtrack of King Richard: a ballad set to a relentless, pounding rhythm that hammered home its message of Black empowerment. They were, spiritually at least, of a piece with the albums that preceded them in 2019, the Beyoncé-produced alternative soundtrack for The Lion King, which dragged the sound of Afrobeats into a mainstream spotlight, and the live recording of her extraordinary Coachella performance Homecoming: evidence of an artist committed to taking musical risks, of constantly pushing forward and trying something different.
It makes the release of the first single from her forthcoming album Renaissance all the more surprising. Rather than presenting her audience with something strikingly different, Break My Soul sounds weirdly familiar. It’s a mid-tempo house track based around a keyboard bass sound that – without wishing to be overly technical – very closely resembles setting number 17 on the Korg M1 synthesiser. Even if you’ve never heard of a Korg M1 synthesiser, you’ve heard that sound: it’s the basis of the 1993 Stonebridge remix of Robin S’s Show Me Love and MK’s 1992 remix – or “Dub of Doom” of the Nightcrawlers’ Push the Feeling On, two of the most influential house tracks in recent pop history.