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    Listening to Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ References

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    A tour through key samples, references and influences on the pop star’s 2022 album as her world tour arrives in North America.A scene from the screens at Beyoncé’s North American Renaissance World Tour opener in Toronto.The New York TimesDear listeners,Last weekend, I traveled to Toronto to catch the first North American date of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour. I returned home feeling like the human incarnation of the starry-eyed emoji (so many sparkles!) and with a new appreciation for “Renaissance,” the loose and sprawling album that Beyoncé released this time last year.“Renaissance,” Beyoncé’s seventh studio album, is a sonic odyssey through the history of dance music, with a specific focus on the genre’s Black and queer pioneers. It achieves the perfect balance of many opposing forces: “Renaissance” is studied and referential but still maintains a fun lightness. It celebrates community and a kind of artistic plurality while still centering Beyoncé’s singular star power. It contains a few of Beyoncé’s strongest stand-alone singles and yet plays like a continuous D.J. set: Sometimes I will get an urge to hear one particular song and, before I know it, I will have listened to the rest of the album in its entirety — again!Witnessing the way Beyoncé staged some of these songs live has helped me hear new elements in an album I have already played approximately four billion times. Some of that has to do with the way she contextualized the “Renaissance” songs within the evolution of her own catalog (the vampy, hard-hitting “Diva,” from 2008, sounds like a transmission from Beyoncé’s future), but she also made sure to situate “Renaissance” within a larger continuum of pop music, electronic sounds, and Black and queer culture.That’s a project I’d like to continue with today’s playlist, which is a kind of musical tour of the samples, references and influences heard on “Renaissance.” It is highly indebted to a great piece that the music journalist and electronic dance music scholar Michaelangelo Matos wrote for The Times right after the album was released, which served as a listening guide to its many sonic footnotes.Come along for the ride as Beyoncé pays homage to the Chicago house of Adonis, the postmillennial bounce of Big Freedia, the pulsating bass of Reese and much more. May this playlist help you hear “Renaissance” anew, learn a little about electronic music history or maybe just make like Beyoncé and Grace Jones and move.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Adonis: “No Way Back”One of the formative early classics of Chicago house — a localized subgenre of dance music that spread through the Windy City’s underground club scene in the mid-80s — Adonis’s 1986 track “No Way Back” has a menacing intensity and a grimy low-end that would prove enormously influential … (Listen on YouTube)2. Beyoncé: “Cozy”… and “Cozy,” the second song off “Renaissance,” certainly bears that influence. Production and a writing credit from the Chicago-born D.J. and musician Honey Dijon also add some house-music credibility to this hypnotic track. (Listen on YouTube)3. Chic: “Good Times”Sumptuous, timeless, transcendent — Chic’s glittering “Good Times,” from 1979, remains one of the best-known and most frequently referenced tunes in the history of dance music. Bernard Edwards’s bass line is a thing of beauty, rightly given its own extended solo. (Listen on YouTube)4. Beyoncé: “Cuff It”If you’re going to pay homage to Chic, as Beyoncé does on this groovy disco throwback, you might as well get Nile Rodgers on the track. “When I got called to play on this song, it was the most organic thing that ever happened to me,” Rodgers said, accepting a Grammy when “Cuff It” won best R&B song. (Beyoncé was fashionably late.) “I heard the song and I just said, ‘I wanna play on that. Right now.’ And it was one take, I promise.” (Listen on YouTube)5. Robin S.: “Show Me Love”Driven by the unmistakable sound of the Korg M1 Organ 2, this 1992 hit — technically a remix, by the Swedish producer StoneBridge, of a little-heard 1990 track by Robin Stone — brought house music to the mainstream in the early ’90s, and its much-sampled keyboard riff is still ubiquitous today. (Listen on YouTube)6. Big Freedia: “Explode”Beyoncé first sampled Big Freedia, a.k.a. the Queen of Bounce, on her 2016 hit “Formation.” She once again drew upon the New Orleans musician’s highly flammable energy on “Break My Soul,” which samples her 2014 single “Explode.