Beyonce tops trending chart hours after dropping ’Formation’
After dropping new track Formation on February 6, without warning as Beyonce is wont to do, the 20-time Grammy winner went straight to #1 on Billboard’s trending chart.
The track, reportedly produced by Mike Will Made-It and co-written by Swae Lee of Rae Sremmurd, was not released on iTunes. Instead, it was made available as a free download via Tidal, the hi-fi streaming service purchased by her husband Jay Z for US$56m last year.
Billboard’s Trending 140 chart measures the acceleration of conversation around artists and their music.
While the track is available to download now here, the free offer may be shuttered in a similar fashion to Rihanna’s Anti album download. The LP was made available for free on Tidal, but after 1 million downloads, was shut off.
The 34-year-old dropped Formation the day before her appearance at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show today, where she made a cameo alongside Coldplay and Bruno Mars. She’s still currently at the top of the Trending 140 chart following the performance, with herhalftime show generating1.3 million global tweets.
Hamish Hamilton, who directed Beyonce’s show at the Superdome in 2013 helmed her Super Bowl performance today. He told media: “She can be a very benevolent dictator, she can also be a wonderful collaborator… She has such ambition to be perfect, to be the best that you just get swept up along in that.”
While none of the performing artists will be paid for their half time performances, the NFL covers expensesandproduction costs. Needless to say, the exposure the artist receives is priceless; last year’s Super Bowl was the most watched telecast of all time, with 114.4m people tuning in in the US alone.
This year, the cheapest ticket on StubHub went for US$3,000 and advertising companies paid on average US$5 million for one 30-second slot.
WATCHBeyonce’s performance of Formation at today’s Super Bowl here, and the official video below: