Beyonce’s Evolving Sound and Collaboration Network

Introduction

Beyoncé’s career spans multiple decades, albums, and creative eras. In this project, I explore how her music evolves and how her collaborations reveal a broader creative network.

First, I use track-level Spotify data from Kaggle on Beyoncé’s discography to analyze patterns in audio features and solo versus collaboration tracks. Then I expand outward, using a second dataset constructed via the Spotify Web API that focuses on artists who have collaborated with Beyoncé, examining their own catalogs and collaboration patterns.

Research Questions

  • How has Beyoncé’s music evolved across albums and years in terms of sound and style (energy, danceability, valence, etc)

  • How do Solo and Collaboration tracks differ within Beyoncé’s catalog?

  • What patterns emerge among the artists who collaborate with Beyoncé, based on their own albums, output, and collaboration tendencies?

Data Source and Summary

1.1 Primary Dataset: Beyonce Track-Level Data

Data Dictionary (Key Variables)

Variable Description
track_name Track title
album_name The album the track appears on
release_data Original release date of the track
release_year Release year
is_explicit Whether the track is marked explicit
genres Genre tags from Spotify
danceability Spotify measures how suitable a track is for dancing
eneryg Intensity and activity level
Valance Musical positivity
loundness Overall track loudness (dB)
acousticness Likelihood the track is acoustic
tempo Beats per minute
is_collab “solo” vs “collaboration indicator

1.2 Summary Statistics

n_tracks n_albums min_year max_year avg_danceability avg_energy avg_valence prop_explicit
336 49 2002 2024 0.6126399 0.6824917 0.4903619 0.1517857

Descriptive Analysis of Beyoncé’s Music

2.1 Releases Over Time

2.2 Audio Intensity by Album

2.3 Audio Features Profiles

2.4 Correlation Between Audio Features

             danceability energy valence tempo loudness acousticness speechiness
danceability         1.00   0.25    0.50 -0.03     0.31        -0.41       -0.17
energy               0.25   1.00    0.31  0.10     0.60        -0.60        0.07
valence              0.50   0.31    1.00  0.15     0.28        -0.22       -0.04
tempo               -0.03   0.10    0.15  1.00     0.12        -0.08        0.08
loudness             0.31   0.60    0.28  0.12     1.00        -0.44       -0.31
acousticness        -0.41  -0.60   -0.22 -0.08    -0.44         1.00        0.05
speechiness         -0.17   0.07   -0.04  0.08    -0.31         0.05        1.00

2.5 Solo vs Collaboration Within Beyonce’s Catalog

2.5.1

2.5.2

# A tibble: 2 × 4
  is_collab     total_tracks explicit_tracks prop_explicit
  <chr>                <int>           <int>         <dbl>
1 Collaboration          132               8        0.0606
2 Solo                   204              43        0.211

2.5.3

3.0 Artist Who Collaborate With Beyonce

3.1 Most Frequent Collaborators

3.2

Artists' Independent Collaboration Patterns
Career output and collaboration style beyond Beyoncé
Artist Beyoncé Collabs Total Tracks Albums Collaborative Tracks Solo Tracks Collaboration Rate Avg. Artists/Track
Lady Gaga 20 355 50 122 233 34.4% 1.473239
JAY-Z 12 374 36 189 185 50.5% 1.719251
Childish Gambino 6 103 19 34 69 33.0% 1.407767
James Earl Jones 4 43 3 17 26 39.5% 2.023256
Kendrick Lamar 4 180 35 79 101 43.9% 1.605556
Mr Eazi 4 122 49 75 47 61.5% 2.139344