The album was not made public until its release was announced by Beyoncé and Jay-Z while onstage at a London concert for their On the Run II Tour and later through their social media accounts.

Plans about a joint album by the couple were announced by Jay-Z during an interview with The New York Times in 2017 when he said that they used "art almost like a therapy session" to create new music.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z co-produced all of the songs on the album themselves, with further producers including Pharrell, Cool & Dre, Boi-1da, Jahaan Sweet, David Andrew Sitek, D'Mile, El Michels, Fred Ball, Illmind, MeLo-X, Mike Dean and Nav.

[5] "Like the fifth act of a hip-hop and R&B Shakespearean comedy, Everything Is Love finds our lovers reunited, their misunderstandings resolved, their vows renewed (Beyoncé: 'you fucked up the first stone/ we had to get remarried'), and their family looking ahead to decades of more peaceful prosperity.

[9] Alexis Petridis found the music more rooted in hip hop than R&B,[10] as did Jogai Bhatt of The Spinoff, who viewed it as a departure from "the sort of contemporary R&B traditionally associated with Beyoncé.

"[11] Craig Jenkins from Vulture said the singer played the role of an "R&B heavyweight" doubling as a "formidable rapper" throughout the album, showcasing her talents for vocal belting and complex rap cadences.

[12] The album contains lyrics about the couple's romantic love, lavish lifestyle, media worship, wealth, black pride and fame; themes that were found to be characteristic of the whole record.

[13] Time magazine's Maura Johnston regarded the album as another "blockbuster duet in R&B and hip-hop"; comparable to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's soul songs from the 1960s and the 1995 Method Man and Mary J. Blige recording "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By"; while incorporating contemporary elements in the form of trap beats, critical references to the National Football League and the Grammy Awards, and playing with "public perceptions of the duo's relationship".

[14] Jenkins said it extolled African-American entrepreneurship while presenting Jay-Z as "a doting father and husband, an entrepreneur and altruist with ideas about how everyone else should handle their businesses, a king-tier braggart, and a rap legend".

[21] Reviewing the album for The New York Times, Joe Coscarelli said it "completes the Knowles-Carter conceptual trilogy"—referring to the previous releases of Lemonade and 4:44—"in an expert, tactical showing of family brand management".

Instead they are coming out fighting, with all that fame and money making them defensive, even paranoid, while a mix of classic soul, hard-hitting hip-hop and slinky R&B.

"[1] Pitchfork contributor Briana Younger wrote that the album "is a compromise between the spoils of Lemonade's war and the fruits of 4:44's labor", and that "within this complex, messy and beautifully black display, the Carters find absolution.

[32] Everything is Love debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, earning 123,000 album-equivalent units, (including 70,000 copies as pure album sales) in its first week.