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Best Kept Secret: Beyoncé’s ‘Beyoncé’

Posted on December 16th, 2013
by
Staff Editor


Beyonce-Beyonce-Karen-Civil

Beyoncé shook Twitter and Facebook feeds as excited fans scurried onto iTunes, purchasing 617,000 copies in three days, according to Billboard. How is it possible that Mrs. Carter could drop an album without any forewarning?

“Many other artists who aren’t of Beyoncé’s stature would not have been able to get this done and move it through the system this quickly,” Syd Shwartz said, a former EMI Music Executive who now runs the independent marketing firm Linchpin Digital, in an interview with Rolling Stone. “She obviously had to bypass a lot of the standard mechanisms to make this work.”

Some of these bypasses came in the form of putting a rush on the masters of her tracks and not disclosing the surprise release to the producers, songwriters and other collaborators she worked with. Noah “40” Shebib was one of the many folks Bey worked with that was just as surprised as the rest of her fans. 

“They were pressuring me: ‘We need this mix. We got to get it done. ASAP, ASAP! I fight some people sometimes: ‘Don’t give me the pressure. You’re going to get it. Everybody will be OK. Relax,” 40 explained to Rolling Stone. “And sure enough, they weren’t joking.”

Receiving the news after his manager called and informed him, Caroline Polachek of Chairlift – who wrote and produced “Angel” – didn’t hear the full version of the song until the album hit iTunes.

Keeping up with her Mrs. Carter World Tour, Yoncé managed to make time to hit the studio with the likes of Drake and create the visual elements without missing a beat.

Purchase the 17-track, visual album on iTunes if you haven’t already.

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