The album’s first half features strong 1980s pop influences, while the second half leans more toward traditional R&B. Rihanna’s music is primarily R&B and pop singer, and incorporates elements of various genres like dancehall, EDM, and adult contemporary. Rihanna became the first person to headline a Super Bowl halftime show while pregnant, revealing her pregnancy during the performance. The Super Bowl performance earned Rihanna five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including one for Outstanding Variety Special (Live). In August, she was honoured with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, where she performed a series of medleys of her most successful songs. The album was released exclusively on the streaming service Tidal on January 28, 2016.
Charts
In addition to her musical career, Rihanna acted in the movies Battleship (2012) and This Is the End (2013). In 2023 she returned to the stage for the first time in some four years, performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. Included in the total were prominent collaborations with hip-hop artists T.I. The album that followed later that year, Rated R, much of which she cowrote, was marked by icily stark production and brooding lyrics that touched on revenge. With the effervescent dancehall-inflected single “Pon de Replay” (2005), Rihanna immediately captured an international audience.
True to her Carribean heritage, Rihanna’s dancehall-inspired debut single “Pon de Replay” earned the then 17-year-old Barbados native her first entry on the Hot 100 at an impressive No. 2. As the world eagerly awaits new music, celebrate 20 years of Rihanna with the monstrous hits, ambitious projects, brow-raising visuals, and iconic collabs that propelled her to international stardom — and why it’s all put her in a league of her own. Performing hit after hit while unveiling a baby bump, her 13-minute set became one of the most-watched halftime shows of all time with over 121 million viewers. Even her business ventures have been a massive success, as her Fenty Beauty brand is worth nearly $3 billion as of press time.
Rihanna’s first studio album, Music of the Sun, was released in August 2005 to much intrigue. Her last No. 1 single, “Work” featuring Drake, topped the chart for nine weeks. Her first No. 1 song, “SOS,” topped the chart for three weeks in 2006, while her Grammy-winning Jay-Z collaboration “Umbrella” far surpassed that the following year, maintaining the lead spot for seven weeks.
Met Gala pays tribute to Black fashion and designers and includes Rihanna pregnancy surprise
- In June 2016, Rihanna released “Sledgehammer” as part of the film soundtrack for Star Trek Beyond.
- As Rihanna’s debut album, ‘Music of the Sun,’ turns 20, take a deep dive into the superstar’s catalog and her evolution from teen idol to beloved icon.
- Following three multi-platinum albums in a three-year span, Rihanna’s rebranding as a rebel at heart reached its apex.
- As a result, there had arguably never been more excitement for a Taylor Swift album than for The Tortured Poets Department — especially because the announcement came on the heels of her lucky 13th GRAMMY win in February.
- What is most apparent on the album, though, is just how much Swift embraces every aspect of who she is.
- With her distinct voice, groundbreaking style, and philanthropic contributions, Rihanna continues to leave an indelible mark on both the music industry and popular culture.
- Despite being Good Girl Gone Bad’s lowest-charting single, Timberlake heralded the song as “the bridge for her to be accepted as an adult in the music industry.”
That year, fans also got their first glimpse of the pop superstar alongside Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, and Anne Hathaway in trailers for Ocean’s 8, a female-led spinoff of the popular Ocean’s Trilogy which hit theaters in June 2018. It also spawned the popular radio hits “Needed Me” and “Love on the Brain.” At the 2014 Grammy Awards, Unapologetic won Best Urban Contemporary Album, marking the singer’s first win in an album category. In November 2012, Rihanna scored her first No. 1 album with Unapologetic. The pop star delivered her next effort, Talk That Talk, in November 2011. Rihanna returned back and better than ever in November 2010 with her fifth studio album, Loud.
- Backed by some fast and furious fiddles, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” tells the tale of a young musician named Johnny who bumps into Beelzebub himself during a jam session in the Peach State.
- Departing from Def Jam in favour of Jay-Z’s label, Roc Nation, she released the eclectic Anti (2016)—her second number-one album.
