Beyonce Dropped A Bomb Today With "Visual", Joining The Three Most Memorable Promotional Stunts Of 2013 [Pictures]
Beyonce and her management team couldn't have been any sneakier about her new Visual album, dropping a whole record with fourteen accompanying videos right before Christmas. The album, which includes collaborations with the likes of Frank Ocean, Drake and of course Jay Z, didn't drop even the slightest hint prior to the actual release - it's the kind of record industry hijacking that only Beyonce could get away with.
The holiday season isn't typically a busy time for the music industry - with Christmas singles released and assigned their respecive chart positions, yearly industry takings calculated and online traffic dying down, nobody dares to mess with the status quo and release new music in the last two weeks of the year. Nobody except Queen Bey, that is.
In light of Beyonce's move to just drop an album and say "surprise", this might be a good time to take a look back at some of this year's most promoted comebacks and new releases - there were plenty of those to go around.
Gaga fever
- We can't talk about overblown promotional campaigns without mentioning the queen of hype herself, Lady GaGa. Her album ARTPOP represented a comeback after six whole months out of the public eye, as Mommy Monster recovered from a hip injury. Naturally, it had to be a full blown media spectacle, with TV and online appearances, promotional videos featuring Gaga strutting around a forest in the nude, even an appearance at the MTV VMAs. After underwhelming sales, the ARTPOP campaign is set to lose Interscope Records (Gaga's label) $25 million dollars. We're betting that won't be a problem in Beyonce's case.
Timerlake's 2013
- 2013 has to have been the year of Justin Timberlake. The man was everywhere, touring, performing, doing multiple SNL appearances as usual, but it all centered around the 20/20 Experience. After being preceded by a massive promo campaign and being touted as "Justin Timberlake's Big Return" 20/20 went on to perform reasonably well in the charts. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 and sold 968,000 copies in its first week - better than both of Justin's previous efforts, Justified and Future Sex/Love Sounds.
But this isn't why he makes our list. After a successful album release, Timberlake couldn't just stay put and revel in the glory, he had to go and release a whole new album, in the same year, with the leftover songs from 20/20. On September 27, Justin dropped The 20/20 Experience - 2 of 2. It got mixed reviews from critics, but still topped the billboard 200, sold 350,000 copies in its first week and to date has sold more than 650,000 in the US. Together with the original 20/20, that brings Timberlake's 2013 total to over 3 million albums sold in the US alone. Clearly, the man knows a thing or two about promotion.
Now that 2013 is almost wrapped up, all that remains is to see how Beyonce's album does. In any case, by dropping the bomb like that, Bey has cemented her place as one of 2013' most memorable acts. There's a lot to celebrate in the Carter household this holiday season.