When Will Beyonce Release Her Next Single?

I know, I know — I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here. After all, Beyonce released "Formation" less than two weeks ago, and the song is still dominating, well, my life and everyone else's, too, so it's probably a bit too early to be thinking about what she'll do next. But what can I say? I'm impatient, and I'm also obsessed with Queen Bey like the rest of the free world, so I'm ready to take basically anything I can get when it comes to her new music. So here's what I want to know: when will Beyonce release her next single?

Everything is a bit up in the air right now in terms of her Beyonce's new music. After all, we don't even know when she'll release a new album, despite the fact that she's soon to embark on a tour across the U.S. and the U.K., so trying to predict when a new single will come out seems like a fool's errand. I'm going to do it anyway, of course, because I have no chill, and I'm going to use the release dates of the singles from her past albums to help guide us.

Will this exercise give us the answers we so desperately seek? Perhaps not, but we're going for it.

Dangerously In Love

OK, so let's look at things this way. "Crazy In Love" was released on May 18, 2003 — a little more than a month before the release of her debut album, Dangerously In Love. If we're considering "Formation" as the first single, then let's look at Beyonce's first album's second single, "Baby Boy", which came out on August 3, 2003 — a few months after the album was released. Oh no... this doesn't bode well.

B'Day

B'Day came out on September 4, 2006. We heard the first single, "Deja Vu", on June 24, 2006 — more than two months before the album came out. The second single, "Ring The Alarm", was released on September 10 of the same year — again, after the release of the album. If "Formation" was the first single from the album, this doesn't bode well.

I Am... Sasha Fierce

Oh man, I nearly forgot about the Sasha Fierce era! How dare I! The album came out on November 15, 2008, with the first single, "If I Were A Boy", being released about a month earlier, on October 13. Incidentally, she released another single, "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)", on the same day. Huh. The third single didn't hit until January 20, 2009, and that was "Diva". What any of this means for 2016 Beyonce, I don't know, but it's interesting...

4

I loved Beyonce's 4, which came out on June 24, 2011. The first single, "Run The World (Girls)", hit airwaves a couple of months earlier, on April 21, 2011. "Best Thing I Never Had" also came out before the album was released, on June 1 of the same year. This gives me hope that we'll get another song before Beyonce releases her new album, but who can say?

All in all, if it follows past releases, and if "Formation" is indeed the first single from the album, then we likely won't hear another one before the album drops. If "Formation" was just a promotional release and not an official single, then that messes up the whole flow and I don't know what's happening. All I do know is that I want more new Beyonce music now.