Beyonce Will Never Give Us a Surprise Album Again

Listen, Parkwood Entertainment. I was with you at the beginning. Really, I was. I think that, as much as every Beyoncé fan wanted to believe that the semi-inaccurate leaked track list was real, none of us really thought that anyone on the Bey Team would be so careless with something like that. Besides, the revelation that Beyoncé Platinum Edition Box Set was on its way was enough of a distraction for me. However, general manager Lee Anne Callahan-Longo went too far over the line of believability. Beyoncé's people might have denied the track list was real, but to deny that Queen Bey will ever drop a surprise album again was a bit much. We know better than to believe that.

"You can only be first [to drop a surprise album] once, so I'm not sure we'd want to do it again. We typically at Parkwood like to look at projects where, if it isn't unique or different in some way, it's really not interesting to us," said Callahan-Longo, as if a little thing like having already done it once would stop Beyoncé from doing it again. I mean, really, Beyoncé did something with her surprise album that no artist has ever done before or will ever be able to replicate again. You know who is the only artist who can do that and have it work? Beyoncé.

To be perfectly honest, I've already developed a conspiracy theory that the Beyoncé Platinum Edition Box Set was unveiled to distract us from the rumors that Beyoncé and Jay Z are planning a joint album. In fact, this only reinforces my belief.

According to Callahan-Longo, she was just "[excited] to know people are excited" about the possibility of a new Beyoncé album and I'm sure that's true. I am. I absolutely believe that the track list was faked and Beyoncé does not have an album like that coming out. But I do believe that she has an album coming out — cough, joint album, cough, Jay Z — and that there's a solid chance that she'll produce another surprise album in the future. It might not be the Jay Z album, because the cat's kind of out of the bag on that one. However, those songs and remixes have to exist SOMEWHERE, even if she decides to spread them out between the joint album with Jay Z and another personal album to be released some time after that.

The real question is the nature of the surprise. Beyoncé has been there, done that on the whole "releasing an album on iTunes without telling anyone" thing. How can she shock and surprise this time? Maybe she should go on tour and start throwing out copies of her next album into the crowd and let promotion go grassroots via word of mouth before releasing the album on iTunes. Maybe she should fly overheard in a helicopter and throw copies of the album out the window. Maybe she should download her album onto everyone's iPods without their permission like U2. (Not that I'm still bitter about that.) Either way, there are far too many means through which Beyoncé could surprise us without surprising us in the exact same way that she did before — so I wouldn't rule out the idea of another surprise album now or ever.

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