User:JennKR/beyonce

Legacy
Beyoncé ranks among the greatest albums of the 2010s decade. Billboard placed it at number 2 on their 2014 list of the best albums of the decade so far, writing that "the images of sex, love, pleasure and pain within the songs [make] the album Beyonce’s most evocative to date". Fact listed the album at 9 for the same period, noting that it "takes chances both sonically and lyrically" while seeing "Beyoncé confirm and challenge assumptions about her public and private personas [...] [and] sparking conversations about feminism, race and sexuality." Pitchfork put it at 14 on a similar list compiled in 2014, saying that Beyoncé redefined the concept of an album in a time when many music journalists had assumed the format was "dead". Beyoncé also appeared in lists curated by Spin and Q ranking the best albums of the last thirty years for the period 1984 to 2014. It was included in the 2016 edition of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, with Bruno MacDonald saying that the album "harked back to boundary-blasting masterpieces like Prince's Sign o' the Times and Janet Jackson's Janet—the weird and wonderful work that arises when an arists fame means they can finally do whatever the hell they like".

The album's visual aspect and unexpected release were hailed by music journalists as redefining the concept of the album and release strategies. In particular, commentators have regarded its unconventional release as a restatement of artistic control where typically lost to the internet, as a marketing tool  and as a pre-emptive move against internet piracy. In 2014, Harvard University's Business School published a case study on the release strategy of the album which examined its difficult planning and execution, as well as its short-term and long-term impact. Anita Elberse, the school's Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration, described the album's release strategy as "magnificent work" and "first of its kind", particularly praising Beyoncé's Parkwood Entertainment for their coordination and preparation. Writing for Esquire, Corey Atad describes Beyoncé as having "upended the model of music releasing" and together with Lemonade, the singer's second visual album released in 2016, has asked "the public to engage seriously and fervently with challenging works of filmmaking". The Verge's Micah Singleton wrote that Beyoncé had "changed the music industry more than any other album in the last ten years", believing that the singer had "put the focus back on the full-length album like it hadn’t been in years". The phrase "pulling a Beyoncé" is now used in the music industry to refer to the practice of releasing music without warning. Other artists have since adopted similar "surprise" release strategies in the wake of Beyoncé including Kendrick Lamar for To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) and Untitled Unmastered (2016), Drake for If You're Reading This It's Too Late (2015) and Views (2016), Rihanna for Anti (2016), Kanye West for The Life of Pablo (2016), Coldplay for Ghost Stories (2014), U2 for Songs of Innocence (2014), Azealia Banks for Broke With Expensive Taste (2014), D'Angelo for Black Messiah (2014), J. Cole for 2014 Forest Hills Drive (2014), Kid Cudi for Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon (2014).