Last night Beyoncé released a new album simply titled “Beyoncé”, unbeknownst to the general public and without any type of promotion. The album, directly available through iTunes, has 14 songs and 17 videos featuring artists like Drake, Jay-Z, Frank Ocean, and her daughter Blue Ivy Carter. She appropriately calls this a “visual album” because she “sees music.” In a video posted to Beyoncé’s Facebook and Instagram, Beyoncé says that she “wanted people to hear the songs with the story that’s in my head, ‘cause it’s what makes it mine.”
Beyoncé’s album is innovative because it includes more videos than songs and has a music video to accompany every song; in a time when artists release just a couple of music videos every year, the sheer number of videos on this new album is unique. Beyoncé expresses her desire for this album to be an “immersive experience” like what she experienced growing up, when watching the “Thriller” music video was an event for her entire family. She laments that, “I feel like right now, people experience music differently… Now, people only listen to a few seconds of a song on their iPod; they don’t really invest in a whole album. It’s all about the single and the hype. There’s so much that gets between the music and the artist and the fans.” With this new visual album, Beyoncé has given her fans the intended immersive visual and musical experience. Part of this is cleverly strategic: songs and videos on her new album are not available for individual purchase on iTunes. The album must be bought in its entirety.
Beyoncé’s regret that music is now condensed into the single is not unique to the music industry. I’m sure that most politicians would agree, and regret, that their statements must now be fitted into a one-liner or 140-character Tweet to keep up with the 24-hour news cycle and public demand for instant updates. Luckily for Beyoncé, she can engineer (and afford) an album release that, for now, has no singles and had no promotional hype but will still be hugely successful and profitable. Whether this model is applicable to other artists, especially those without Beyoncé’s fame, is unknown. For now, though, I’ll be immersing myself in all that “Beyoncé” has to offer.