I Am… Sasha Fierce by Beyoncé

I Am... Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé's third album, landed on Columbia on November 12, 2008, and it came split down the middle on purpose. Disc one, I Am..., is the private side: slow and midtempo ballads that borrow acoustic guitars and a little folk and alt-rock hush, written and produced with Babyface, Tricky Stewart, The-Dream and Ryan Tedder. Disc two belongs to Sasha Fierce, her onstage alter ego, and it's all uptempo electropop and Europop swagger, with Darkchild and Sean Garrett at the controls. She credited Jay-Z and Etta James, whom she played in Cadillac Records, with pushing her songwriting further.

"If I Were a Boy" and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" came out swinging, the latter becoming her fifth Hot 100 number one, and "Halo" and "Sweet Dreams" followed abroad. The album opened at the top of the Billboard 200 with 482,000 sold, went seven times platinum in America and won five Grammys.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.