Some things you may not know about Beyonce’s new album

As you’ve probably already realised, the world was caught completely off-guard yesterday with the unveiling of Beyonce’s fifth studio album, released simultaneously around the world coinciding with its imminent announcement. Whilst everyone knew a new album was on its way, the entire secrecy around the project (unveiling, release, a video for EVERY SINGLE TRACK) surpassed even Bowie’s earlier 2013 shock announcement of new material, and eclipsed Timberlake’s “I’m Ready” PR spin from January.

We’ve put together a few pointers that fans may not have been weary of when it’s come to the new Beyonce release…. most are true, some we’ve made up just for kicks, but hey, read on below:

– The project was full of code-names; most recently (and widely-used) was Lily, in the hope people wouldn’t latch on. It worked.
– The release was originally always planned for Q4, however was strongly considered to be moved to Q1 2014 due to the heavy release structure already appearing during the winter-months (Gaga, Eminem, Katy Perry).
– Beyonce was fearful that the album would commercially fail due to Boyzone’s new return to the charts.
– The final album started to take shape in late-October.
– The deadline for the record wasn’t even confirmed until late last-week!!
– Beyonce had originally planned to release the album on cassette-only to help boost flagging sales of the format, but upheaved that idea ten minutes after she thought of it.
– The singer was still working on the final vocals up until less than two weeks ago!
– Producers involved in the final release were only informed last week.
– Hardly ANYONE knew about the record until the last moment (Columbia/Sony employees were only told about the cut a few hours before the rest of the world).
– Only the most senior of executives at iTunes knew of the release (externally from the label).
– The album will be released on most formats after iTunes’ one-week exclusivity finishes next Friday.
– Drunk In Love and Blow are both set for simultaneous releases as singles next week.

So there we have it! Hit the iTunes link below to download now, and take a watch of a preview of every video off the album too.