Yes, The New Beyoncé Album is Real

This week, Twitter tried to spoil the Beyhive’s early holiday gift by posting an alleged tracklist for Beyoncé Platinum, featuring everything we loved from last year’s surprise self-titled album, plus another disc of brand-new songs. (Including a very intriguing “Cherry” f. Rihanna: could it be that rumored “Blow” remix?!)

Whether it was a real leak or not (although it looked mighty official), its mere insinuation put the Beygency into overdrive. This morning (at 6:18 AM EST, exactly), Columbia Records and Bey’s company Parkwood Entertainment delivered a press release verifying that yes, there will be a new Beyoncé release before the end of the year: a four-disc limited edition box set, featuring 2013’s Beyoncé, two DVDs (including several live performances from the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour and all the videos from Beyoncé), the official 2015 Beyoncé calendar so you always know what time it is, AND! Two new songs and four “unreleased” remixes: “Flawless (f. Nicki Minaj),” “Drunk in Love (f. JAY Z & Kanye West),” “Ring Off” (a “divorce” jam, perhaps?), “Blow (f. Pharrell Williams),” “Standing on the Sun (f. Mr. Vegas),” and “7/11,” which is hopefully about Slurpees.

The box set is now available for preorder, and is out officially on November 24, 2014—WHICH, if the rumors are true, is the day before Rihanna’s new album is slated to drop. Imagine a world in which Rihanna’s and Beyoncé’s albums are released on consecutive days? Just imagine? I can already feel my period syncing up with theirs. I can already imagine the church hands I’m gonna make in the club.

But wait—so what of the leaked “tracklist,” which seemed to list a whole album’s worth of extra tracks—including that Rihanna feature and another track called “DONK” featuring Nicki Minaj? (Which is verrry interesting, considering “Itty Bitty Piggy,” one of Minaj’s best-ever songs, is on the beat from a Soulja Boy song also entitled “Donk.” If there were a Beyoncé “Itty Bitty Piggy” remix, I would lichrally die.) There was also some song with Justin Timberlake, ho hum. The “tracklist” got everything else right. Could Parkwood have jumped on this info in order to distract us, only to actually drop surprise album Beyoncé 2 in the fourth quarter? We can only hope. Either way, a true baller move.

A lot of headlines have touted Taylor Swift’s 1989 as “saving the music industry” and whatnot, having sold more copies than anyone else this year and, presumably, set to be the first artist to go platinum in 2014. But I like the odds of RocNation actually being the catalyst for the dumb “saving” of the music industry. (Although, I’m also of the mind that the music industry could have saved it’s damn self had it not been so reluctant to embrace the internet even six, seven years ago. But that’s another story.) An end of November with new Beyoncé material is enough, but if Rihanna also drops—and there’s still the rumor of a Yeezus 2 on the table—I think we know who’s winning this year. And it’s us.