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Beyonce’s hotly anticipated new album 4 drops tomorrow, and word is that Bey has done it again. Well, kind of.

While some critics have mixed feelings about the number of ballads featured on 4, most of the reviews have skewed positive, with some outright raves sprinkled in for good measure. The Atlantic sums up 4 the best, saying, “The course of 4 documents a progression, a maturation, of Beyoncé's worldview” – apparently so much so that New York magazine posits an alternate title: I Am Sasha Happily Married and Thinking Seriously About the Joys and Tribulations of Making Long-Term Commitments in Life.

Indeed, almost every reviewer has noted that the album deals heavily with themes like commitment and the gravity of what it really means to settle down, suggesting Beyonce, now 29 and happily married to hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, is less interested in pushing broad generalizations about self-worth and its relation to independence and is now ready to examine the strength derived from being part of a team while not losing yourself in the process.

For the record, we love the album. The lyrics to some songs occasionally border on simple and she’s not breaking ground here, but you don’t get the impression that she’s really trying to either. This is top-notch R&B comfort food from the master of the game. The lack of theatrics on 4 is refreshing and the pared-down lyrics are more relatable than if she'd chosen to sing about how awesome she is (the way many singers and rappers do). You’d think it would be difficult to find common ground with Beyonce, but she’s uniquely able to connect with universally human things like love, loss, hope and her desire to leave a lasting impression. And when she does turn the tempo up, with the “Get Me Bodied”-like jam “Countdown” and “Party,” respectively, she brings a smooth groove absent from the current top 40, which has recently favored erratic Euro beats and dubstep breakdowns.

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Here in MTV’s Newsroom, we love Beyonce. Perhaps a little too unconditionally for our own good, but that’s not the point. So it’s with a heavy heart that we report the first two singles from her much-anticipated album 4 have underperformed on the charts.

Fan reaction to the lead single, the Major Lazer-sampling “Run the World (Girls),” has been mixed (the song makes more sense in the context of the album, trust us), leading it to peak at No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100. After just eight weeks on the chart, it has already fallen to No. 64. The follow-up ballad, “Best Thing I Never Had,” isn’t fairing any better: Two weeks into its chart run, it has crept to only No. 75 after making its debut at 84.

But as those who have listened to the full record can attest, she has more than a few up-tempo jams up her sleeve to turn things around. The best has to be “Countdown,” an upbeat, horn-heavy track that is impossible to resist. It’s Beyonce at her best, and it needs to be her next single.

We’d love to embed it for your listening pleasure, but since the album hasn’t been released yet – it hits stores June 28; do what you must to prepare – there is no official source. The album leaked online earlier this month, though, so you shouldn’t have trouble finding it if you poke around the interwebs. So go find it, listen (we'll wait...) and then read on for why we think it would tear up the charts.

(Ed. Note: We do not condone the illegal downloading of music. The above link is to an MTV News article reporting on the album leak and not a downloading site. We streamed the song online, we did not download it, and our words were meant to reflect that. Perhaps they were not as clear as they should have been. Our apologies. And for the record, as mega-fans of B, we intend to buy the deluxe edition of the album so we can get not only the additional songs but the gorgeous album art as well.)

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By Sterling Wong

Girls may run the world, but on the pop charts these days, Beyoncé isn't exactly running things. The diva has cemented her position as arguably the world's top female pop star, so expectations have been high for the first song off her much-anticipated fourth album, 4. But so far, her new single, "Run the World (Girls)," hasn't had an overwhelming reception, at least not by Beyoncé's meteoric standards. And last week, it was announced that the video's official release was being delayed because the singer is "perfecting it."

The song was released to iTunes nearly a month ago and it hit the top 10 for a day, before descending again. It's currently languishing at #157 on the iTunes top 200. Compare this to peers Lady Gaga and Britney whose recently released first singles, "Born This Way" and "Hold It Against Me," both shot to #1 just hours after being released to iTunes and maintained those positions for several days.

In fact, the chart performance of "Run the World (Girls)" is looking similar to that of Christina Aguilera's "Not Myself Tonight," which also fizzled upon its debut last year. (Both "Run The World" and "Not Myself Tonight" sold 77,000 downloads in their first week of digital release, maybe not the most flattering parallel.)
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