Beyoncé was the album released through a surprise digital launch without a prior announcement.
Beyoncé is Beyoncé's fifth solo studio album, released on December 13, 2013. It appeared on the iTunes Store with no traditional pre-release campaign, advance singles, or public announcement of the release date. The unexpected strategy quickly became known as a “surprise” or “visual” album release.
Every song on the album was paired with a music video, making the project a unified audio-visual work rather than a standard album rollout. The track list includes “Drunk in Love,” “Partition,” “Flawless,” and “Pretty Hurts.” Jay-Z appears on “Drunk in Love,” while Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is sampled in “Flawless.”
The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and earned Beyoncé the Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album. It is sometimes confused with Lemonade, which also used a highly controlled visual presentation, but Lemonade was released in 2016 after a televised premiere and a different promotional campaign.