BEYONCÉ'S ALBUM LEAKED. WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?

Photo: Album cover for Beyoncé's 11th studio album, "Renaissance". (Carlijn Jacobs / Columbia Records)

Unless you haven't opened your social apps or don't have friends who keep you up with pop culture, you've probably already read that Beyonce's entire 11th studio album “Renaissance” was leaked on the internet a mere 36 hours before its official release. Unfortunately, album leaks are a somewhat common occurrence especially if an artist has a huge, dedicated fandom. This is neither the first time this has happened to a major artist this year nor the first time this has happened to Beyoncé in her career. The last time this happened to her was for the 2011 release of the album 4, which resulted in some guy in Sweden getting sued for $233,000 for uploading the album to torrent sites, and to her changing the album’s scheduled rollout. Since then, and as we all know from experience, she set the industry standard for unannounced releases with the surprise drop of her eponymous album Beyoncé in 2013, a moment that broke the internet and has cemented itself in music history. She successfully repeated the tactic with two more full-length bodies of work throughout the 2010's.

But now, finally, when Queen Bey allowed us time to scream, cry, and throw up in excitement for the upcoming album, someone ruined it for everybody. According to Variety, “high quality FLAC files” of unreleased Beyoncé tracks emerged on the internet, although it has not been confirmed that the leak actually corresponds to the tracklist made available during the album’s promotion. Soon after, photos of the physical CDs on store shelves popped up too, and an angry Beyhive swarmed in to protect their Queen.

The fandom came together demanding respect for Beyoncé’s chosen timeline to present her hard work, threatening to report and call the police on any social media account that shared the links, swearing to the strangers on the internet that they will wait until Friday to listen to the album, and insisting that streaming a leaked album meant that you ‘don’t care about the artist’s compensation.’ While I admire fandom loyalty and also agree that the morally correct way to consume new artists’ content is to do it legally, two things are true: 1) Beyoncé’s millionaire bank account will barely be affected by this (if any), and 2) if everyone was concerned about artist compensation as they make it seem, we wouldn’t even be using streaming platforms as our main source of music consumption in the first place.

Yesterday, Spotify released its Q2 2022 analytics, which showed the company’s highest-ever Q2 growth. According to their data published, premium subscribers grew 14% to 188 million, and the total monthly active users grew 19% to 433 million. That’s great news for investors, but it’s nothing to celebrate for the artists and songwriters with music on the platform because those big numbers that Spotify celebrates do not come with a pay raise for them, especially those artists outside of the 10% of Spotify’s elite, which I can be certain does not include those up-and-coming artists you like to support. Despite its hopes for the future, Spotify today is built in a way that if you’re paying for the streaming service to listen to anything other than the most-streamed tracks and artists, your money isn’t supporting what you’re hearing. So, I do have a moral issue with fandoms putting artists’ revenues as a reason to avoid streaming leaked albums, when in reality, it matters very little to Beyoncé’s finances. The concern for artist compensation is very noble and appreciated, but in this context, it is wildly misdirected. Instead, it matters a lot more to artists who are not even close to earning what they deserve because streaming royalties, as of this moment, just aren’t lucrative enough.

Like I said before, I respect fandoms as loyal as de Beyhive, and it's so good to see fans united and standing up for their idols when injustices are being committed. But next time a leak happens, because it will happen again, stick to respecting the artist’s work and release timeline. It’s not about the sales for artists whose music gets leaked. Instead, support your favorite artists and songwriters by legally buying and downloading their music, and streaming on Bandcamp. buying CDs, merch, attending concerts, and sharing their music with your circle. The good news is that live concerts are making a comeback after the pandemic, and CD sales have exponentially and steadily grown since 2017. The bad one is that no one has a device to play CDs on anymore. Still, I know I might sound like a dinosaur by telling you to buy records and that the actions I’m suggesting you take here might seem minuscule compared to the size and popularity of streaming platforms, but these are the efforts you can make to truly support the artists and songwriters who need you. Beyoncé will be fine. She's going to find and sue whoever is responsible for the leak, and get that dough. Also, it's not like we're not all going to be streaming "Renaissance" at midnight, dancing in our living rooms, quitting our jobs because Queen B said so.

You know where to find me at midnight.

Musically,

Nicole for Click Track