That Beyoncé Track List Was Totally Fake

Remember the leaked track list for a brand new Beyoncé album that was supposed to include eleven new songs and collaborations with Rihanna and Nicki Minaj? Not real. Ain’t happening. It’s a big ol’ fake.

Billboard crushed the dreams of the Beyhive and me by debunking the rumors today. There will indeed be a special “Platinum Edition” of Beyoncé’s surprise 2013 album, but everything else ain’t happening.

Lee Anne Callahan-Longo, the general manager of Beyoncé’s Parkwood Entertainment spoke to Billboard about the fake track listing and explained that releasing all the information on the special edition box set was their way of clearing up the rumors.

“It’s completely made up,” Callahan-Longo says. “After all the hubbub this weekend, we kind of said, ‘Well, let’s just put it out and say what it is.’ It’s funny, I got a bunch of calls over the weekend and I would say, ‘It’s exciting to know people are excited.’ Even if they’re reporting it wrong, and that people would take their time to go and create a fake one-sheet — right down to using a Columbia logo on it. I would love to know who did it. They clearly knew what a line sheet used to look like – they don’t look like that anymore.”

I have to admit, I was very cautiously optimistic about Beyoncé Volume 2. What threw me off was the idea that Beyoncé would do the whole, “SURPRISE! HERE’S A BRAND NEW ALBUM AND A MILLION MUSIC VIDEOS” trick again.

The fact that it was available for preorder on Amazon was another clue that Beyoncé and her team weren’t really trying to hide anything. Plus, think of the wizard-level legal work that went into ensuring that nothing leaked about Beyoncé last year. If they didn’t make that mistake the first time around, why would they now?

Dropping a brand new surprise album worked spectacularly well, but it doesn’t seem likely that every album Beyoncé releases from now on will follow that format. Callahan-Longo said as much in the interview:

“You can only be first once, so I’m not sure we’d want to do it again. We typically at Parkwood like to look at projects where, if it isn’t unique or different in some way, it’s really not interesting to us.

The “Platinum Edition” of Beyonce will include a four-disc limited edition box set with 2013’s Beyoncé plus two songs, two DVDs and the official 2015 Beyoncé calendar.