Turns out, releasing an album with no press, secretly and out of the blue, is just as effective as spending millions-of-dollars on marketing, as Beyonce’s album ‘Visual’ moves towards some of the Queen of Pop’s records, and threatens to move past them.

Beyonce
Beyonce released Beyonce without press and marketing, which was the press and marketing she could have hoped for

The unexpected Christmas treat was released on Thursday, and sold more than 430,000 copies in a little more than a day - Katy Perry’s Prism sold 286,000 copies in an entire week of its debut in October, just to give you a touch of context.

Visual is being touted as one of the biggest selling individual female artist’s albums since Taylor Swift’s Red, which sold 1.2 million copies in 2012.

Billboard will halt tracking for the current week’s sales tomorrow, which gives Beyonce a great chance of surpassing the 600,000 mark, and that represents somewhat of a landmark for the Crazy in Love singer.

If she does hit those heights, it’ll be her best debut week and best sales-week period of her career – and that’s Beyonce’s career we’re talking about.

“I didn’t want to release my music the way I’ve done it,” says Beyonce in a statement about the album. “I am bored with that. I feel like I am able to speak directly to my fans. There’s so much that gets between the music, the artist and the fans.

“I felt like I didn’t want anybody to give the message when my record is coming out. I just want this to come out when it’s ready and from me to my fans. I just want to give my album to the people I love and respect and hope that they feel the same thing I felt when I made the music.”

Beyonce also announced a world tour to go alongside her new album, with tickets for some U.K dates online now.