2016: The Year of the Unorthodox, and Sometimes Messy, Surprise Album Rollout

By Chuck Arnold

Since Beyoncé changed the game when she dropped her surprise self-titled LP just over three years ago, the art of the album rollout has gotten craftier and craftier. Indeed, in 2016, artists took that art to another level — not only in the sheer volume of LPs dropped unexpectedly from the music heavens, but also in the even more surprising way in which some of those releases were revealed. But in their attempts to keep fans guessing by coming up with twists on the traditional promotional buildup, these unorthodox rollouts didn’t always go so smoothly. In fact, a few of them were downright bumpy.

The trend started in January 2016 with the release of Rihanna’s Anti, but that album’s campaign started earlier: First, the Anti artwork and the album title had been revealed at a Los Angeles gallery in October 2015. Then, in an unusual move, the “Anti Tour” was announced in November 2015, before there was even an album or release date. This news came in tandem with a website, ANTIdiaRy.com, that was launched with Samsung, the sponsors of the tour. But after all these carefully calculated moves, Anti was leaked on Jan. 27 as a result of a Tidal flub. Because of that mistake, the album came out the next day as a free download on Tidal, and on Jan. 29 it was available on all digital outlets. With such a muddled debut, it seemed like Rihanna was playing catch-up with the album’s first single, “Work,” but the song still went on to become the 14th No. 1 hit of her career.

The surprises continued in February, with Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo. First an early version of the album premiered at the Yeezy Season 3 fashion show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Feb. 11. Then, after some last-minute changes, the LP was released as a Tidal exclusive on Valentine’s Day. But West’s revisions kept on coming; he described it as “a living breathing changing creative expression.” And after initially being promised to remain a Tidal exclusive, the album eventually became available via other streaming services and digital outlets. With all this confusing back-and-forth, Pablo never seemed to gain the traction of West’s previous efforts, in part because fans seemed to lose patience with the process.

In April, however, Beyoncé once again slayed the surprise album-release game, upping the ante even for her. Anticipation for her follow-up to 2013’s Beyoncé had been building since Queen Bey dropped her “Formation” single and video out of nowhere on Feb. 6, the day before performing the song at the Super Bowl halftime show. After the “Formation Tour” was announced during the Super Bowl, with an opening date of April 27, fans knew a new album must be coming before then — but when? After weeks of unrest in the Beyhive, Beyoncé and HBO on April 16 teased a mysterious Lemonade event that would air on the cable network April 23. In the week leading up to its premiere, Lemonade became must-see TV, and immediately after it was unveiled as a bold, provocative film that had everyone talking, the Lemonade album dropped. BAM! Initially released exclusively on Tidal, it rolled out to other digital outlets on April 25. When Bey finally quenched the thirst of her fans, Lemonade — the most critically acclaimed work of her career — didn’t disappoint.

Less than a week later, Drake unexpectedly revealed Views. Although no official release date had been given, the album (originally titled Views From the 6) had been hotly anticipated ever since the hit “Hotline Bling” was dropped as a single way back in July 2015. The long buildup included billboards teasing Views in Drake’s native Toronto, an official album trailer on his Twitter, and a pop-up store in New York City. When Views finally arrived — as an exclusive on Apple Music and iTunes — it proved to be a bit anticlimactic, as it was met with mixed reviews. But that didn’t stop it from having the biggest album opening week of 2016 and earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year.

Taking another long, winding road to release was Frank Ocean’s Blonde, the long-awaited follow-up to his 2012 debut, Channel Orange. The album was initially teased as Boys Don’t Cry and was expected in July 2015, but after multiple frustrating delays, it finally seemed that it would be coming out this past Aug. 5. But after fans waited up into the wee hours of the morning for it, the album didn’t arrive that day, inspiring memes and drawing some backlash about the waiting game that Ocean had people playing. With fan anxiety growing, Ocean delivered a visual album, Endless, on Aug. 19 as an Apple Music exclusive. Then, in yet another twist, he released another album — Blonde, a traditional studio LP — the very next day on Apple Music and iTunes. Also issued on Aug. 20 was Boys Don’t Cry, which turned out to be a limited-edition magazine that was available at pop-up shops in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and London. It was all so confounding and exasperating that the great music got somewhat lost in the process. To top it all off, Ocean opted not to submit Blonde for Grammy consideration, in protest of the Grammys’ failure to properly award black artists.

All these unorthodox rollouts made other surprise releases seem more conventional in 2016. Those included everything from Kendrick Lamar’s untitled unmastered (a compilation of demos from the To Pimp a Butterfly sessions) to Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool, the band’s first new studio collection since 2011. Other more typical surprise drops came from James Blake (The Colour in Anything), Chance the Rapper (Coloring Book, a stream-only mixtape), Avenged Sevenfold (The Stage), Tinashe (Nightride), and T.I. (Us or Else: Letter to the System).

But in the end, no one did the surprise album release better in 2016 than the woman who really started the trend: Beyoncé. She managed to outdo herself and once again show everyone else how it’s done.