X

Beyoncé just dropped Homecoming: The Live Album

The Queen B dropped a 40-track live album of marching band awesomeness direct from Coachella to go with her Netflix film.

Claire Reilly Former Principal Video Producer
Claire Reilly was a video host, journalist and producer covering all things space, futurism, science and culture. Whether she's covering breaking news, explaining complex science topics or exploring the weirder sides of tech culture, Claire gets to the heart of why technology matters to everyone. She's been a regular commentator on broadcast news, and in her spare time, she's a cabaret enthusiast, Simpsons aficionado and closet country music lover. She originally hails from Sydney but now calls San Francisco home.
Expertise Space, Futurism, Science and Sci-Tech, Robotics, Tech Culture Credentials
  • Webby Award Winner (Best Video Host, 2021), Webby Nominee (Podcasts, 2021), Gold Telly (Documentary Series, 2021), Silver Telly (Video Writing, 2021), W3 Award (Best Host, 2020), Australian IT Journalism Awards (Best Journalist, Best News Journalist 2017)
Claire Reilly
2 min read
Parkwood Entertainment

It's Beyoncé Christmas!

The mother of music, the Queen B, the patron saint of all that is good and pure, has dropped a new 40-track live album in time for the release of her new Coachella concert film on  Netflix , Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé. 

And the best part? There's a brand new song.

Rumours of a seventh album from Beyoncé were swirling ahead of the launch, with buzz about a mysterious "B7" album emerging on social media. Then Homecoming: The Live Album dropped on streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music , iTunes and Tidal shortly after midnight PT on Wednesday. 

The live album is taken from her 2018 headline performance at California music festival Coachella, which was a marching-band-fueled tribute to America's historically black colleges universities. Imagine Crazy in Love with a drumline, Diva with a full brass section, Single Ladies elevated to the energy of a massive college football half-time show. 

beyonce-homecoming-netflix-3-promo-crop
Parkwood Entertainment

And for die-hard Beyoncé fans, there's a brand new bonus track at the end of the album. Beyoncé included a studio cover of the 1981 song Before I Let Go by Frankie Beverly and Maze, a song that Destiny's Child previously covered (though never released) in 1997. The song also appears in the closing credits of the Netflix film. 

The diva knows how to coordinate a launch.

The mystery phrase "B7" caught fire on social media the day before the concert film when a tracklisting appeared to leak -- which included a song featuring Rihanna. Fingers crossed that seventh album could still follow the live album.

The live album hit as fans were tuning into the Netflix documentary, with the Apple Music Twitter account dropping album art just as Netflix's Twitter account was changing its bio to a string of six bee emoji. This isn't the first time she's dropped a full experience on fans -- if the word "Lemonade" doesn't mean anything to you, then you must have been hiding under a rock when the visual album hit the world like a pop explosion

The film includes Beyoncé's epic live performance as she became the first African-American woman to headline Coachella. It also follows the rehearsals and preparation with a vast cast of dancers and musicians, not to mention the occasional cameo from former bandmates Destiny's Child and royal consort Jay Z.

There's no word on whether we'll get some other perfectly formed piece of art beyond this live album, but for now, fans have 40 tracks to play on repeat until the end of time.