Beyoncé made a dying girl’s day earlier this month. The pop star, 32, who recently released a sexy secret album, posted a video on her YouTube page of terminally ill cancer patient Taylon. In the video, the wheelchair-bound girl, whose dying wish was to dance with Jay Z’s wife, said, “I am having so much fun. I can’t wait to see Beyoncé.”
At the Las Vegas show Taylon attended, a blue, sparkly-suited Beyoncé swoops into the audience and lands right in front of Taylon, bringing her to tears. The two sing “Survivor” together, and the tears continue even after the singer eventually parts ways onto the stage.
All hail, Queen Bey!
Shoppers at a Tewksbury, Massachusetts Walmart were shocked when pop star Beyonce paid a surprise visit to the superstore on December 20. The star, whose new self-titled album shattered sales records after dropping unannounced on Dec. 13, jumped on the Walmart loudspeaker and casually offered to pay the first $50 of every customer’s Christmas purchase via a gift card. According to local Fox affiliate WGHP, the grammy-winning artist stopped at the store on her way to performing a concert in Boston.
“It was amazing, quite a scene,” Walmart spokeswoman Sarah McKinney told the station. “Everybody was so excited when she came in, and it’s so great what she did for our customers right before Christmas.”
So how much holiday cheer did the superstar eventually shell out? According to Boston.com, Beyonce handed out 750 gift cards, totaling a whopping $37,500. And just when we thought we couldn’t love her any more. Swoon. Watch a video here.
Following the surprise debut of Beyonce’s new self-titled album — which sent social networks and the Twittersphere ablaze with chatter about the diva — she jumps to No. 1 on Billboard’s Social 50 chart this week.
The Social 50 ranks the most popular artists on YouTube, Vevo, Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud, Wikipedia, Myspace and Instagram. The chart’s methodology blends weekly additions of friends/fans/followers along with artist page views, song plays and reactions as measured by music analytics company Next Big Sound.
Beyonce’s new album arrived without warning on Dec. 13 and swiftly debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 617,000 copies in its first three days on sale (according to Nielsen SoundScan).
This is her third non-consecutive week atop the Social 50. She previously spent two weeks at No. 1 following her Super Bowl halftime performance earlier this year.
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UPDATE: Columbia Records says 828,773 copies of “Beyonce” were sold worldwide in three days. That sets a new iTunes record.
EARLIER: After only three days on sale, Beyonce’s new self-titled album has broken the U.S. iTunes Store’s record for the largest sales week for an album.
According to multiple industry sources, “Beyonce” sold 617,000 downloads through the close of business on Sunday, Dec. 15. The album bowed — without any pre-release announcement — in the iTunes Store at midnight EST on Friday morning, Dec. 13. None of its songs are available a la carte (which is likely helping encourage full album purchases). The 14-song set is selling for $15.99 and additionally comes with 18 videos. Fourteen of those are for each of the album’s songs.
“Beyonce” breaks the previous one-week iTunes record, set by Taylor Swift’s “Red” when it sold 465,000 in the week ending Oct. 28, 2012. (The digital version of “Red” was exclusively sold through iTunes for its first week. It became available to all digital retailers after its first week on sale.)
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Beyoncé’s new self-titled album has become the fastest-selling album ever worldwide in the iTunes Store, according to iTunes and Columbia Records, the singer’s record label.
The label released the surprise album at 12 AM EST on the morning of Friday, Dec. 13, exclusively via iTunes.
Columbia reports that the set sold 828,773 copies in its first three days, through the close of business on Sunday night, Dec. 15. Of that sum, 617,000 were sold through the U.S. iTunes Store, which — as previously reported — also set a record for the largest week ever for an album.
iTunes is the sole retailer for “Beyoncé” through Dec. 20. According to industry sources, a physical version of the album will start arriving to some U.S.-based brick-and-mortar retailers by Wednesday, Dec. 18. Most physical retailers will receive it by Friday, Dec. 20.
Just minutes before midnight EST Friday (Dec. 13) morning, Beyonce released her fifth album, a self-titled set, exclusively on iTunes. Details are still emerging on confirmed producers, but guests credited on the “exclusive visual album” are Jay Z, Drake, Frank Ocean and daughter Blue Ivy.
Beyonce’s self-titled album — her fifth studio effort, and first since 2011’s “4” — arrived on Thursday night (Dec. 12) without prior warning. The 14-song collection features “Drunk In Love,” a new collaboration with husband Jay Z; “Mine,” featuring Drake; Superpower, with her “I Miss You” collaborator Frank Ocean; and “Blue,” a song with her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter. “XO,” long rumored to be a single from the singer’s new album, also appears on the track list.
Every song on the album has also been given a video, all of which are available on iTunes; “Grown Woman,” a promotional cut that Beyonce performed during her Mrs. Carter world tour this year, appears as a bonus video, but did not make the album’s track list. “Standing on the Sun,” penned by Sia and featured in an H&M ad, is nowhere to be found.
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