There’s a reason they call her Queen Bey.
Beyonce proved she doesn’t need the typical hype machine to hit number one with her latest album.
The 32-year-old dropped her self-titled offering on iTunes without warning on Friday night while her fans slept and now the record is set to hit the number one spot on Billboard, defying all previous industry wisdom.
The undisputed queen: Beyonce is set to hit the number one spot on Billboard with new self-titled album, pictured performing in Chicago on Friday
The singer’s fifth solo album opted out of the standard three month marathon of promotional stints, reviews, and dropping individual singles.
Instead, the trend setter released the entire album in one fell swoop without any fanfare.
And the tactic is clearly working with Bey selling over 450,000 units in one day, according to Billboard.com.
Reason to celebrate: The 32-year-old is set for number one after hitting over 430,000 sales so far
The industry magazine predicts that Beyonce will reach the 600,000 mark within seven days of its release.
Currently the offering is an iTunes exclusive with a retail price of $15.99 with 14 tracks, a release date for the physical CD has yet to be announced.
When she reached the 430,000 over the weekend she was already on the cusp of ranking near Taylor Swift’s record breaking 1.2 million copies for Red in its first week.
Big show: The star is still on her Ms Carter tour
Meanwhile Beyonce brought music giant iTunes to its knees on Friday night as it buckled under the strain of her fans rushing to download her 5th album which she secretly launched at midnight.
Two versions of the self-titled album – one featuring explicit language and another family-friendly version – are currently ranked No.1 and 2 of the iTunes albums chart.
Industry insiders told US magazine Billboard the self-titled album sold 80,000 copies in three hours.
Showcase: Beyonce stars in seventeen videos for her surprise visual album, with the videos shot everywhere from Brazil to her hometown of Houston
Immediately after spreading the news of the album launch, Twitter was awash with frustrated tweets from fans unable to download it.
The social media giant said their early data shows mentions of Beyonce spiked by 500,000-plus tweets after the stealth release.
It said the news generated more than 1.2million tweets in 12 hours, with 5,300 tweets every minute at the height of the hysteria.
The hysteria that ensued was compounded by the fact that Beyonce’s surprise new music came with a collection of 17 music videos which she secretly filmed in Houston, New York City, Paris, Sydney and Rio de Janeiro.
Not only did the unexpected release cause iTunes to temporarily crash due to the overload of eager fans, the singer is now the envy of record companies across the world after managing to keep the much anticipated album a complete secret
Meanwhile, the singing sensation is currently on her Mrs Carter World Tour where she has enraptured fans with her dazzling stage performances.
Whilst Beyoncé is currently dominating the music world, she and her husband Jay Z are taking part in a 22-day vegan diet cleanse which they started on the rapper’s 44th birthday on December 4.
And impressively despite their demanding work schedules the duo have managed to stick to their strict animal free diets.
Source:https://www.dailymail.co.uk