Music gone missing: Beyoncé's stolen tracks join legendary lost albums club

News24

15-07-2025

Computer drives containing Beyoncé's unreleased music were stolen last week in Atlanta, police said Monday, with a suspect still at large.
The Cowboy Carter tour kicked off in April after the global superstar took home her first Album of the Year Grammy for the 2024 album.
Several albums throughout history have also been lost.
Computer drives containing unreleased music by US superstar Beyoncé and plans related to her concerts were stolen last week in Atlanta, police said Monday, with a suspect still at large.
The items were stolen from a rental car used by Beyoncé's choreographer and a dancer on 8 July, two days before the pop icon kicked off the Atlanta leg of her Cowboy Carter tour, a police incident report said.
Choreographer Christopher Grant, 37, told police that he returned to the car to find its rear window smashed and their luggage stolen.
Inside were multiple jump drives that 'contained watermarked music, some unreleased music, footage plans for the show, and past and future set list (sic),' the report said.
Also missing were an Apple MacBook, headphones and several items of luxury clothing.
Police investigated an area where the MacBook and headphones had pinged their location, but the report did not mention any items being recovered.
Atlanta Police said in an online statement that a warrant had been issued for an unnamed suspect's arrest but that the suspect remained at large.
The Cowboy Carter tour kicked off in April after the global superstar took home her first Album of the Year Grammy for the 2024 album.
The sweeping country-themed work saw Beyoncé stake out musical territory in a different genre from much of her previous discography.
The ambitious, historically rooted album also aimed to elevate and showcase the work of other Black artists in country music, whose rich contributions the industry has repeatedly sidelined.
As her stadium tour to promote the album winds down, Beyoncé ended her four-night stint in Atlanta on Monday, with two final performances set for late July in Las Vegas.
There are other examples in history of albums being considered 'lost', either through theft or other complications.
Green Day – Cigarettes and Valentines
The album was set to be the follow-up to Warning (2000) before the master tapes were stolen from the band's studio. Instead, they went on to release American Idiot in 2004.
Jimi Hendrix - Axis: Bold As Love
After getting out of a taxicab in London, Hendrix forgot the first master tapes of his second album, Axis: Bold As Love, which were never recovered. His band had to rerecord the entire first half of the album.
Skrillex – Untitled
In 2011, producer Skrillex had his laptops and hard drives stolen from his Milan hotel room, which contained a full album's worth of material. Some of Skrillex's unreleased music from this period were included on his latest album from this year.
The Beach Boys - Smile
Sometimes referred to as 'the greatest album never made', Smile was unfinished and unreleased for decades before Brian Wilson dropped his final version of it in 2004. Due to personal struggles, including mental health and drug use, Wilson was unable to finish the album in the 1960s.
Kanye West - The Life of Pablo
Before he even started recording his album, Ye lost the lyrics to his album The Life of Pablo after his daughter North flushed his phone down the toilet. They couldn't recover the files, so Ye ended up rewriting the songs.