Beyoncé
Released
We sleep, Beyoncé grinds. When Bey released her strongest album in seven years without anyone having any idea it was coming, it came bundled with 17 videos too. Beyoncé features futuristic, sometimes tribal, mid-tempo tracks from Timbaland, Pharrell, Frank Ocean, Justin Timberlake, The-Dream, Hit-Boy and more. By the end of “Blow,” she starts pleading, “I want you to turn that cherry out,” squarely in sex kitten territory. “Partition” makes mention of a lover who “Monica Lewinskyed all on my gown” in a limo. Later, Beyoncé asks him to “rock it till water falls” on “Rocket.” Bey used overt sexiness as a superpower here and crafted an instant classic.