
In a review for Pitchfork, Danielle Jackson praised the album as a "stunning" preservation of Beyoncé's Coachella performance, commending its focus on historical black artists. She noticed that the live album successfully felt like a greatest hits collection (reimagined to fit the college homecoming theme and marching band) due to its lack of connection to any specific album. Writing for Rolling Stone, Brittany Spanos described the album as "triumphant" and "awe-inspiring". Giacomazzo describes that what makes the album "so classic is that Beyoncé makes clear" that she is "Black Excellence, personified - and in her performance, she makes the audience believe that they, too, are Black Excellence personified". Bernadette Giacomazzo of HipHopDX called the album an "artistically-sound triumph" as well as a "cultural touchstone and, quite possibly, the live album of a generation". Writing for Los Angeles Times, Sonaiya Kelley named Homecoming: The Live Album as "one of the greatest live albums ever", with Makeda Easter adding that the "album is a piece of black history". At Metacritic, it received a weighted average score of 95, based on 6 reviews. Homecoming: The Live Album was met with widespread critical acclaim.
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Critical reception Professional ratings Aggregate scores On October 16, 2020, the vinyl release of the album was announced for December 4 of the same year. The album was released on April 17, 2019, to coincide with the release of Homecoming, a documentary about the Coachella set that premiered on the streaming platform Netflix. Reviewers noted the influence of black feminism on Beyoncé's performance, including her sampling of Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED Talk on feminism and the aforementioned appearances on stage of former collaborators Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams of Destiny's Child as well as her sister Solange writing in Cosmopolitan, Brittney Cooper read Beyoncé's decision to involve these black women in the landmark performance as a gesture of sisterhood.

Journalists also noted that the set incorporated various aspects of black Greek life, such as a step show along with strolling by probates (pledges). Writing for Mic.com, Natelegé Whaley stated that the band consisted of members from various HBCUs and played samples of songs that are often played at an HBCU such as " Swag Surf", " Broccoli", and " Back That Thang Up", along with samples of gospel and go-go music.
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Ī full marching band played during much of the set, accompanied by majorette dancers. The performance has been credited as paying a strong tribute to the HBCU experience. The set sampled Malcolm X and Nina Simone among others. She played a 26-song set to 125,000 concert-goers in attendance as well as millions watching via the live-stream on YouTube and subsequent playback.

įor her April 14 and 21, 2018, performances, some 100 dancers as well as her sister Solange, her husband Jay-Z, and her former girl group Destiny's Child joined Beyoncé on stage. Even prior to Beyoncé's performance, the nickname "Beychella" emerged for the 2018 festival. In its nearly twenty years of existence, the festival has only had two other women solo headliners, Lady Gaga (who replaced Beyoncé in 2017) and Björk (20). Playing her rescheduled dates in 2018, Beyoncé became the first black woman ever to headline the festival. However, on February 23, 2017, she postponed her performance until the following year, due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy with twins (born in June 2017). On January 4, 2017, Beyoncé was announced as a headlining act for the April 2017 Coachella festival. The album was recorded during Beyoncé's 2018 Coachella performance, which was described by many media outlets as historic.

The album accompanied a concert film about the performance, Homecoming, which premiered the same day on the streaming platform Netflix. Two bonus studio tracks – a cover of Maze's song " Before I Let Go" and " I Been On" – follow the live recording, bringing the album's length to just short of two hours.

Recorded in April 2018 at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, the album features the entirety of Beyoncé's performance at the festival, which has since been described as "historic" by a number of music critics and media outlets. Homecoming: The Live Album (stylized in all caps, or as HΘMΣCΘMING: THE LIVE ALBUM) is the fifth live album by American singer-songwriter Beyoncé, released on April 17, 2019.
