Top 7 Surprise Album Releases

From Frank Ocean to Beyonce, U2 to Radiohead, these are artists who gave the best unexpected album releases without a ton of warning.

Over the past half-decade, artists have dropped full-lengths with zero, or very little, advance notice, shocking their fans and setting forth some unexpected listening delights. Some of them may have even already announced an official date to release their album but chose to drop it unexpectedly early. And there are also instances when the audience didn’t even know the artist was recording, and surprised everyone with a dozen-track LP. Check out the best surprise album drops in music history.

m b v by My Bloody Valentine, (3 feb 2013)

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My Bloody Valentine was a 90s shoegaze band, and they have actually disbanded in 1997. So when the album m b v dropped out of nowhere in 2013, it was more than a bit surprising. The band apparently reformed and unexpectedly released a 9-track album, a follow-up to their immensely influential 1991 album Loveless.

To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar, (15 mar 2015)

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Following the wild success of his 2012 album, good kid, m.A.A.d. city , Kendrick took his time with his follow-up record. As he began to release new singles near the end of 2014 and early 2015, Kendrick announced the album just two weeks before it was set to come out in March 23. However, the album was leaked into Spotify and iTunes a full 8 days before that, apparently caused by a mistake on the part of the record label. TPAB went on the amass rave reviews, broke streaming records, with critics calling it an instant classic!

Songs of Innocence by U2 (9 sep 2014)

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At an Apple press conference in September 2014, U2 came on stage and performed a song from their upcoming album. Then Apple CEO Tim Cook joined to drop a bombshell. The album was finished and already sitting in the iTunes Library of every user free of charge. This event has become so infamous due to users rallying against Apple for putting an album they don’t want in their library without their permission.

The Life of Pablo by Kanye West (14 feb 2016)

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The enigmatic Kanye West built up hype for his 7th studio album for a long period of time. He quenched his fans appetite with sporadic single releases and constant title changes. And then during his performance on SNL on 14 February 2016, The Life of Pablo finally dropped exclusively on Tidal. But the album wasn’t and isn’t finished yet. Since the Feb release, Kanye kept tweaking the production of several of the songs, adding and subtracting instruments, adding and recording new lines, and changing the tracklist. The Life of Pablo is the only album that was already been officially released, but isn’t finished yet. Kanye has said that Pablo will be a constantly changing album “a living breathing changing creative expression”.

Endless (19 Aug 2016) and Blonde (20 Aug 2016) by Frank Ocean

We’ve already talked about Frank a lot here. The hype for his follow-up album was so huge. Fans waited four long years for a promised release, and have become so restless about it. Then in mid-August this year, without any warning, Frank released not only one album, but two!

In Rainbows by Radiohead, (10 oct 2007)

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When Radiohead was finally free from a label, the band decided to keep information about their upcoming project secret until ten days before its October release. This was when the momentous “pay-what-you-want” was invented. They announced the album will be released digitally, and people can pay whatever they want for it. (Even if they don’t pay anything at all). The release of In Rainbows became a game changer in the music industry, and the band kept up the secret release schedules with their next two albums; 2011’s The King of Limbs and 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool.

Beyoncé by Beyoncé, (13 dec 2013)

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We could have chosen 2016’s Lemonade but it all started with The Queen’s 2013 self-titled album. On the morning of December 13, 2013, Beyonce blindsighted the music industry by releasing her fifth studio album with no announcement, hype or fanfare. Becoming the biggest the first pop star to drop a record to drop a record literally out of nowhere! Once the world recovered from the shock, they sent the album to number one, and many major artists soon adopted the practice of unexpected album releases.

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