Seeing is Bey-lieving, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #232 | @MDWorld

December 18, 2013 Arthur Tebbel 1 Comment

Dear Art,

Surprise, I released an album last week!  My self-titled “visual album” released with no promotion or notice sold over 825,000 copies in the three days following its release making it the fastest selling in the history of iTunes.  Did you love it?  Is this exactly what I needed to do to make people stop talking about Katy Perry and Lady Gaga as if they were remotely in my league?  How the hell do I ever top this?

-Beyonce

Bey,

What an amazing moment Friday morning was for social media.  I woke up and checked Facebook and Tumblr like I do every morning and it was like a bomb had gone off.  People were going crazy.  I’m not sure I’ll ever see anything like that again until this move gets ripped off by absolutely everyone putting out an album in 2014 who hasn’t already announced a release date.  I never expect to know when Kanye West is going to do something ever again.  The New York Daily News printed an article about this with the headline “Beyonce’s album release surpasses ‘Sharknado’ in social media buzz’” which is a headline that will be absolutely meaningless to anyone who reads it in 20 years but whatever, you scored a big hit on this one and being ripped off is the price you’re going to pay for that.

I have not yet bought this amazing pop culture singularity though because of a crushing problem: I have no idea how I’m supposed to experience it.  Every song has a video, a video that from what I understand was designed to go with the song more than many random pop nothing videos.  Should I be watching it on my computer screen?  My iPhone?  Should I figure out a way to stream it to my television?  You did so much to make this unique experience that it’s left me petrified to fuck up my consumption of it.  I don’t know what the solution to this issue is beyond years of therapy for me but I need more guidance here.

I honestly have no idea how you could top this release but have you considered that you never need to?  You’re young (way younger than I thought you were I feel terrible about my life choices right now) but you’ve been at this for a long time.  You have a kid and a life that looks very glamorous, maybe you don’t need to put out an album every year anymore.  Enjoy your family, enjoy being the grand dame of the pop music scene.  You can stop hashing it out with Gaga, Perry, Lorde, and Swift and start taking shots at Celine Dion.  You can be the queen of the entire music industry.  Or the performing part of the music industry.  The music industry in the English-speaking world at least.  Around this time of year a great man once sang “War is over if you want it” and I say the same thing to you, the pop wars are over, if you want it, otherwise you can just keep beating up on your inferiors for years.  Your choice.