Here’s How Beyoncé Made Her Surprise Album

3 minute read

Beyoncé hates working in an office. Beyoncé will get up and start walking around if she gets bored in a meeting. Beyoncé wrote her whole surprise album at a big house in the Hamptons, with tons of collaborators, all at once, and you weren’t invited.

That’s from a new Harvard Business School case study on her self-titled 2013 hit surprise album, which broke all iTunes sales records when it was downloaded almost 830,000 times in just three days. Harvard professor Anita Elberse and her former student Stacie Smith interviewed employees at Beyoncé’s production company Parkwood (which is a joint venture with Columbia Records) to learn more about how the surprise album was made.

Apparently, Beyoncé is really savvy about business, but doesn’t have much patience when it comes to sitting through boring meetings. “She has got a really good sense of the business side, but she doesn’t like to live there always,” Lee Anne Callahan-Longo, the general manager of Parkwood, said in the study. “We often laugh about how an hour into a business meeting she will get up and will start walking around. I can see it then—that I’ve lost her, and that I have satiated the amount of business that she wants to discuss that day. I’ll usually say something like ‘Let’s stop. You are going to say yes, but you are not listening to me anymore.’ She knows herself, will laugh, and say ‘You are absolutely right, I am done.’ Because at the end of the day she is an artist, and her passion for art drives her.”

“Make no mistake—she really is the boss,” head of worldwide marketing Jim Sabey told Elberse and Smith.

“It is disheartening that there are still stories written where people assume that just because she is a woman, there is a person other than herself running the business,” Callahan-Longo said.

The album was written over the summer in 2012, in a big house Beyoncé rented in the Hamptons that sounds kind of like Camp Beyoncé. “We rented a house for a month. Everyone would have dinner together every night and break off into different rooms and work on music,” Callahan-Longo said. “She had five or six rooms going, each set up as a studio, and would go from room to room and say things like ‘I think that song needs that person’s input.’ Normally you would not see songs have two or more producers, but it was really collaborative.”

