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On Friday, at 12 A.M., Beyoncé staged the death of several paradigms by releasing her album “Beyoncé” on iTunes. It has fourteen songs, with a full-blown music video—not a Vine or a MacBook confessional—for each one, plus a few extra videos. The bundle costs $15.99 and many, many people with computers bought it. Billboard now reports that “Beyoncé” is the “fastest-selling album ever in the iTunes store,” with almost nine hundred thousand copies sold since Friday. So, in secret, Beyoncé planned and executed an entire album, and somehow nobody leaked the news or the files. Artists have been practicing the sudden release for several years—Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” is often credited as the first significant example—but there’s never been an out-of-the-blue release of this scope and significance. In her sole statement, Beyoncé said she wanted to recapture the “immersive” experience of everyone hearing an album all at once. She got her wish.

So what died on Friday? Nothing: this drop was a demonstration, kind of like the Trinity test. Yes, social media promoted the release for free, meaning that marketing budgets could potentially shrink for incredibly famous people on major labels, like Beyoncé. Not everyone is building up to an instant profit on release day, and maybe no one who hasn’t first been pumped into the mainstream by the majors can expect such a response. But “Beyoncé” proved that we could be spared viral campaigns and fake leaks and Pepsi ads. It’s not surprising that “Beyoncé” is excellent (the pros often work better faster); what is exciting is watching the minor rearrangement within the Knowles-Carter universe, and then seeing the rippling effects throughout the critical community. It is now painfully clear that, just as there is no one way to release an album, there is no single critical response anymore. Years of message boards and blogs and tweeting set up a crossfire that is more interesting and robust than any single review ever will be. The only consensus is that Beyoncé matters—the rest is a firefight in your pocket.

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– http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2013/12/beyonce-new-album-review.html