I don’t normally buy a full album unless I really like all the songs or I want to support a struggling artist. Beyoncé definitely doesn’t fall under the category of struggling artist, and Beyoncé’s most resent self-titled album doesn’t have any singles. For some reason, however, I was compelled to buy her album. Her self-titled album BEYONCÉ is a visual album: each song has a video plus three extra videos making the grand total come to 14 songs and 17 videos.

Beyoncé is well aware of how amazing she is. In the song “Flawless” she even sings that everyone should, “Bow down,”. She dropped the album without any promotion and in 3 hours she sold 80,000 copies. She knows what she’s doing: in “Ghost” she humbly brags “Probably won’t make any money off this. Oh, well,”. She’s number one in 100 countries, breaking the record One Direction set with their album Midnight Memories. She can be narcissistic if she wants.

The album sounds different from what I would normally expect from Beyoncé. She has some big name guest artists like Jay-Z, Drake, and Frank Ocean, but she never lets them upstage her.

The album is otherwise interesting. She’s very open about her sex life with her husband Jay-Z in her song “Blow” and honestly sometimes it made me feel uncomfortable. The explicit songs are balanced, however, with some sweet songs about her family and her child, Blue Ivy. Blue Ivy even makes a guest appearance on the song “Blue”. The album has some really cool, different, Un-Beyoncé-like songs like “Haunted” and “Ghost”, and the album doesn’t sound like it was made for radio which is a welcome change to what I would expect from her. She channels artists like Frank Ocean in some songs (“No Angel” and “Superpower”, which feature Frank Ocean). Even though the album is different from her past endeavors it sounds like the most personal album she has made.

The videos that accompany the album are supposed to be part of the listening experience. Beyoncé said that she “sees music” and wanted her fans to see her music the way she sees it. Sometimes the videos are a bit weird, not Lady Gaga weird, but just things I wouldn’t associate with the songs. The videos are all co-directed by Beyoncé and are a nice glimpse at what her vision for the album was. Some videos, like “Pretty Hurts”, have a really cool beauty pageant story that is entertaining to watch. The videos really do make the albums price of $15.99 worth it.

8.0/10