Double surprise!
Beyoncé shocked the world by releasing her eponymous fifth album at midnight on Thursday, but it wasn’t just the music that surprised her fans.
Also included in the package were videos to accompany every single track, as the concept was to create a “visual album.”
Combined, both the music and videos run for almost two and half hours in total.
“I see music — it’s more than just what I hear,” the singer said in a video statement posted on her Facebook page. “I wanted people to hear the songs with the story that’s in my head.”
Here’s our track-by-track, video-by-video breakdown.
Pretty Hurts
Song: ★ ★ ½
The comeback kicks off with a sweeping but sad ballad that encapsulates the emotional pain of being adored for your looks. “It’s the soul that needs the surgery,” says Beyoncé in the chorus. It’s a slightly overcooked sentiment, but a strong start nonetheless.
Video: ★ ★ ★
The lyrics are interpreted literally for the video, which features Bey taking part in a bitchy beauty pageant (emceed by silver-haired Harvey Keitel) and doing whatever horrible things are necessary to make the grade.
Haunted
Song: ★ ★ ★
The first sign that Beyoncé is doing something unusual comes with this spooky track of echoing beats and disembodied harmonies. Weird and wonderful.
Video: ★ ★ ½
Imagine a ghetto-fabulous version of the Overlook Hotel from “The Shining” and you’ve got this video. Bey spies weird (and possibly inhuman) characters in every room before giving a freaky dance performance of her own.
Drunk In Love (featuring Jay Z)
Track: ★★ ★
Few people would have imagined Beyoncé would write a song about the “beer goggles,” but this is pretty much it. She talks lustily about her objection of affection on a slow, finger-snapping beat that has echoes of Lorde’s “Royals.” A track to hear once and probably skip thereafter.
Video: ★
A dull, black and white clip of Beyoncé cavorting on a beach in a bikini is the visual accompaniment to this track. Jay Z inevitably turns up nursing a glass of something alcoholic and delivering his rap as if it were an inconvenience.
Blow
Track: ★ ★ ★ ½
“Beyoncé ” really catches fire with this cut of sultry, lo-fi funk produced in part by Pharrell Williams. Beyoncé is in sex-kitten mode throughout, and by the end, she’s purring “turn that cherry out” over and over. A standout track that’ll make steam come out of your iPod.
Video: ★ ★ ★
The ’70s are back as Beyoncé dresses up like Daisy Duke and does lots of gratuitous butt shaking at a roller disco. Man, woman or amoeba, you won’t be able to help but stare.
No Angel
Track: ★ ★ ★
Beyoncé tests her vocal limits on this song as she sings falsetto so high, you can almost hear her voice crack. Remarkably, this absorbing R & B track is co-written and co-produced by Caroline Polachek of Brooklyn indie-pop group Chairlift, and she does a fine job of pushing Beyoncé to new heights.
Video: ★ ★
She’s just Bey from the block! The singer goes back to her hometown of Houston and celebrates the ‘hoods she grew up in and the people she left behind. It’s beautifully filmed, but the shots of Beyoncé in heels and furs outside a shotgun shack makes it feels like a hollow tribute.
Partition
Track: ★ ★ ★
Dirty beats are the order of the day in this two-part club banger which begins with Beyoncé rapping like MIA before a filthy bass line takes over and she begins to document another sexcapade. “I just wanna be the girl you like,” she pleads, and Bey is clearly willing to do anything for that acceptance.
Video: ★ ★
This might be the nearest thing to a Beyoncé /Jay Z sex tape that ever sees the light of day. Beyoncé plays the society lady fantasizing about breaking away from her prim and proper life to enjoy something more risqué. In this case, it’s being felt up by Hova in the back of a car.
Jealous
Track: ★ ★
As recently as last month, there have been murmurings that all is not well in the house of Hova and Beyoncé . This track, detailing Bey’s pangs of jealousy towards a freewheeling partner, adds to that. It’s not an especially memorable song, but its lyrical honesty certainly pricks your ears up.
Video: ★ ★
Another literal interpretation of the song in which Bey reacts to being stood up by getting dolled up and looking for some fun of her own in downtown Manhattan.
Rocket
Track: ★ ★
It’s sexy time! Again! The carnal themes flow from the first seconds of this textbook slow jam co-written by Miguel. “Let me sit this ass on you,” is Bey’s opening line and she doesn’t demure from there. It’s racy stuff for sure, but ultimately forgettable.
Video: ★
More silly, bare-skinned antics in this glorified Victoria’s Secret commercial. Just to make absolutely clear that the song is about sex, there are even absurd images of gas pump nozzles going into a car tanks and keys going into locks. Subtlety? Not a chance.
Mine
Track: ★ ★ ★
Beyoncé goes north of the border for this song to collaborate with Drake and producer Noah “40” Shebib. It’s a Canadian combination that creates an adventurously minimal R & B ballad with ticking beats, interspersed with a rhythmic, bullhorned rap courtesy of Drake.
Video: ★
The video opens with Beyoncé looking like the Virgin Mary, holding a mask of her own face. Amazingly, it gets even more pretentious from there.
XO
Track: ★ ★ ½
Starting with a sample of the audio from the 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle disaster sounds tasteless, but with “XO,” Beyoncé is trying to create light from darkness, and she does it pretty well. This buoyant celebration of love and life (co-written and co-produced by Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic) is the album’s feel good moment.
Video: ★ ★
Beyoncé frolics with friends at Coney Island for the video and captures the spirit of the song in a way that’s sweet if not exactly original.
Flawless (featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
Track: ★ ★ ½
Fierce Southern-style trap beats back up Bey on the album’s empowerment anthem, which comes complete with an extended speech from Nigerian writer and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Video: ★ ★
Although the main part of the video is filmed in an underground club and features Bey moshing with some rough and tumble punks, the best part is the precious footage of Beyoncé when she was in Girls Tyme — her pre-Destiny’s Child rap group.
Superpower (featuring Frank Ocean)
Track: ★ ★ ★
Heavenly harmonies are produced by Frank Ocean on this woozy ballad, which almost sounds like a modern soul update of doo-wop music. Pharrell again smashes it out of the park with his pristine production.
Video: ★ ★
It’s a Destiny’s Child reunion! Bey is flanked by Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland once again as they front a rebel group standing off with police in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s actually not as good as it sounds, but it’s great to see the ladies briefly back together again.
Heaven
Track: ★ ★ ½
Beyoncé produces a raw moment of emotion on this piano ballad, which is clearly a eulogy to someone in her life who died young. “Heaven couldn’t wait for you,” comes the refrain, and you can tell the absence is a pain she still feels.
Video: ★ ★
Flashbacks of getting tattoos and skinny-dipping with a fallen friend are cut in with Beyoncé grieving in this straightforward but touching accompaniment.
Blue (featuring Blue Ivy)
Track: ★½
The inevitable homage to baby Blue Ivy rounds off “Beyoncé ,” and it’s as saccharine and dull as you would expect, especially when the little lady herself is heard babbling “Mommy” over the last 30 seconds.
Video: ★
Bey and Blue Ivy hang out together in a tropical paradise. That’s pretty much it. And in case you’re wondering, she looks more like Jay Z.