AppleInsider Staff
Late Thursday night, Beyonce released her fifth LP on iTunes in what is being billed as an "exclusive visual album," which has taken over the digital storefront's homepage on both Mac and iOS.
For the launch of Beyonce's eponymous record, which came without prior announcement and is available exclusively on iTunes, Apple has replaced the music store's top ad carousel with promo pictures for the "visual album." The swipe-able iOS iTunes app counterpart has been similarly updated.
Along with being Mastered for iTunes, "BEYONCE" is what Columbia Records is calling a visual album, as it includes album-only music videos made to complement each of the 14 new songs. Other LPs released on iTunes may include one or two music videos, but none in recent memory have debuted with fully-produced video features for every track.
In additon to the matched audio/video selections are two bonus videos, one a new cut titled "Yonce" and another for the artist's current hit "Grown Woman." The latter video is a world premier that has yet to hit traditional outlets like MTV. Also included are video credits and the usual digital booklet.
Guest collaborators include JAY Z, Drake, Pharrell Williams, Timbaland, former Destiny's Child member Kelly Rowland, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce's daughter Blue Ivy, among others.
"BEYONCE" is priced at $15.99 and is available in both clean and explicit versions. Individual songs will be available to buy on Dec. 20.
William Gallagher
Amber Neely
Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
Andrew O'Hara
34 Comments
A very nice collection of music and music videos.
Beyoncé rocks !
LOL. Baby's First JavaScript. Huddler spells Beyoncé as "Beyonc?". Told you they couldn't handle ASCII to UTF8 conversions correctly.
[quote name="Suddenly Newton" url="/t/161170/beyonc-drops-surprise-visual-album-on-itunes-debuts-grown-woman-music-video#post_2446072"]LOL. Baby's First JavaScript. Huddler spells Beyoncé as "Beyonc?". Told you they couldn't handle ASCII to UTF8 conversions correctly.[/quote] I can't think of a single thing Huddler can do correctly. Submitting a post gets me an eternal spinnig wheel, no feedback whatsoever: [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/36107/width/350/height/700[/IMG] Thumb-up can be denied: [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/36108/width/350/height/700[/IMG] Then there are your usual WTF's: [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/36109/width/350/height/700[/IMG] And the constant Safari crashes do not help their reputation. I wanted to send them an email on these issues, but knowing past problems and the speeds at which they are fixed, I never mind, posting this resulted in 5 crashes. But yes, Beyoncé. Strange to release 17 video's accompanying an album with 14 tracks. Are looks more important than musicianship?
Beyoncé, AI!? I'll even take Samsung news any day.
With thought provoking and deep lyrics such as:
Who run this motha? Girls!
Who run the world? Girls!
Who are we?
Who are we?
Who are we?
Who run the world?
I'm surprised she can't release an album every few months.