Cast your minds back a couple of years with us for a second. It’s August 2022. The world is still reeling from the release of Beyoncé’s recently-released disco and house-inspired album Renaissance (not too hard to imagine since, to be honest, we’re still reeling two years down the line).
Suddenly, Bey gives the world another gift – a three-minute video billed as a “teaser” for the album’s accompanying visuals.
Twenty different looks flash by in an instant. Beyoncé striking a pose in the rain. Beyoncé driving a car. Beyoncé in jazzy sunglasses, arms outstretched. Beyoncé showing off an elaborate headpiece with four different faces carved on it. Beyoncé wearing a lime green face-kini.
And then… nothing.
Well, not nothing. An incredibly successful world tour. A gripping concert movie. Another whole album, this time inspired by country music with sign-off from some of the genre’s biggest names.
But still, despite it all, those Renaissance visuals never did surface, and follow-up album Cowboy Carter was similarly released without any accompanying music videos.
During a new interview with GQ magazine to promote (what else?) her new range of whisky, Beyoncé was asked about her decision to “move away from music videos”, and whether it was a deliberate one.
“I thought it was important that during a time where all we see is visuals, that the world can focus on the voice,” Beyoncé said in her email reply.
“The music is so rich in history and instrumentation. It takes months to digest, research, and understand. The music needed space to breathe on its own.”
She continued: “Sometimes a visual can be a distraction from the quality of the voice and the music. The years of hard work and detail put into an album that takes over four years! The music is enough.”
“The fans from all over the world became the visual,” the Grammy-winning star added. “We all got the visual on tour. We then got more visuals from my film.”
All of that is very valid, of course, and who are we to question the Queen Bey.
But we can’t help wondering… why the Renaissance visual teaser at all?
Last year, Beyoncé poked fun at the Beyhive’s growing impatience during her Renaissance World Tour, when a voice was heard declaring: “I know you hear me. You’ve asked for the visuals.
“You’ve called for the queen – but a queen moves at her own pace, bitch! [She] decides when she wants to give you a fucking taste!”
Later on the tour, Beyoncé herself declared: “You are the visual, baby.”
The former Destiny’s Child star is considered a pioneer within the field of music videos, picking up the Video Vanguard Award at the MTV VMAs a decade ago following the release of her game-changing self-titled album, which saw each song accompanied by a music video.
She followed this with the visual album Lemonade and Black Is King, a music film that accompanied her Lion King soundtrack album, The Gift.