Beyoncé just released her new album, 'Lemonade,' during her HBO special

Beyonce performs during the Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on Feb. 7, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif.

April 23, 2016 8:09 PM PT

Once again Beyoncé has broken the mold of a traditional album release.

On Saturday, the megastar debuted material from her eagerly anticipated sixth album via “Lemonade,” an hour-long concept musical film that debuted exclusively on HBO, just one week after she announced the event with a cryptic teaser that revealed little except for the film’s title, before releasing the album of the same name.

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“Lemonade” is a deeply experimental -- and personal -- statement for a singer who has spent the last few years of her career working to redefine uber pop-stardom in an age of social media and streaming.

Mentions of infidelity and a troubled relationship are running themes throughout “Lemonade,” a bold move given that Beyonce’s long career has been one of carefully curated public displays, solo and with her husband Jay-Z.

The album, which popped up on the rapper’s streaming service Tidal during the HBO debut, also addresses struggles specific to black women. It’s a revealing look at a woman who’s spent the past two decades striving for pop perfection with precision dance moves and audacious anthems of female empowerment and sexuality.

The film opens much like the teaser she issued a week ago — the singer in blond cornrows and a fur before scenes of Louisiana flash by.

“You can taste the dishonesty, it’s all over your breath,” she sings in the opening lines of the somber, piano-driven ballad that opens the album, “Pray You Catch Me.”

“Lemonade,” the hour-long visual film, unspools over tiny chapters, with portions of songs tied together by poetry from the Somali-British writer Warsan Shire, which the singer narrated. Among the chapters:

“Intuition.”

“Denial.”

“Anger.”

“Forgiveness.”

“Redemption.”

The constant thread of “Lemonade” is a troubled relationship, which has been tested and strained. The album is “based on every woman’s journey of self-knowledge and healing,” according to its release information on Tidal.

Rage, bitterness, revenge, heartbreak, pain and reconcilation are addressed here with records offering plenty of nods toward her own relationship -- and her back work -- all of which is intertwined through womanhood, particularly black womanhood.

“I tried to make a home out of you, the doors lead to trap doors. A stairway leads to nothing,” she says over stark shots of a wooded forest. “You remind me of my father, a magician, able to exist in two places at once.”

During “Denial” the singer is floating in water when she asks, softly, “Are you cheating on me?” The song that’s heard is “Hold Up,” a slinky reggae-tinged jam where sees a seething Bey adonishing her spouse about the “wicked way to treat the girl that loves you” before reminding herself, and him, that she’s “the baddest woman in the game.” Among the visuals: Beyonce struts down a city block in an orange chiffon dress and chunky heels before she’s given a bat, which she uses to smash up cars. “There’s something that I’m missing, maybe my head for once,” she sings.

In the chapter titled “Anger,” she unleashed a bluesy rock-inflected soul number called “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” which features Jack White. It’s about as ferocious a siren call as she’s ever done. “Who the ... do you think I am? / You ain’t married to no average bitch, boy.” Fittingly, it’s capped with her boasting, “This is your final warning ... If you try this ... again, you gon’ lose your wife.”

There’s an appearance by Serena Williams in the film during an infectious kiss-off. “I ain’t thinking about you / middle fingers up / tell em boy bye,” she sings on “Sorry,” as dancers in tribal makeup move alongside the singer on a bus. Images cut to the artist seated on a throne in an antebellum house as Williams twerks nearby.

Throughout the special, she walked through fire. She paid tribute to slain black men. She dismantled every notion of her public persona through songs that cut across electronic R&B, country, blues, rock, soul, trap, folk and piano balladry.

Her father appeared in footage during “Daddy Lessons,” an emotional number about their relationship (the two have long been assumed to be estranged). “I came into this world daddy’s little girl / daddy made a soldier out of me,” she sang on the track.

And just when “Lemonade” felt like a brilliant, artful divorce announcement Jay Z appears in the clip for a tender number of reconcilation and forgiveness, “Sandcastles.”

“I know I promised that I couldn’t stay, baby / Every promise don’t work out that way,” she sings before later singing of liberation and freedom and ultimately triumph and rebirth.

There was plenty of home footage of young Blue Ivy and a touching tribute to her mother and her grandmother, which tied together the title and the theme of its pained lyrics. “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” Jay Z’s grandmother Hattie White says, reciting the old adage in footage taken from her 90th birthday celebration.

A dizzying array of producers and songwriters contributed to the album. Among the lengthy credit scroll is Kevin Garret, Diplo, Mike Will Made It, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, Mike Dean, Wynter Gorden, Ben Billions, Just Blaze, Hit-Boy, Boots, Father John Misty, James Blake and Dannyboystyles.

How Beyoncé planned on releasing the new material to the public was just as, if not more, fascinating as what the new record would sound like.

In 2013, she made a self-titled “visual album” featuring 14 new tracks and 17 music videos — recorded and filmed largely in secret — available for purchase on iTunes without as much as a warning.

“I felt like I didn’t want anybody to give the message when my record is coming out,” she said then. “I just want this to come out when it’s ready and from me to my fans.”

The surprise release jolted the music industry and became a blockbuster hit. The phrase “pulling a Beyoncé” was coined to describe the uptick of high-profile acts releasing bodies of work without fanfare, and she shattered iTunes’ sales records, logging more than 617,200 downloads in just three days (the project instantly shot to No. 1 in more than 100 countries).

And Beyoncé took much of that approach with the new album film.

Though she recorded the music and filmed visuals mostly under the radar, the arrival of new music wasn’t a surprise.

In January, on the day before she performed at the Super Bowl alongside Coldplay and Bruno Mars, Beyoncé debuted the first new material with the release of her brazen single “Formation,” which she debuted on Tidal along with its music video. The song closes the album, but its video isn’t included in the film.

Beyond releasing “Formation,” announcing a stadium world tour and the “Lemonade” teaser, the singer kept a lid on details about the album.

Phony tracklists, assumed release dates (the symbolism of the No. 4 to the singer made April 4, her wedding anniversary, a popular guess) and unconfirmed talks of collaborators popped up online almost daily, but she remained mum.

Before the HBO special was over, Beyonce dropped the album on Tidal.

The 12-track album includes guest appearances from Jack White, the Weeknd, James Blake and Kendrick Lamar.

It’s currently available as a Tidal exclusive. The hour-long film is also available to stream on the service as well.

It was expected that the singer would release the album directly to the streaming service. More than a year ago the superstar, along with husband, Jay Z, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Kanye West, and a host of other A-list musicians gathered for a splashy launch event to announce the artist-owned streaming service.

Though heavily maligned by critics and other artists, Tidal has made inroads — largely thanks to exclusive content from Rihanna, Lil Wayne, West and, yes, Beyoncé.

Its more than 3 million subscribers are eclipsed by the 11 million that Apple Music touts and the 30 million users of nearly 10-year-old Spotify. However both trail Tidal in volume of high-profile releases by megastar pop acts.

And the release of “Lemonade” is Tidal’s biggest get yet.

The service seemed to have learned from the bumpy rollout of Rihanna’s “Anti” album and West’s “The Life of Pablo” — both of which ultimately did gangbusters for the service in terms of streaming numbers and cultural impact — with the Beyoncé release. The album appeared on the service minutes before the special wrapped.

“Lemonade,” the film, was directed by the singer, alongside Kahlil Joesph, Melina Matsoukas, Todd Tourso, Dikayl Rimmasch, Jonas Akerland and Mark Romanek.

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