All 8 of Beyoncé's solo albums, ranked by critics

Metacritic score: 62/100

What critics said: "The album's songs are divided into two parts, ballads of a purported personal nature on the first disc and more aggressive club tracks attributed to the singer's newly christened doppelganger on the second.

"It's a momentum-murdering formula that makes for not only a disjointed listening experience but, with the slow songs presented first, an incoherent narrative. This problem would be negligible, particularly in the age of iTunes, if it weren't clear that Beyoncé intended to make an Album and wants it to be consumed as such." — Sal Cinquemani, Slant Magazine

Metacritic score: 63/100

What critics said: "Whether or not she got the credit, the slick-tongue style she perfected on 'Say My Name' was a mini-revolution in R&B. And 'Dangerously in Love,' her solo debut, confirms her taste for innovation. 'Dangerously,' which the singer coproduced and almost entirely cowrote, is more about moving on from Destiny's Child's frothy aesthetic than competing with the current crop of singing sensations." — Neil Drumming, Entertainment Weekly

Metacritic score: 70/100

What critics said: "Beyoncé sounds more relaxed as a singer, expanding on the Tina Turner resemblances she's been toying with recently, her performances growing ever-more instinctive and unpredictable in their appropriations of soul hollering." — Tim Finney, Pitchfork

Metacritic score: 73/100

What critics said: "As modern as Beyoncé has allowed herself to be over the years, from tech-savvy club R&B with Destiny's Child to the insistent pancultural stomp of 'Run the World (Girls),' on this new album, she has always been a torch singer in waiting, anticipating the day when she could just get down to business." — Jon Caramanica, The New York Times

Metacritic score: 85/100

What critics said: "'Beyoncé,' her fifth solo album, repositions the singer as the Houston-bred Yoncé, a woman lustier and surlier than B, more playful than Bey, fiercer than Sasha but softer and more natural than the lot. The album is brassy but elegant, its post-coital breath smelling faintly of cheap liquor sipped from a crystal flute. It finds Beyoncé shifting gears to pull off her most explicit and sonically experimental music to date, exploring sounds and ideas at the grittier margins of popular music." — Carrie Battan, Pitchfork

Metacritic score: 91/100

What critics said: "What a good time this thing is. All 16 songs hail from someplace with a dance floor — night clubs, strip clubs, ballrooms, basements, Tatooine. Most of them are steeped in or conducted entirely with Black queer bravado. And on nearly every one, Beyoncé sounds like she's experiencing something personally new and privately glorious: unmitigated ecstasy. It takes different forms: bliss, obviously; but a sexy sternness, too. The exercise of control is as entertaining on this album as the exorcism of stress." — Wesley Morris, The New York Times

Metacritic score: 91/100

What critics said: "Like everything Beyoncé has done, specifically in the last decade of her career, 'Cowboy Carter' is a college dissertation of an album: richly researched and meticulously constructed. And while she has something to prove to a whole musical community, it's more of a love letter to her Southern roots than strictly a honky-tonkin' romp." — Brittany Spanos, Rolling Stone

"Following the footsteps of 'Renaissance,' the best album of 2022, 'Cowboy Carter' is part of an ongoing trilogy that probes the limits of genre — and, crucially, the roles that race and gender play in imposing those limits. Beyoncé is the perfect and perhaps only musician alive who could stage such an experiment with this level of mastery, foresight, and cultural impact." — Callie Ahlgrim, Business Insider

Metacritic score: 92/100

What critics said: "It is the perfect combination of the sharp songwriting of '4' with the visual storytelling acumen of her self-titled record. Here, we see Beyoncé fully coming into her own: wise, accomplished, and in defense of herself. Many artists struggle with finding the right balance, but then Beyoncé is not like many artists. Rather than mold to the conformity of contemporary music, she leans firmly into her own instincts and vision." — Britt Julious, Consequence