Beyoncé was the visual album released without a traditional pre-release announcement in 2013.
Beyoncé released the self-titled album exclusively through the iTunes Store on December 13, 2013. The surprise launch was accompanied by music videos for every song, making the project both an audio album and a visual album. The sudden release changed expectations for how major artists could introduce new music.
The album contains fourteen songs and seventeen videos. It includes “Drunk in Love,” “Partition,” “Flawless,” and “Pretty Hurts,” and features guest appearances from Jay-Z, Frank Ocean, Drake, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Beyoncé described the visual format as a way to let listeners experience the music through images as well as sound.
The record is sometimes confused with Lemonade, another Beyoncé visual album released in 2016. Lemonade was introduced through an HBO film and promotional rollout, whereas Beyoncé’s defining innovation was its sudden, unannounced digital release.