Beyoncé became the first visual album to win Album of the Year at the Soul Train Music Awards.
Beyoncé released the self-titled album without advance promotion on December 13, 2013. It arrived with a music video for every song, creating a unified audio-visual album rather than a standard record accompanied by a few promotional clips. The surprise release was distributed through the iTunes Store and quickly became a major event in popular music.
The album includes “Drunk in Love,” “Partition,” “Flawless,” and “Pretty Hurts.” Its visual format influenced later album campaigns and helped make the phrase visual album widely recognizable to mainstream audiences. It is distinct from Lemonade, which also uses an extended film but was released in 2016. The self-titled album’s official name is Beyoncé, while fans and databases sometimes refer to it informally as the “visual album.”