Solange's new album gets raves: She and sister Beyonce set music record
Solange Knowles and her sister, Beyonce, are now reportedly the only two sisters to both have achieved a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. Knowles's 'Seat' has been receiving extremely positive reviews.
Solange Knowles arrives at the 2014 MTV Music Video Awards in Inglewood, California. Knowles's new album, 'A Seat at the Table,' is receiving rave reviews.
Kevork Djansezian/Reuters
Singers Beyonce and Solange Knowles reportedly have become the first sisters to both have achieved a No. 1 album as critics rave about Solange Knowles’ recent release, “A Seat at the Table."
According to Billboard, the Knowles sisters are now part of a rare group of sibling duos that have both had an album reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart, which measures album sales. Michael and Janet Jackson achieved this and so did rapper Silkk the Shocker and his brother Master P (who in fact appears on Solange Knowles’s new album).
Beyonce’s “Lemonade,” which was released this past spring, was her most recent work to reach No. 1 and now Solange Knowles’ new work “A Seat at the Table” has achieved that ranking as well.
Solange Knowles’s album “Seat” was released on Sept. 30 and the album has been incredibly well-received by music critics.
Los Angeles Times writer Gerrick D. Kennedy called the album “an ambitious meditation on black life … exquisite, sumptuous … identity, empowerment, independence, rage, grief and healing are a conduit of the album … a potent work of black empowerment and protest that comes at a crucial time. It’s topical and urgent, reflecting the anger and unease of this divisive political season.”
Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot was also impressed, writing that the album is “a major statement about what it means to be a woman of color in America … This is deeply personal music that never becomes solipsistic – her lyrics reflect the culture that shaped her through her personal travails … ‘Cranes in the Sky’ may be the album's loveliest song (among many contenders).”
And Rolling Stone writer Maura Johnston awarded it four stars out of five, writing that the album is “a fantastic-sounding LP that takes sonic cues from dusty soul sides while sounding as timely as a freshly sent tweet … a stunning statement that redefines the old chestnut about the personal being political.”