Over the last decade, pop culture and the music industry has been graced with the musical reign of the pop sensation and global icon, Beyoncé.

Making headlines is all she seems to do because let’s face it, Beyoncé is perfect. But these headlines of hers are picking up the pace recently and rapidly becoming front page news everywhere. Lately the media buzz went ablaze over the surprise drop of her 5th studio album, Beyoncé, on Dec. 13, 2013.

There was no word of the so called “visual album” until the second it dropped for preorder six days before its official release date, Dec. 20th 2013, on iTunes. The visuality of the album comes from the fact that there is a music video for every song in the package. That’s 14 videos and 14 songs. The crazy thing is that she did all of this without anything leaking to the press. That’s some serious power. The album features not only the talents of Beyoncé herself, but also Jay Z (her husband of six years), Drake, Frank Ocean and even a recording of her two-year-old daughter Blue Ivy.

The songs on the album sound like any other form of Beyoncé’s work; there’s a sound she retains that is just solidly hers, but the music seems deeper and more emotional. Some, if not most, of the lyrics she vibrantly brings to life with her voice are strong. The first track of the album titled, “Pretty Hurts,” has the very tenacious lyrics like, “Perfection is a disease of a nation.” Her declaration for confidence and the ridicule against society’s obsession of beauty is heavily laced throughout the album.

If any disclaimer that would need to be shared about her newest, and probably most exciting work, is that a lot of the songs have a mature and more inappropriate vibe to them. Not like we don’t hear it every day on the radio anyhow.

Beyoncé on the whole is an amazing album. The fact that it was so secretive gives it this illusion of mystery that really does draw you into her mellow yet bulletproof talent. Well done Beyoncé.