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Beyoncé: “Break My Soul”A house homage updated with some fresh zaps of New Orleans bounce, the “Renaissance” leadoff single “Break My Soul” was a worthy introduction to the album’s kinetic, highly referential sound. (Though, as the reporter Rich Juzwiak found when speaking to StoneBridge and Robin S., exactly how directly “Break My Soul” references “Show Me Love” is up for debate.) (Listen on YouTube)8. Reese/Kevin Saunderson: “Just Want Another Chance”The term “Reese bass” refers to the dark, warbling low-end that rumbles through the foundation of “Just Want Another Chance,” a pivotal Detroit techno track released by Kevin Saunderson — under the moniker Reese — in 1988. The Reese has become so popular that there are innumerable patches and presets that now replicate Saunderson’s groundbreaking bass sound. (Listen on YouTube)9. Beyoncé: “America Has a Problem”The most bonkers staging on the Renaissance World Tour comes when Beyoncé plays this one live — donning a custom Mugler bee costume and performing from behind a desk like she’s a newscaster attempting to brainwash the world. The Reese-indebted tones give this song, and its live performance, an ominous edge. (Listen on YouTube)10. A.G. Cook: “Beautiful”In the mid-to-late 2010s, the experimental production collective PC Music pushed pop to its most frenetic, gloriously synthetic extremes, reveling in surface sheen and outré ideas. The English producer A.G. Cook was at the forefront of this wave (sometimes called hyperpop), and his zanily infectious “Beautiful,” from the 2015 compilation “PC Music Volume 1,” is emblematic of his distinct sound. (Listen on YouTube)11. Beyoncé: “All Up in Your Mind”Beyoncé goes hyperpop — sort of — on this distorted earworm co-produced by Cook himself. The instrumentation sounds like a malfunctioning computer program, but there’s a growly physicality to Beyoncé’s vocal that gives the song an intriguing textural friction and keeps things in the realm of flesh and blood. (Listen on YouTube)12. Donna Summer: “I Feel Love”Arguably the most innovative and influential dance record of all time, “I Feel Love” is Giorgio Moroder’s wholehearted embrace of electronic music’s nascent, seemingly boundless possibilities. Donna Summer plays the ghost in the machine, unfurling an ecstatic vocal and achieving a kind of cyborgian bliss. (Listen on YouTube)13. Beyoncé: “Summer Renaissance”It’s risky business, referencing the iconic “I Feel Love” as blatantly as Beyoncé does here. But over the course of four-and-a-half minutes of airy falsetto and giddy sass, she effectively makes the argument that quoting Summer is the only way to end an album like “Renaissance.” It’s the ultimate, inevitable conclusion — a fireworks-display finale to this dazzling tour through dance music past, present and future. (Listen on YouTube)Release your wiggle,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ References” track listTrack 1: Adonis, “No Way Back”Track 2: Beyoncé, “Cozy”Track 3: Chic, “Good Times”Track 4: Beyoncé, “Cuff It”Track 5: Robin S., “Show Me Love”Track 6: Big Freedia: “Explode”Track 7: Beyoncé, “Break My Soul”Track 8: Reese/Kevin Saunderson, “Just Want Another Chance”Track 9: Beyoncé, “America Has a Problem”Track 10: A.G. Cook, “Beautiful”Track 11: Beyoncé, “All Up in Your Mind”Track 12: Donna Summer, “I Feel Love”Track 13: Beyoncé: “Summer Renaissance”Bonus tracksSpeaking of dance floor anthems that pull knowingly from house music history: I am very much digging Troye Sivan’s new single “Rush.” I don’t know if the Song of the Summer is a thing anymore, or if it ever really was, but I nonetheless appreciate him making a run for it.“Rush” is just one of the 11 new songs we recommend in this week’s Playlist. Check out the full selection, featuring tracks by Billie Eilish, Jamila Woods and Jlin, here. More

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      11 Songs That Will Make You Want to Move

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      The key to a great exercise playlist, our critic writes, is a mix of novelty and familiarity.Kirn Vintage Stock/Corbis, via Getty ImagesDear listeners,I have heard some truly horrific music at the gym.I am loathe to even tell you about it, but if I must: I have been subjected to an EDM remix of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge” and a clubby re-imagination of Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” I have heard Iggy Azalea songs that are not “Fancy.” I have experienced things I have had to purge from my memory in order to carry on.The pandemic forced me, like so many of us, to find ways to work out at home. This was sometimes difficult, and once involved lugging a 20-pound kettlebell nearly a mile home from Target — do not recommend — but it also meant I had much more freedom to determine what I listened to while swinging my new gear around. I started seeking out YouTube workouts without background music, or ones I could do with the sound off. And, naturally, I started making playlists. A bunch of them, actually.For me, a successful exercise playlist combines novelty and familiarity. It mostly functions to distract my brain from the fact that I am exerting myself and sweating profusely and would much rather not be doing those things, so ideally I want to switch things up to help the time pass. But I also appreciate when a song I know and love comes on when I need some extra motivation. Whether dancing