“Pulling a Beyoncé” has always been a fairly elastic concept. Even when the phrase came into vogue at the end of 2013, when she surprise-released her self-titled visual album and, in her own words, “changed the game with that digital drop,” people were crediting her with both the surprise album trend and the visual album trend. The album was undeniably influential in both regards. After a year when album rollouts were becoming ever more ostentatious, BEYONCÉ careened in out of nowhere and singlehandedly made such promotional tactics passé. Suddenly the only stylish option was to drop your album with no warning. Visual albums, with music videos for every track, also suddenly became all the rage. And then in 2016, the notion of “pulling a Beyoncé” was redefined again. With Lemonade, she adjusted the “surprise visual album” equation in significant ways. This time she gave people a few days’ notice but left us in the dark as to what, exactly, she was debuting. When it premiered — not on
Beyonce Tours Ranked 