Beyonce announces, releases new album on same day

NEW YORK (AP) ― Beyonce has released her new album in an unconventional way: She announced and dropped it on the same day.

The singer released “Beyonce” exclusively on iTunes early Friday. She mirrors how Jay Z released “Magna Carta Holy Grail” earlier this year ― through a deal with Samsung where he gave the album to 1 million users of Galaxy mobile phones days before its official release.

Beyonce’s fifth effort features 14 songs and 17 videos. Jay Z, Drake and Frank Ocean make guest appearances on the album, while the closing track, “Blue,” features her daughter Blue Ivy. Justin Timberlake co-wrote the songs “Rocket” and “Partition,” and Pharrell, Timbaland, Ryan Tedder, Miguel and Sia also co-wrote tracks. The song “(asterisk) (asterisk) (asterisk) Flawless” ― which incorporates part of “Bow Down/I Been On,” a song Beyonce posted earlier this year ― uses audio from a speech about feminism by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

The album caused a stir on social media websites, with fans posting about the release early Friday morning. Twitter said Beyonce’s album release generated over 1.2 million tweets in 12 hours, with a tweets-per-minute spike of 5,300. The tweets-per-minute count around the album surpassed the record set when the Syfy TV movie “Sharknado” aired in July, Twitter added.

Billboard said Friday that “Beyonce” will likely debut on top of its charts next week.

“Our early numbers are showing that this is likely heading toward a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 albums chart with only three days of the tracking week,” said Bill Werde, the editor of Billboard. Billboard closes the tracking week on Sundays, and typical albums are released on Monday or Tuesday.