or working out, sometimes moving your body to a song you already know can make you appreciate it in new ways.I’ve been fine-tuning this playlist for a while, rotating songs out when I get tired of them, or tinkering with the sequencing. I like the way it combines some more recent artists with their influences and forebears (a dynamic explicitly captured by Daft Punk’s great, shouted-out homage to its heroes, “Teachers,” from what itself is now a dance music landmark, “Homework,” from 1997). This is not the playlist I go to for my most high-intensity workouts or runs, though I’ll definitely share one of those in a future Amplifier. This is instead something slightly more sustained and intermittently low-key — a playlist I’d listen to when doing a strength-training routine, a jog or a very brisk walk.Rest assured, you are not required to move a muscle while listening to it. Maybe you just need an energetic, gradually crescendoing pick-me-up in the middle of a long workday. But be forewarned: There’s always a chance these songs will inspire a spontaneous dance party.Listen along here on Spotify as you read.1. Caroline Polachek: “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings (A.G. Cook Remix)”A.G. Cook, one of the wily masterminds behind the PC Music collective, reworked this dreamy version of a fun, flirty Caroline Polachek single from her 2019 album, “Pang.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Jessie Ware: “Free Yourself”The British pop musician Jessie Ware — my personal favorite instigator of a recent disco revival — found a new groove with her great 2020 album, “What’s Your Pleasure?” She released this thumping, house-inflected jam last year as what seemed like a one-off single, but it will also appear on her next album, “That! Feels Good!,” which comes out later this month. (Listen on YouTube)3. Anita Ward: “Ring My Bell”Speaking of disco, why not go straight to the source with this blissful, weightless 1979 hit? I’m a fan of the eight-minute extended mix myself, but in the interest of keeping things moving, I opted for the three-and-a-half-minute single edit here. (Listen on YouTube)4. Giorgio Moroder: “From Here to Eternity”The ascending synthesizer arpeggios make this title track from Giorgio Moroder’s landmark 1977 album feel truly heavenly. (The opening vocoder line is a little callback to that A.G. Cook remix earlier in the playlist, too.) (Listen on YouTube)5. Yaeji: “Raingurl”The New York-born songwriter and D.J. Yaeji strays from her dance-music roots a bit on “With a Hammer,” the eclectic debut album she put out earlier this month. But for the purposes of this playlist, I prefer this playful and pulsating cult favorite from 2017. (Listen on YouTube)6. Daft Punk: “Teachers”The iconic French duo nods to the artists who inspire them on this fluid and funky cut from the group’s 1997 breakout album, “Homework.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique featuring Maluca: “Love Is Free”The euphoric 2015 EP “Love Is Free” marked the final collaboration between Swedish pop star Robyn and her longtime friend, the late producer and D.J. Christian Falk. This kinetic, house-inspired title track is the project’s undeniable highlight. (Listen on YouTube)8. Alicia Keys: “In Common (Xpect Remix)”A minor Alicia Keys hit that should have been a massive one, “In Common” inspired its own remix EP featuring re-workings by four different producers. I like this one by Xpect, which dials up the original’s Afrobeats sound. (Listen on YouTube)9. Todd Edwards: “Shall Go”The garage pioneer Todd Edwards got a shout-out from Daft Punk on the aforementioned “Teachers” — and then he started working with the group on later albums “Discovery” and “Random Access Memories.” I love this transcendent title track from his 2012 EP “Shall Go.” (Listen on YouTube)10. Daphni: “Yes, I Know”Also from 2012, here’s a soulful and transfixing track from the dance project of Dan Snaith (who also records as Caribou), centered around a memorable sample from Buddy Miles’s 1971 song “The Segment.” (Listen on YouTube)11. Britney Spears: “Stronger”Oops! I just couldn’t resist. (Listen on YouTube)Pump it up,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“11 Songs That Will Make You Want to Move” track listTrack 1: Caroline Polachek, “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings (A.G. Cook Remix)”Track 2: Jessie Ware, “Free Yourself”Track 3: Anita Ward, “Ring My Bell”Track 4: Giorgio Moroder, “From Here to Eternity”Track 5: Yaeji, “Raingurl”Track 6: Daft Punk, “Teachers”Track 7: Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique featuring Maluca, “Love Is Free”Track 8: Alicia Keys, “In Common (Xpect Remix)”Track 9: Todd Edwards, “Shall Go”Track 10: Daphni, “Yes, I Know”Track 11: Britney Spears, “Stronger”Your workout mixI’m always looking for new additions to my workout playlist, and would love to know the songs that help you forget the pain of a squat or push you through an extra mile.So tell me: What’s a song that never fails to pump you up? And what is it about the song that motivates you?Let me know by filling out this form here. We may use your response in an upcoming newsletter. More

