a love letter to self-titled, the visual album that changed the game
today's the ten-year anniversary of beyoncé's fifth studio album, beyoncé
similar to others, i remember where i was when beyoncé dropped the self-titled album. december 13, 2013 is just one of those days. i recently passed my twelve-year anniversary as a twitter user, so i was definitely active on the app for self-titled’s surprise drop. hashtags like #queenbey were trending and generating 1.2 million tweets in the span of twelve hours. also, itunes was temporarily down.
“surprise!” she wrote in the caption. well, yes!
i don’t remember sleeping much that night, but i definitely had class the next morning. specifically, it was finals week during freshman year of high school. who could fall asleep in a moment like that? of course, all i could talk about at lunch revolved around beyoncé. and apparently, it was all i could tweet about, too.
i tormented everyone that i encountered about this album. learning the lyrics to each song led to me passionately singing along in the car. i visited my local roller skating rink to listen to “blow” while pretending i was in the visuals. to this day, i still want to recreate the makeup and hair from the “haunted” music video. chimamanda ngozi adichie’s excerpt in “***flawless” (and beyonce’s 16-minute medley for the 2014 mtv vmas) coincidentally introduced me to the concept of feminism. “partition” was entirely too sexy to comprehend. beyoncé was inescapable.
two years later, the album also inspired my campaign theme for the position of junior class president.
although i didn’t stay on-brand to bey and bribe the freshman class with vegan cupcakes, i did win the election and remained class president until graduation. and as any normal baby beyhive member would do, i successfully pushed for “i was here” to be the class song and referenced the digital drop during my commencement speech. (see here at 26:19 to 26:49) given her controversial super bowl halftime performance in 2016, i’m seriously surprised that my minor mention wasn’t removed from the final draft of my speech.
initially, i planned to write an essay about the album’s anniversary for a publication to tell a larger story of its impact, but there’s many essays that have covered beyoncé’s significance on the reinvented standard in the music industry regarding new music friday and the lack of promotional rollout.
i’m frankly glad that my pitch wasn’t accepted by an editor, because there’s something special about writing this at the last minute for my substack. (mind you, it’s 4:15 a.m. and i’m scheduling this to publish in a few hours)
happy tenth birthday to my favorite beyoncé album. the 14-track masterpiece gifted fans “partition” and the underappreciated “no angel” among other incredible tracks. additionally, i’m grateful that i was active on tumblr during self-titled’s release for an infinite amount of hd photos and gifs. if you know, you know!
the ranking of my favorite songs from beyoncé:
haunted (including ghost)
no angel
blow (including cherry)
partition (including yoncé)
rocket
jealous
mine
superpower
xo
***flawless
drunk in love
pretty hurts
heaven
blue
to “haunted,” my favorite beyoncé track: i love me some alternative r&bey
to the deluxe edition: you have a special place in my heart. the “7/11” music video mothered, and my island gyal soul was fulfilled with “standing on the sun (remix)”
to donk (unreleased): you (and other scrapped songs) deserved better
to grown woman and bow down/i been on: i <3 you
