And Zayn used an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music's Beats 1 station to ready his followers for "Pillowtalk," and for his transition into solo-stardom. Rihanna, meanwhile, stoked fan expectations with a single, semi-crypted Tweet, and although her own Anti Tidal release was somewhat botched, her devotion to the streaming service only furthered its reputation as a sort of deep-pocketed, mega-million-dollar artists' collective.
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Beyonce employed a combination of YouTube and Tidal to dumbo-drop the "Formation" single and video at once, then watched as it created a ripple effect on Twitter and within the mainstream media (and she definitely is watching). Nowadays, though, a performer can circumvent these kinds of hold-ups-and take control of the narrative. But for the last few months, it seems as if people aren't just listening to more music than usual-they're talking about it, too, whether the topic is Adele's record-setting sales, Justin Bieber's once-unthinkable comeback, Zayn Malik's post-One Direction solo breakthrough, David Bowie's shockingly good final record, Future's cover design, or the sheer impossibility of getting Bruce Springsteen tickets without having to take out a PELL grant. Since the mid-'00s, tour promoters and record execs alike (not to mention magazine editors) have bemoaned not only the shrinking number of mass-movement pop stars, but also such artists' diminished ability to reach huge numbers of listeners in an ever-fragmenting landscape. In fact, though only a few months old, 2016 has been an extraordinary year for music-specifically, the kind of comment-corralling, zeitgeist-feeding music that, just a few years ago, seemed to be on the wane. And on Saturday, Beyonce unveiled "Formation," a deeply hooky and politically epochal new single that, in terms of shock-and-awesomeoness, trumped pretty much everything else over the weekend-including the very same Super Bowl in which she performed the song live. Late last month, Rihanna's long-gestating Anti album was finally semi-surprise released, after being leaked by the streaming service Tidal, resulting in a thinkwave of essays, Facebook chatter, and podcast discussions. Pablo will also mark the third major culture-conquering pop-star moment in just the last few weeks. (Though you can livestream the proceedings on Tidal.)
![kanye life of pablo listen kanye life of pablo listen](https://media.pitchfork.com/photos/5931de454fc0406ca110c193/2:1/w_2560%2Cc_limit/16fe8e86.jpg)
![kanye life of pablo listen kanye life of pablo listen](https://townsquare.media/site/812/files/2016/12/kanye-west.jpg)
#Kanye life of pablo listen full
Today, he's scheduled to debut the record, along with his fashion line Yeezy Season 3, at Madison Square Garden like everything West does, the whole event will likely be a mix of rococo and just plan cuckoo, full of dramatic digressions and cagey humor and lux sneakers neither you nor I will be able to afford.
![kanye life of pablo listen kanye life of pablo listen](https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/inside-kanye-west-listening-party-2018-0e7777a7-b5d8-47f7-b009-e5cc1acb1b8e.jpg)
No one knows quite what to expect of Pablo: For the last few years, it's been the very model of malleability, with West sporadically changing its tracklist and title (from Swish to Waves to TLOP), and adding last-minute guests (Andre 3000 and Kirk Franklin, among others, were in the studio less than two weeks ago). In just a few hours, Kanye West will debut The Life of Pablo, his first album of new music in three years, and perhaps the most speculated-about and anticipated pop record since West's last release, the ecstatically abrasive 2013 hit Yeezus.