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      Tom Whitlock, Co-Writer of ‘Top Gun’ Anthem ‘Danger Zone,’ Dies at 68

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      Mr. Whitlock wrote the words for that song and the chart-topping “Take My Breath Away,” central elements in the success of the hit 1986 movie.Tom Whitlock, who co-wrote two songs that helped elevate the 1986 movie “Top Gun” into a pop-culture phenomenon, died on Saturday in Gallatin, Tenn. He was 68.His death was confirmed by Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home, which did not cite a cause.The “Top Gun” songs “Danger Zone” and “Take My Breath Away,” with words by Mr. Whitlock and music by Giorgio Moroder, were just two of the more than 100 songwriting credits he accrued over his career. Songs he helped write were performed and recorded by Bonnie Tyler, Ray Charles, Graham Nash and others. But the work he did with Mr. Moroder for “Top Gun,” the hit Tom Cruise movie about fighter jets and machismo, has especially endured.Mr. Whitlock worked frequently with Mr. Moroder. Together they wrote five songs for the movie, but two in particular achieved widespread acclaim.“Danger Zone,” performed by Kenny Loggins, served as the guitar-heavy, energetic scene setter for the movie’s opening moments, as fighter jets roared off into the sky. The lyrics spoke for an unapologetic thrill seeker, culminating in the oft-repeated line “Highway to the danger zone.” The song reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It was also featured on the soundtrack of the hit 2022 sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick.”Even more successful was “Take My Breath Away,” the soulful ballad performed by the group Berlin that was heard in a love scene. It topped the Billboard charts on Sept. 13, 1986, and won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for best original song.Thomas Ross Whitlock was born on Feb. 20, 1954, in Springfield, Mo., to Ross and Peg Whitlock. He started playing the drums when he was 11 years old, he said in a 2014 interview archived on the website rediscoverthe80s.com, and was soon working professionally.After attending Drury University in Springfield and playing in a short-lived band, he moved to Los Angeles. He was helping a friend at a sound studio there when Mr. Moroder, an already accomplished musician who had just bought the studio, said he was having issues with the brakes on his Ferrari, Mr. Whitlock said in the interview. Mr. Whitlock bought some brake fluid, used his own tools and fixed the issue. A few weeks later, he was hired to do odd jobs in the studio.After other people had left the studio for the day, he would stay and work on his own songs. And when other songwriters weren’t around, he recalled, Mr. Moroder turned to Mr. Whitlock for help on the “Top Gun” lyrics.He also wrote lyrics for the theme songs for the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1990 FIFA World Cup.His marriage to Hollie Whitlock ended in divorce. Survivors include his sister, Mary Whitlock Schweitzer. More

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      in Movies

      What an ’80s Feeling: ‘Flashdance' Turns 40

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      The film helped bring breaking into the mainstream. Over the years, it also became famous for the subs and doubles of its star, Jennifer Beals.At the climax of a strip routine, a young woman in silhouette arches back across a chair and pulls a cord. A cascade of water drenches her flexed body.In a leotard and leg warmers, the same woman stretches and runs in place, her wet hair flinging moisture as she shakes and rolls her head.Still in the leotard and leg warmers, she faces a panel of judges at an audition— jog-skipping while pumping her arms high, turning and turning, diving into a somersault, spinning her on back.These and other moments from the 1983 movie “Flashdance” still circulate in cultural memory, loved and mocked and recognized, even by people who never saw the film. On Monday, in honor of its 40th anniversary, New Yorkers get a rare chance to watch it on a big screen, as the closing selection of this year’s Dance on Camera Festival at Film at Lincoln Center. Get ready to cheer or jeer.Jennifer Beals, the star of “Flashdance,” in the off-the-shoulder sweatshirt she made famous.Everett Collection“So many people hold it in a special place,” Michael Trusnovec, a curator of the festival, said, noting how the movie’s style permeated the Long Island dance studios that he grew up in. He also pointed to how “Flashdance” had affected fashion: the sweatshirts with the neck hole cut to fall off one shoulder. And he stressed how dancers, including those inspired by the brief appearance of B-boys, had gravitated to the movie, thinking: “That’s what I want to do. I want to be that.”Beyond dance, much of the movie’s staying power comes from the soundtrack, especially Michael Sembello’s “Maniac” and Giorgio Moroder’s “What a Feeling,” sung by Irene Cara. The songs support sequences that are essentially music videos, which is how those scenes (the jogging workout, the audition) became ubiquitous on MTV — and why they still circulate online. Cara’s voice connects “Flashdance” to “Fame,” the 1980 movie with her hit title song, just as the supporting actress Cynthia Rhodes connects it to “Dirty Dancing,” from 1987. It’s an ’80s dance-film node.Beals in the movie’s freak-out scene.Paramount Pictures, via Getty ImagesThere’s some fondness for the plot, too. Set in Pittsburgh, it’s a follow-your-dreams story and a Cinderella tale. Alex — Jennifer Beals in the role that made her a star — is a welder by day and dances in a burlesque club at night (occasioning not just the famous water-drenched number but also a freak-out in white Kabuki makeup amid strobe lights). Her dream is to be accepted into a prestigious dance conservatory. By the end, she gets in, and she gets the guy, her older boss at the steel mill.Over the years, the film has acquired a kind of notoriety, too, because Beals did so little of Alex’s dancing. Most was performed by a French dancer, Marine Jahan. And in the climactic audition scene, there were more doubles: the gymnast Sharon Shapiro for the dive into the roll; and for the backspin, the 16-year-old B-boy Richard Colon, better known as Crazy Legs.Richard Colon, better known as Crazy Legs, doubling for Beals.Paramount Pictures, via Getty ImagesInitially, Colon said in an interview, he was brought in to teach the other doubles — on the day before shooting. That wasn’t enough time, so the director, Adrian Lyne, asked him to perform the backspin himself, in a leotard and wig, after shaving his legs and his newly grown mustache.“I was this little arrogant Puerto Rican from the Bronx with all this machismo,” Colon said. “I put my hands up to Lyne’s face and rubbed my fingers together, like, ‘You gotta pay me.’”They paid enough, Colon said. And in the next decades, the residual checks “definitely came in handy,” he added, as did his joke about being the first in hip-hop to dress in drag.Colon was known to the filmmakers because he was already in the movie. He and a few other members of the pioneering B-boy group Rock Steady Crew appear in another scene, when Alex discovers them dancing with a boombox on the sidewalk.To the B-boy anthem “It’s Just Begun” by the Jimmy Castor Bunch, Normski pops and locks like a windup robot, Ken Swift and Crazy Legs spin on their backs and Mr. Freeze holds an umbrella while doing the backslide, just before Michael Jackson made that decades-old move famous as the Moonwalk. This one-minute sequence had an outsized impact.“It’s impossible to overestimate the significance of ‘Flashdance’ in the history of breaking,” said Joseph Schloss, the author of “Foundation: B-boys, B-girls and Hip-Hop Culture in New York.” “That one scene pretty much single-handedly brought breaking into the mainstream.”Some members of Rock Steady were at first hesitant to be in the movie. “We didn’t practice with other groups,” Colon said, “because it was all about the element of surprise.” Marc Lemberger, better known as Mr. Freeze, said he was afraid that other dancers would “bite our moves”— steal them.A scene from “Flashdance.”Parmount PicturesAfter the movie’s release, the crew “became instant ghetto celebrities,” Colon said. “There was lots of love and lots of jealousy.” They got on the David Letterman show and into “Beat Street,” one of a few breaking-themed movies that came out the next year. “Flashdance” is connected to that part of the ’80s, too.The Hollywood interest was a quick fad, but breaking lived on. For decades, Colon said, he would meet people who sneaked into “Flashdance” just to see that one scene, people who saw themselves in the dance, many of them far from the Bronx.“When you talk to people in different hip-hop dance scenes around the world,” Schloss said, “almost inevitably they will say, ‘Well, the first time we saw it was in ‘Flashdance.’”In “Planet B-boy,” a 2008 documentary focused on the international B-boy competition Battle of the Year, dancers from Japan, Germany and France all testify to that effect. (And where did the director of the film, Benson Lee, get idea for the documentary? From rewatching “Flashdance” and wondering what had happened to the form.)The ripples from the scene can also be felt in “Top Nine,” a new documentary getting its world premiere at Dance on Camera just before “Flashdance.” It’s about the Russian B-boy crew Top 9, formed around 20 years ago.Its members tell their story of banding together, improving their skills and gaining global respect for Russian B-boys. They win Battle of Year in 2008, beating a dominant Korean crew. That glory doesn’t solve their money problems — this isn’t a “Flashdance” fairy tale — but they keep dancing.Through it all, they don’t mention “Flashdance,” but listen to the song they use to win in 2008: “It’s Just Begun.” And when some of them start a festival in St. Petersburg, which masters do they import? Ken Swift and Crazy Legs. More