Jay-Z has already made waves over the forthcoming release of his new album Magna Carta Holy Grail with his $20 million deal with Samsung to buy 1 million copies before it even hits shelves and again when the tracklist revealed that the album sampled Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and R.E.M. amongst guest spots with Frank Ocean, Justin Timberlake, and Ms. Z – Beyonce Knowles.

Now in another big marketing push that looks to one-up both Kanye’s Yeezus building projections and Daft Punk’s Wee Waa launch, the album artwork for the Hova’s twelfth studio album has been unveiled in the grandest of reveals.

As Pitchfork reports, the Magna Carta Holy Grail album artwork has turned up on display right beside one of the four remaining copies of the real life Magna Carta, located in The Salisbury Cathedral in England (in a move that’s sure to rile up the Illuminati conspiracy theorists).

The album cover, which features some antipodean looking busts behind some black and bold typeface, is being displayed on several lecterns dotted around the cathedral’s Chapter House, including a display case that’s sitting just beside one of the four surviving original 1215 Magna Carta documents, and will remain exhibited for the rest of the month, as Life And Times points out with some accompanying images.

The album artwork reveal arrives just as Samsung users who have downloaded the #magnacarta app are able to exclusively access the record today ahead of its global launch on 9th July thanks to the multi-million deal between the South Korean smartphone giant and Jay-Z.

The unprecedented move has also prompted the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to changes its policies regarding Gold and Platinum certifications to be handed out upon release date, as Billboard reports, updating the old rules that applied a 30-day waiting period to physical releases to be mutually exclusive to digital releases. The Magna Carta Holy Grail album artwork has turned up on display right beside one of the four remaining copies of the real life Magna Carta

“As we dug through the records of audits, re-reviewed rules and consulted with our auditing firm of more than thirty years, Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, we discovered one rule disparity that no longer makes sense,” wrote the RIAA’s Liz Kennedy in a blog post.

“We think it’s time for the RIAA … to align our digital song and album certification requirements. That’s why today we are officially updating this rule in our [Gold and Platinum] Program requirements. Going forward, sales of albums in digital format will become eligible on the release date,” she adds, putting it in line with the same ‘instant’ certification rule as the Digital Single Award established in 2004.

The RIAA update was prompted specifically by Jay-Z’s Magna Carta/Samsung deal, which Kennedy calls “a novel and creative marketing move [that] has rightly stimulated a healthy conversation about the sale’s meaning and implications for the modern music business.”

The 1 million copy giveaway of the music and business mogul’s much anticipated new album won’t count towards sales on the Billboard Charts however, as Editorial Diretor Bill Werde recently confirmed; while the man born Shawn Carter himself tweeted:

Magna Carta Holy Grail Tracklisting

01. “Picasso Baby”
02. “Heaven” (samples R.E.M.’s ‘Losing My Religion’)
03. “Versus”
04. “Tom Ford”
05. “Beach Is Better”
06. “FuckWithMeYouKnowIGotIt” (feat. Rick Ross)
07. “Oceans” (feat. Frank Ocean)
08. “F.U.T.W.”
09. “Part II (On The Run)” (feat. Beyonce)
10. “BBC” (feat. Nas, Justin Timberlake, Swizz Beats, Pharrell & Timbaland)
11. “La Familia”
12. “Jay-Z Blue”
13. “Nickles & Dimes”
14. “Holy Grail” (samples Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’)
15. “Open Letter”

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