How did Beyoncé do it? That's the question many fans are asking. The 32-year-old singer surprised her millions of fans by releasing a "visual" album on iTunes early Friday (Dec. 13) morning. There was no promotion, no music videos or singles released beforehand and absolutely no warning.
According to several reports Beyoncé kept a lot of people in the dark about the project. When the album, titled "Beyoncé," did drop her fans weren't the only ones surprised. Morgan Hebert, a backup dancer in the video "Blow" told TMZ that she was stunned when she woke up in the morning and saw her video, 16 others and an entire album released by the singer.
Herbert said she was recruited to do a video in Houston but the dancers were not given any information. She said everything was arranged at the very last minute - probably to keep people from spilling too many details.
Herbert said the shoot took two days and they weren't allowed to use cell phones, they couldn't take pictures and they all had to sign a "scary confidentiality agreement." According to Billboard.com, Beyoncé and her team used the code name "Lily" when referencing the secret album to avoid leaks.
How the singer found enough time to record new songs and shoot dozens of videos while on a world tour remains a mystery. Sources revealed to Radar Online, that for the past couple months Beyoncé was literally jet-setting all over the world in order to complete the album.
One of the first videos shot was "Pretty Hurts" on Aug. 11. Brooklyn residents posted pictures of production vans sitting outside of the Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School but didn't know Beyoncé was inside filming the pageant scene.
A few days later Beyoncé and Jay Z jetted off to Miami for "Dunk in Love." Again people noticed something was being filmed but wasn't sure what it was. Some fans did spot the couple on the beach and both Queen B and her husband stopped to pose for pictures.
For the next couple months, in between touring Beyoncé traveled to Brooklyn again, Coney Island, Brazil, Houston, Oakland, N.J. and Paris to film scenes for different videos. One dancer who appeared in "Haunted" told his Twitter followers that he had no idea what was going on.
Not only were the dancers left in the dark but her team constantly played snippets of different tracks to throw people off.