See 34 Gorgeous Photos of Beyoncé

Beyonce met gala
Beyonce arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating "China: Through the Looking Glass" on May 4, 2015, in New York City.Evan Agostini—Invision/AP
2014 MTV Video Music Awards - Roaming Show
Beyonce performs onstage during the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 24, 2014 in Inglewood, California. MTV/Getty Images
2014 MTV Video Music Awards - Rehearsals
Beyonce performs onstage during the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards rehearsals at The Forum on August 23, 2014 in Inglewood, California. Kevin Mazur—WireImage/Getty Images
2014 MTV Video Music Awards - Roaming Show
Beyonce performs onstage during the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 24, 2014 in Inglewood, California. Kevin Winter—Getty Images
2014 MTV Video Music Awards - Roaming Show
Beyonce performs onstage during the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 24, 2014 in Inglewood, California. Jeff Kravitz—FilmMagic/Getty Images
2014 MTV Video Music Awards - Roaming Show
Beyonce performs onstage during the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 24, 2014 in Inglewood, California. Kevin Winter—Getty Images
2014 MTV Video Music Awards - Roaming Show
Blue Ivy Carter, Jay-Z and Beyonce speak onstage during the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 24, 2014 in Inglewood, California. MTV/Getty Images
2014 MTV Video Music Awards - Fixed Show
Beyonce performs onstage at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 24, 2014 in Inglewood, California. Jason LaVeris—FilmMagic/Getty Images
"On The Run Tour: Beyonce And Jay-Z" - Houston
Beyonce performs during the "On The Run Tour: Beyonce And Jay-Z" at Minute Maid Park on July 18, 2014 in Houston, Texas. Larry Busacca—WireImage/Getty Images
"On The Run Tour: Beyonce And Jay-Z" - Pasadena
Beyonce performs during the "On The Run Tour: Beyonce And Jay-Z" at the Rose Bowl on August 2, 2014 in Pasadena, California. Larry Busacca—WireImage/Getty Images
2014 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival - Weekend 1 - Day 2
Beyonce performs with her sister Solange onstage during day 2 of the 2014 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club on April 12, 2014 in Indio, California. Jeff Kravitz—FilmMagic/Getty Images
56th GRAMMY Awards - Show
Beyonce performs onstage during the 56th Grammy Awards at Staples Center on January 26, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. Kevin Mazur—WireImage/Getty Images
Beyonce "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" - New York
Beyonce performs on stage during "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" at the Barclays Center on December 19, 2013 in New York, New York. Larry Busacca—WireImage/Getty Images
Beyonce "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" - New York
Beyonce performs on stage during "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" at the Barclays Center on December 22, 2013 in New York, New York. Kevin Mazur—WireImage/Getty Images
Beyonce "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" - Los Angeles
Beyonce performs on stage during "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" at the Staples Center on December 3, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. Larry Busacca—WireImage/Getty Images
Rock in Rio 2013
Beyonce performs on stage during a concert in the Rock in Rio Festival on September 13, 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Buda Mendes—Getty Images
Beyonce "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" - New York
Beyonce performs on stage during "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" at the Barclays Center on August 3, 2013 in New York, New York. Kevin Mazur—WireImage/Getty Images
Beyonce "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" - East Rutherford
Beyonce performs on stage during "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" at the Izod Center on July 31, 2013 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Larry Busacca—WireImage/Getty Images
Beyonce "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" - Los Angeles
Beyonce performs on stage during "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" at the Staples Center on July 1, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. Kevin Mazur—WireImage/Getty Images
Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show
Beyonce performs during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show at Mercedes-Benz Superdome on February 3, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Kevin Mazur—WireImage/Getty Images
Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show
Beyonce performs during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on February 3, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Christian Petersen—Getty Images
Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show
Beyonce and Bibi McGill perform during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on February 3, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Christian Petersen—Getty Images
Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show
Beyonce performs during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on February 3, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Win McNamee—Getty Images
Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show
Beyonce performs during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on February 3, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ezra Shaw—Getty Images
President Barack Obama's 2nd Inauguration
Beyonce sings the National Anthem at the inauguration for U.S. President Barack Obama's second term of office. Chris Maddaloni—CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images
The Glastonbury Festival 2011 - Day Four
Beyonce headlines the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 26, 2011 in Glastonbury, England. Samir Hussein—Getty Images
The Glastonbury Festival 2011 - Day Four
Beyonce headlines the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 26, 2011 in Glastonbury, England. Samir Hussein—Getty Images
2009 BET Awards - Show
Beyonce onstage at the 2009 BET Awards at the Shrine Auditorium on June 28, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. John Shearer—WireImage/Getty Images
2007 Essence Music Festival - Day 2
Beyonce performs on the main stage at the 13th Annual 2007 Essence Music Festival presented by Coca-Cola in the refurbished Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Skip Bolen—WireImage/Getty Images
The Beyonce Experience Tour - July 20, 2007
"The Beyonce Experince" Tour featuring Beyonce plays to Philips Arena on July 7, 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia. Rick Diamond—WireImage/Getty Images
Destiny's Child "Destiny Fulfilled" Tour in Los Angeles - September 2, 2005
Beyonce performs during the Destiny's Child "Destiny Fulfilled" Tour in Los Angeles - September 2, 2005 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.John Shearer—WireImage/Getty Images
Destiny's Child in Concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City - July 29, 2005
Beyonce performs during a Destiny's Child in Concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City, July 29, 2005.Theo Wargo—WireImage/Getty Images
Cannes - "Dreamgirls" - Portraits
Beyonce poses for a photo during a portrait session for the cast of "Dreamgirls" at the Carlton Hotel's Orange Lounge during the 59th International Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 20, 2006.Carlo Allegri—Getty Images
Rockin' the Corps Concert - An American Thank You Celebration for US Marines - Show
Beyonce performs during Rockin' the Corps Concert at Camp Pendelton in San Diego, California.J. Merritt—FilmMagic/Getty Images

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