Beyonce and Justin Timberlake Leave Us All Punk'd

Popular Musician / Punk'd Victim Justin Timberlake

The last time you were probably still buying CDs and getting new Destiny's Child music was 2004 and you were probably watching Punk'd. And in 2006 you were probably dancing like a sexy man/woman to Justin Timberlake's SexyBack at Da Club and laughing at Justin's mama's boy emotional meltdown on Punk'd. 

It should be apt then that these two musical powerhouses managed to Punk everybody today getting Twitter based pop fans in a lather with slightly misleading announcements.

Destiny's Child was the real IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING MOMENT and probably the most disappointing. Just over an hour ago Beyonce's website posted this announcement with B's apparent delight at the first "original" music by the group in eight years. Cue tears, screams and all caps joy from pop fans whose memory of everything from Bills, Bills, Bills to the unintentional hilarity of Cater 2 U. 

Beyonce's face everytime she sees Kim Kardashian. Maybe.

Never mind that the album was called Love Songs which sounds a bit compilation-y, that Beyonce is in the middle of pushing her new album and about to do the Superbowl THEY ARE BACK EVERY ONE. But sadly, we were Punk'd by Team Beyonce (do you remember when she was on it?). It's in fact a compilation with one new song. It sounds to be frank, ropey but maybe the new song will be a "hidden gem"

OMG!!11 IZ DIs Daa Nu dCtHREE alBum?!

The thing is as annoying as this it's also hilarious. Purely because it's so deliberate on Team Beyonce's part (you just know they worded that way to get a bit of attention) and also for the idea that somebody did this to try and outdo the Justin Timberlake announcement. Meanwhile, Christina Aguilera is probably throwing darts at pictures of everyone who was big in 2000-2004's and while crying softly.

"Don't make me hit like you I maybe did with Michelle!"

Now Justin has sort of Punk'd us too. Which is apt given that he was on the first episode of the show and his baby-ish crying to his mom over a broken guitar is one of The Greatest TV Moments of All Time. A tweet about some kind of announcement today at got everyone in a lather about a new song appearing out of nowhere although many had pointed out that some hastily deleted tweets from a radio station suggested a Monday play. Nonetheless plenty of fans flew to Justin's website a little while ago to see what the deal was.

And AGAIN we were Punk'd. No new song, just a pretentious YouTube video and a countdown. In a way this is still exciting because it's been so long since Timberlake has done any music that we can probably wait a few days. Still it's funny how instead of spending our weekend getting down to JT's latest we'll just have to watch him moodily walk around and say things like I CAN'T JUST KNOCK AN ALBUM OUT EVERY 5 MINUTE ...RIHANNA! (And as I said earlier this Billboard piece hints at some interesting stuff on the album and this MTV look at Justin's work the last few years is also fascinating)

          

With Beyonce and Justin joining Britney, Kylie, Cher and Lady Gaga in the Big Pop Acts Bringing Out New Material stakes 2013 is going to be an absolute mess. I can't wait.