American singer Beyoncè released her self-titled fifth studio album today, which is exclusively available on iTunes and is notably dominating the digital music store's rotating carousel.
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The album, dubbed a "visual album" because each song comes with an accompanying music video, has seen an unprecedented marketing push from Apple within the iTunes Store, receiving all the attention of the promotion carousel at the top of the store and even spawning a "Beyoncè albums" section where users can see her four other albums and anthology album.
Apple has previously offered exclusive streaming for certain albums, like David Bowie's The Next Day, leveraging iTunes dominant position in the digital music landscape.
Beyoncè is available now for $15.99, with individual song and video sales starting on December 20.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)not gonna lie, its refreshing to have an album simply come out without all this countdown and preview clip bs on social media. feels like 2003 again
Of course she's going to take all of the advertising spaces. She's B.E.Y.O.N.CE. All you haters need to sit down.
We aren't haters. Beyonce should be better than that.
I'm going to get flak for this (probably mainly because it's Beyoncé and it's hard to find anyone that hates her) but I'm on the side of "this is stupid."
I have nothing against her, or her music, but dominating the big advertising spots is stupid. There are other albums coming out that could really benefit from those spots (such as Childish Gambino's new album that released a few days ago) whereas Beyoncé is so well established to the point that all you need to say is "Beyoncé has a new album available now" and the rest will take care of itself.
It would make sense to have her take up one of those spots as with all major releases, but to steal away ALL of the largest advertising spaces is nothing but bad business for the rest of everyone.
Then again, of course the "popular" music is always what's on the front page. The real gems are the music that are not.. that.