XO

Beyoncé wrote XO with Terius Nash (The-Dream) and Ryan Tedder, and the three produced it with Hit-Boy and HazeBanga. It was recorded in New York, Sydney and Berlin and mixed by Andrew Scheps. She said she cut the demo with a bad sinus infection in several minutes, and kept those vocals for a year without re-recording them because she loved the imperfections. The song begins with a six-second recording of NASA's Steve Nesbitt just after the Challenger disaster of 28 January 1986. The families of the lost crew and NASA criticized the sample, and Beyoncé said it was meant as a tribute to the crew.

Terry Richardson directed the video, filmed at Coney Island in late August 2013. Pitchfork named XO a Best New Track and called it one of those big, boundary-obliterating pop songs, singling out the gravelly croak on the line "Baby love me, lights out". The single reached number 45 on the Hot 100. Her first televised performance was at the Brit Awards on 19 February 2014, after which UK sales of the song rose by 96 percent within two hours.