'My mother was the person that preached to me and almost harassed me every day after I was doing the last world tour: 'You really need to live your life and open your eyes. 'After the last tour I was a bit overwhelmed and overworked,' she explained in her 2011 Year of 4 documentary.

World Tour, her biggest and highest-grossing international trek at the time. Beyoncé later doubled down on her mainstream presence by collaborating twice with Lady Gaga: 'Video Phone' off Sasha Fierce and ' Telephone' off Gaga's The Fame Monster. 'Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It),' 'Halo,' 'If I Were A Boy,' and 'Sweet Dreams' were inescapable Top 10 singles. She scored five GRAMMY wins at the 52nd GRAMMY Awards in 2010, including Song Of The Year for 'Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)'), becoming the first woman artist to win six GRAMMYs in one night. In 2008, Queen Bey was at the height of her career thanks to her mammoth third solo album I Am.Sasha Fierce. Everyone wanted a piece of the mainstream radio pie, with songs like Usher's 'OMG,' Lady Gaga's 'Poker Face,' Rihanna's 'Only Girl (In The World),' Jay-Z's and Alicia Keys' 'Empire State of Mind,' and the Black Eyed Peas' 'Boom Boom Pow' ruling Billboard's Top 40 chart before and during the new decade.īut rewind just a few years before the release of Beyoncé's 4, a time when she, too, was caught up in the same sonic whirlwind she seemingly resented. People don't even listen to a body of work anymore.'īefore hip-hop dominated streaming in 2017, EDM and pop wore listeners out on sticky dance floors. 'People don't make albums anymore, they just try to sell a bunch of quick singles and they burn out and they put out a new one. I'm an artist that tours, I'm an artist that makes albums,' she explained in an exasperated tone. 'It's a tough time for the music industry. In her 2013 HBO documentary, Life Is But A Dream, she targeted the then-burgeoning trend. Beyoncé's 4 album showed she was clearly not having it. Just before the 2010s, streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora picked up where Napster rose and fell in the late '90s, driving the music industry toward a singles-driven market.

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