Beyonce released her fifth album overnight on iTunes on Thursday and sent ripples through the well-oiled music industry. No promotion, no announcement – just music and 30-second video clips for 17 songs, 15 of which were new.
On Friday morning, Beyonce explained the reasons for the unexpected release
“I told my team, ‘I want to shoot a video for every song and put them all out at the same time!’ Everyone thought I was crazy, but we’re actually doing it, it’s happening!
“I wanted to make this body of work, and I feel like it’s something that’s lost in pop music. I wanted people to hear things differently and have a first impression. Not just listen to a 10 second clip, but actually be able to see a whole vision of the album. It was important that we made this a movie, we made this an experience.”
Fans of the “Love on Top” pop star reinforced the genius of the innovative idea by purchasing over 80,000 albums on iTunes in the first three hours. By mid-Friday over 200,000 albums were sold. According to Billboard.com, “Beyonce” is slated to land at No. 1 with only three days of sales under its belt.
To put the numbers into perspective, Bey’s last album “4” sold 310,00 over an entire week.
