So… the Queen ‘Bey’ has done it again, if recent (and very naughty) photos are to be believed. Nicki Minaj, Justin Timberlake and Rihanna are to be the guest vocalists on volume to Beyonce’s self titled, formerly surprising opus. I’m not going to add to what many have already covered regarding the rest of the albums particulars. That can be done when someone outside of Columbia’s top brass has actually heard the fruits of Lady Carters labours.

I can’t help but wonder though, if this really was the work of a rogue employee, or whether a guerilla marketing guru’s lightbulb lit up above his head before exploding in an orgy of supreme social hive mindedness. Think about it, most of us would obviously buy the album in a heartbeat when we found out it had actually dropped. But the lady’s last album broke records in the first week of its release and to break them again with the very next release would be something I would definitely be thinking about if I were in her position. The easiest way to break that record is to make sure that we all know when its due. But the trick is to do that without seeming to be falling back into the promotional habits of ‘normal’ artists. And voilà, the picture that sets a few million tongues wagging is released.

This is a lady for whom, despite the intense privacy she and her husband try to convey (lift altercations permitting), staying at the top of the chart fed tree is par for the course. After the MI6 level of security that surrounded last years videothon I simply cannot see how such a lapse can take place on the very next project without a thumbs up from someone in a position in f power. And all it cost for such a feat is the kilobytes of data it took to get the photo out to the masses in the first place.

After her last projecta bout of surprise super status and if this slip of the enter key was indeed intentional, I cannot think of another female vocal powerhouse that would be able to pull off such a move. I cannot for one minute imagine either Taylor Swift or Mikey Cyrus getting away with pulling off such a move and simply waiting for nature to take its course. I fear that many of their younger fan base are a little too fickle when their marketing and demographic boffins to rubber stamp such a move.

Who knows, maybe i am the musical interpretation of David Icke? Thinking a little too deeply about an obvious piece of photographic opportunism for my own good? Or does Beyonce have to once again thank the mind that, by conceiving such a shrewd game of Chinese whispers, has probably saved the way to another record breaking week for the Carter household?