Beyonce Releases Visual Album in Middle of the Night to Set Recording Industry (and Fans) on FIRE!

By ditching the middle man, Beyonce rewrote the rules of marketing yesterday with surprise self titled release.

The H-Town diva dropped her fifth studio release, Beyonce, as a visual album comprised of 14 new tracks and 17 videos available for download only on iTunes. (For now. Word on the street is Beyonce the Album will be in stores December 21.)

Haters have been criticizing and fans have been waiting, wishing and praying for another album this year and right before we all lost hope she just drops this epic bomb to slay us all in her glory, but why didn’t she let us in on the secret? Why didn’t we see her in the studio, or on a video shoot set? Why wasn’t there a timely new single released first?

In a press release sent to USA Today from Beyonce’s team, the singer says:

I feel like I am able to speak directly to my fans. There’s so much that gets between the music, the artist and the fans. I felt like I didn’t want anybody to give the message when my record is coming out. I just want this to come out when it’s ready and from me to my fans.

In a little over 24 hours, Beyonce the album has sold over 80,000 copies of the digital download by midnight on Friday, according to E! Online. They also report, “Bey’s album release generated over 1.2 million tweets in 12 hours, with a tweets per minute spike of 5,300.

Digital is changing the game and I’m so happy that King B is at the forefront the revolution, mirroring her hubby Jay-Z’s Samsung-exclusive Magna Carta Holy Grail release this summer.