I still remember where I was at the exact moment in 2013 when Beyoncé dropped her 5th studio album: Self Titled. I remember scrolling on twitter like any other night and one of my fellow Beyhive members shared a link of the album from itunes. I couldn't believe it at first, because it had been a long year and a half since Beyoncé's 4 album, and the Beyhydration was real. If you know you know!
Recording for Self Titled began in the summer of 2012 in The Hamptons, New York, where Beyoncé and Jay-Z were living. She invited some of her favorite producers and songwriters to accompany them, including Sia,Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and The-Dream.] Beyoncé described the atmosphere as unconventional, saying, "we had dinners with the producers every day, like a family... it was like a camp. Weekends off. You could go and jump in the pool and ride bikes... the ocean and grass and sunshine... it was really a safe place." She would spend the majority of her day with her Blue who only a newborn at the time, taking some hours out to record music. The album's opening track "Pretty Hurts", co-written by Sia, was completed during these sessions.The project was suspended until 2013 and relocated to Jungle City and Oven Studios in New York City, where most of the album was recorded. In an interview for Vogue in January 2013, Jason Gay described Beyoncé's attention to detail as "obsessive" when observing her studio, noting the vision boards she created for inspiration, which contained potential song titles, old album covers and pictures of performances.
In March 2013, a two-part hip hop track entitled "Bow Down/I Been On" was released onto Beyoncé's SoundCloud account. "Bow Down", produced by Hit-Boy, was written after Beyoncé woke up one morning with a chant stuck in her head, feeling angry and defensive.
At the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, Beyoncé was presented with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for her work on the visual album, performing a sixteen-minute medley of its songs. Van Tofler, president and CEO of Viacom, noted that their choice for the Vanguard Award was influenced by this project, saying, "when Bey put out the record and the way she did it in such a visual way, she was the most obvious choice".She won a further three awards, Best Collaboration for "Drunk in Love", and Best Cinematography and Best Video with a Social Message for "Pretty Hurts".The album was nominated for World's Best Album at the 2014 World Music Awards and Album of the Year at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards Japan.It also received two nominations at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards for Top Billboard 200 Album and Top R&B Album, while "Drunk in Love" was nominated for Top R&B Song. At the 2014 mtvU Woodie Awards, Beyoncé won in the category Did It My Way Woodie, awarded for the album's release strategy. It won in the category for Album of the Year at the 2014 Soul Train Music Awards and Favorite Soul/R&B Album at the American Music Awards of 2014.
Self-Titled went on to sell 828K copies in 3 days, and won 3 grammys. Is this Bey's best album? Happy Self- Titled Day!
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