Beyoncé pioneered how music is released with the drop of her 2013 eponymous album, which shifted the industry-wide consensus. She also introduced the “visual album” in the digital age with Beyoncé, a new platform everyone from Kanye West, Sia, Halsey, and Frank Ocean, has followed since.
While steadily gaining full artistic freedom in controlling how and when her music is marketed and released, throughout her 30-plus-year career, Beyoncé has always strived to do things her way, from experimenting sonically with everything from chillwave, trip-hop, electronica, doo-wop, house, rock, reggae, and more. With the release of Cowboy Carter in 2024, Beyoncé moved more boundaries out of her way, diving deeper into country music from her first dip with “Daddy Lessons” in 2016.
Along the way, Beyoncé has changed music history by establishing new ways of releasing and experiencing music. Here’s a look at four ways Beyoncé has been a trailblazer of change within the music industry.
Videos by American Songwriter
1. New Release Friday (Not Tuesday)
The release of Beyoncé in 2013 bypassed the longtime industry standard of dropping new music on Tuesday. The industry schedule started in the 1980s to generate the most accurate report of physical album sales over a weekend, long before the digital era. The release of Beyoncé caused a title wave of more releases moving to the new day slot and became the new norm of a Friday release, which had already been adopted in Germany and Australia.
After several months of back-and-forth, in 2015 the record industry decided to release albums worldwide on Fridays. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry also found that most consumers preferred new music to come out on Friday or Saturday over Tuesday. Friday was also the day when more consumers had more time to shop online or in-store and had the greatest activity on social media, helping to magnify the buzz around new releases.
2. The Visual Album
Though The Beatles could technically be credited with releasing the first visual album A Hard Day’s Night and the accompanying musical film in 1964, Beyoncé was the first to bring it into modern, digital times, with music videos.
Along with her Friday release of Beyoncé in 2013, which went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and the R&B/Hip-Hop charts, Bey also released it as a visual album. The 14 tracks of Beyoncé, including the hit “Drunk in Love,” were accompanied by 17 music videos shot everywhere from Paris to Rio de Janeiro—and even on the Coney Island Cyclone in Brooklyn, New York (“XO”).
“I see music,” said Beyoncé in 2013. “It’s more than just what I hear. When I’m connected to something, I immediately see a visual or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion, a memory from my childhood, thoughts about life, my dreams or my fantasies. And they’re all connected to the music.”
3. A Full Digital Release
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé released her self-titled fifth album in the early morning hours, exclusively on the iTunes Store, without any prior promotion or announcement.
Beyoncé debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and became Beyoncé’s fifth consecutive chart-topping album and the fastest-selling album on iTunes, at the time.
4. The Surprise Release
In 2007, Radiohead released the precursor to the “Surprise Album” or “Surprise Release” with their seventh album In Rainbows. Free of their label at the time, the band revealed the album just 10 days before its release. In 2011, David Bowie began secretly recording his 25th album The Next Day, when everyone believed he had already retired, and released it two years later, on his 66th birthday.
Leave it to Beyoncé to push strategies a few notches by releasing her self-titled album as a complete surprise. The surprise move was to avoid a repeat leak of the album, which happened with her previous, fourth release, 4, in 2011. Outside of a few people, Beyoncé was kept from the public until its release date.
“I didn’t want to release my music the way I’ve done it,” said Beyoncé of using word-of-mouth and secrecy around an album release. “I am bored with that. I feel like I am able to speak directly to my fans. There’s so much that gets between the music, the artist, and the fans. I felt like I didn’t want anybody to give the message when my record [was] coming out. I just want this to come out when it’s ready and from me to my fans.”
In 2016, Beyoncé continued this element of surprise and released her sixth album, Lemonade, and its videos as a one-hour special on HBO.
Since Beyoncé, more artists have played with the art of secrecy around their releases, including husband Jay-Z who secretly dropped Magna Carta Holy Grail in 2013. Other artists followed the path with U2 and their Songs Of Innocence in 2014; Drake‘s 2015 album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late; Ariana Grande‘s thank u, next in 2019; and Taylor Swift‘s dual surprise release of Folklore, followed by Evermore five months later, among many more.
Photo: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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