Beyoncé And Jay Z On Tour

Well, it took them long enough.

Nearly 12 years after releasing debut collaboration ‘03 Bonnie and Clyde, music’s unstoppable couple, Beyoncé and Jay Z, are embarking on their first joint tour, hitting 16 cities this summer and launching tonight in Miami.

It’s the perfect move for the dynamic duo, who are behind two of last year’s most-talked-about albums: Beyoncé’s celebrated, self-titled surprise release (2 million copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan), and Jay Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail, given away to 1 million Samsung Galaxy users (2.2 million copies, 1 million of them purchased by Samsung).

And with one of spring’s biggest songs in duet Drunk in Love and stories about them and young daughter Blue Ivy flooding the media, America’s love affair with these prominent parents doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

“People are definitely infatuated with them as a power couple,” says Chuck Creekmur, CEO of AllHipHop.com. “A lot of people look at them as a royal family of sorts … a fairy tale coming true.”

But will their On the Run tour be a storybook success? Reports surfaced last week that the stadium show wasn’t selling well. Live Nation has debunked those rumors, telling Billboard the tour has sold $86 million in tickets.

“If ticket sales don’t reach expectations, it will be viewed as negative, but they played it safe here,” says Yahoo Music senior editor Billy Johnson Jr. “There aren’t a million dates for this stretch,” but they could just be doing a “soft run to see how it goes, and then gauge their next steps. It’s strategic and smart.”

Those are two adjectives regularly applied to the business-savvy pair, whose innovative album releases were hailed as game-changers in the music industry. But others have faltered in trying to replicate their success: Skrillex and Kid Cudi released unannounced albums this spring with middling results (Skrillex’s Recess sold 111,000 copies; Cudi’s Satellite Flight sold 108,000).

“There aren’t many artists (whose album) you’re just going to spend $16 on,” says Vulture senior editor Amanda Dobbins. “It takes a huge amount of celebrity and success to pull that off.”

Pop divas Rihanna and Madonna would have the wattage, but they “pride themselves on being original and trend-setters, so it wouldn’t look good to follow Beyoncé,” Creekmur says.

“They always set the bar really high,” he says. “Even with streaming and pirated music more prevalent than ever, they’ve still been able to move units, keep people excited about their music and keep that megastar status.

“There’s only a few that can do it like Jay Z and Beyoncé.”

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