Maybe you heard: After more than two years and numerous label changes, Azealia Banks finally got around to dropping Broke With Expensive Taste, and she did it as a total surprise. It was (we think) the cap on 12 months of surprise album drops from huge performers. Check out six of the biggest surprises of the last year, ranked for both quality of product and innovation of release:
06) Detox by Dr. Dre
Ha, just kidding. All we found out about Detox this year was that it wasn't going to be titled Detox anymore. The next five will be serious, we promise.
05) Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon by Kid Cudi
Admittedly, much of why Kid Cudi landed in last place on this list is that he just doesn't have our attention as much as he once did, which is probably why he decided to launch the new album by surprise. According to the performer, Satellite will provide a prequel to 2015's Man on The Moon III, which essentially makes this Man on The Moon II.5. The world was rapt with the first chapter of the series in 2009, and we found the second edition to be an underrated gem. The albums dropped in between Moon sequences just diluted our interest however. Still, this drop has to be considered a success for the 87,000 first week copies it sold without a single in play.
04) Recess by Skrillex
Skrillex has been a part of our collective music conscience for years but it can't be said that he released a formal album until Recess suddenly appeared near the end of SXSW. It wasn't wholly a surprise, as an app launched earlier in the month contained easter eggs leading fans to the tracks on iTunes. That said, it was still a surprise to most of us because the DJ hadn't given any indication he was working on an actual full-length, and had even hinted otherwise during a Reddit session a week earlier. The guests he employed—from K-Pop stars G-Dragon and CL, to jungle icons the Ragga Twins and Chance The Rapper—suggested this should be a classic...but it wasn't. The product just couldn't live up to the chaotic nature of his live shows or what we'd heard before on EPs.
03) Songs of Innocence by U2
By the time October had rolled around, surprise albums were somewhat passé. The challenge was how to truly one-up Beyoncé's 2013 accomplishment? U2 has never shied away from doing things huge so the band teamed up with Apple to launch the album for free on iTunes. The group was so insistent that you check out its new record that it organized for iTunes to automatically upload the album to your account. Although this didn't actually harm anyone, it immediately caused the half of the planet that hates U2 to lash out against the band and the general violation of privacy carried out by Apple. Since then the group has apologized for invading your computer/iPod but it hasn''t complained about the attention it's gotten for them. And, to be honest, Songs of Innocence isn't half bad, with lead single "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)" worthy of placement on some of our more favorite U2 albums.
02) Beyoncé by Beyoncé
We may be young but we've been around this internet thing through its biggest moments of growth, including the explosion of social media. We can't think of anything—which isn't a tragedy or celebrity death—that has generated more social uproar than Beyoncé's sudden release of a self-titled album via iTunes last year. The idea that the most influential performer in the country (we mean it) would suddenly drop an album, an album that somehow no one else knew about, just blew everyone's collective mind. We're not going to argue that this is her best album, not at all, but you have to give her props for the idea and for packaging a music video for every track. It made Jay Z's Samsung stunt from earlier in the year look like child's play.
01) Broke With Expensive Taste by Azealia Banks
Is it early? Yeah. But few albums had as much riding on them as Rich With Expensive Taste. Banks had kept us on the line for more than two years, playing with our emotions and dropping the occasional single, keeping us reminded how talented she was and wondering when it might all come to fruition. Not only that, the constant headlines regarding her often ill-advised spats with everyone from Nicki Minaj to Lily Allen, gave us good reason to wonder if she was full of hot air. The longer we went without hearing Broke, the more we wondered if it would end up being a toned-down version of Chinese Democracy. Then boom: It dropped. If this album hadn't been everything she promised us it would be, Banks would have found herself out of a career. She's still got plenty of hurdles to get over for round two—finding producers she hasn't alienated yet for one—but at least the emcee's got proof that she's a talent worth working with, even if the waters are choppy. Clutch performance.
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