On a quiet Saturday night, Beyoncé released her sixth, “visual” studio album. She called it Lemonade. And there she was again: taking control of conversations for hours, days, weeks, launching analyses from the most desperate angles, having her life evaluated on our very screens. Beyoncé, staggeringly, was back.

Question is, back for who? Ardent listeners who were on the edge of their seats after she released a video for her song “Formation” last month? Fellow African-American women who, according to Malcolm X, are the most unprotected and disrespected people on Earth? Yes to both, but throughout the album’s 12 tracks, Lemonade is a triumph in both social and self-consciousness as Beyoncé looks to the one person whose concerns are worth writing an album about: herself.

Lemonade came after her world-conquering album, 2013’s Beyoncé, an album so acclaimed that it prompted an abrupt change of heart (She’s a serious artist now!). Other than the forward-thinking, sultry pop sounds she’d sought and thus nailed, Beyoncé also gave birth to the trend of the surprise-release: dropping your album unannounced, dominating conversations for hours and days.

Lemonade is, praise the Lord, a continuation of her recent musical trajectory: It’s a great album in which emotions are treated almost forensically, rendering her personal concerns genuine, her worries honest.

By amassing a horde of producers and writers (including Diplo, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, James Blake and Boots, her prominent collaborator on Beyoncé), there are two ways of looking at Lemonade as an album: cynically, you might think that Beyoncé’s got no sense of authorship on her records.

Or, like me, you might think that Lemonade’s disparate, seguing songs are guided by Beyoncé’s supervision — her views, her stories are hers. This is a collaborative album through and through, so it fares even better when it comes together, which it eventually does.

From New Orleans country (“Daddy’s Lessons”), blues rock (“Don’t Hurt Yourself”) and euphoric RnB (“All Night”) to Afrobeat (“Hold Up”), Lemonade displays a masterclass in progressive pop music. Take opener “Pray You Catch Me”, for instance: synths and piano play on top of Beyoncé’s painstaking vocals before her multi-tracked, choir-like singing gives way to a modest string.

Track “6 Inch” also boasts menacing, hip-hop influenced pop and the heartbreaking “Sandcastles” lets Beyoncé’s piano and golden voice soar. Hell, there’s even a psych-rock sample on “Freedom”!

Speaking of “Freedom”, a thumping, rallying song, it exemplifies Beyoncé’s social consciousness. Being a minority anywhere is hard, no matter what kind of cash she will rake in for this album.

In the experimental art-film accompanying the album for HBO, there was a shot of relatives of Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin, slain African-American guys who prompted an outcry. On both “Freedom” and closer “Formation”, Beyoncé’s restlessness is apparent; nobody’s cries were appropriated for someone’s art.

Lemonade, predominantly, is an album that details, almost surgically, Beyoncé’s marital life. “You gon’ lose your wife,” sings Beyoncé in “Don’t Hurt Yourself” (a collaboration with Jack White), which feels stark and vulnerable. Is Jay Z cheating on her? Why? Lemonade has the closest answers to these questions without shoving it in your face.

Also, Lemonade is an optimistic album, best shown by “All Night”, in which reconciliation seems hinted at. Again, who knows what’s going to happen? Privacy, especially in the scope of an album, can never be truly discovered.

I have a feeling that Beyoncé is at the point where music feels less like a commodity and more like a platform for her art. There’s significant progress in Beyoncé’s music that increasingly steers away from the radio. Part of it is because Lemonade initially streamed on Tidal, of which she’s a co-owner.

No singles preceded the album and, much like her previous one, not much prior announcement welcomed it. As shown by Lemonade, Beyoncé may have taken the world by storm again, but there’s always a good reason we let her do that.

— Stanley Widianto

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