- Known for her changing style and image, Rihanna’s music and fashion choices have been closely followed by the media.
- Impressed, Rogers arranged a second meeting with Rihanna and her mother—this time without the other two girls—and later invited them to his hometown in Connecticut to record demo tapes for record label submissions.
- The pop star has an impressive 64 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including 14 No. 1 hits and 32 tracks in the top 10.
- The album feels like one big celebration of life, as evidenced by Rihanna’s fire-engine red hair and No. 1 singles “Only Girl (In the World)” and “What’s My Name?” (the latter of which was Rih’s first collaboration with Drake).
The thing that differentiated her from other writers — and still does to this day — is her songwriting. The world now knows Taylor Swift as a global pop superstar, but back in 2006, she was just a doe-eyed country prodigy. Despite its ghoulish title, artificial intelligence appears to be the object of terror in what many, including the GRAMMY voters who awarded it Best Pop Duo/Group Performance in 2024, regard as the highlight of SZA’s sophomore. But four years after the Team Edward vs Team Jacob saga wrapped up, folk hero Jason Isbell proved mythical bloodsuckers weren’t a barrier to awards success. David Bowie fans may well feel aggrieved that his post-punk classic “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” was entirely ignored by GRAMMY voters, while the bro-step banger it inspired was showered with awards. It’s a bold feminist act that helped power parent album CrazySexyCool to diamond status and was deservedly rewarded with Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal at the 1996 GRAMMYS (where CrazySexyCool was also crowned Best R&B Album).
In 2014, Shakira featured Rihanna on her single “Can’t Remember to Forget You”. In December 2013, she topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart with a feature on Eminem’s song “The Monster”. Rihanna made a cameo in the comedy film This Is the End (2013), and later collaborated with rapper Wale on his remix of the single “Bad”. To promote the album, Rihanna embarked on the 777 Tour, performing seven shows in seven countries over the course of seven days. In September 2012, the music video for “We Found Love” won Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards, making Rihanna the first woman to receive the honour more than once. In March, Rihanna and Brown released two remixes—her track “Birthday Cake” and his “Turn Up the Music”—which were criticized due to their history of domestic violence.
The record also featured the popular power ballad “Unfaithful,” as well as singles “We Ride” and “Break It Off.” The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 chart and earned her first No. 1 hit with the catchy pop single “SOS,” which spent three weeks atop Billboard’s Hot 100. In 2008, Rihanna topped the chart three times, twice with her own songs “Disturbia” and “Take a Bow,” plus a feature on T.I.’s “Live Your Life.” She has also earned nine number-one songs on the UK Singles Chart and ranks second to the Beatles for the most million-selling singles in the country. This made her the artist with the most digital single awards and the first performer to exceed RIAA’s 100 million cumulative singles certification threshold. With estimated worldwide sales exceeding 250 million records as of 2023, Rihanna is one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
An Unapologetic Queen
She recalled performing Carey’s 1993 song “Hero” at her high school talent show. Rihanna praised Madonna’s ability to change her fashion and music repeatedly, while remaining a “real force in entertainment”. On Talk That Talk (2011), Rihanna expanded on her dance-pop style while adopting a more overtly sexual persona and incorporating elements of R&B, hip-hop, dancehall, and dubstep. Aiming for artistic growth, A Girl Like Me expresses personal experiences that typical young adult women undergo, with ballads that were described as elegant and mature. Rihanna’s early dancehall roots are evident on her first two albums, Music of the Sun (2005) and A Girl Like Me (2006). In Barbados, Rihanna drew early inspiration from reggae, soca, and hip-hop, and after relocating to the US, she was introduced to a wider variety of genres, including rock.
2017: Standalone releases and Anti
It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks and peaked at number two in the UK; it was also the latter country’s best-selling song of 2010. In June 2010, she collaborated with rapper Eminem on the single “Love the Way You Lie”. In support of the album, Rihanna embarked on the Last Girl on Earth tour from 2010 to 2011. The single “Rude Boy” peaked atop the Hot 100 for six weeks, while “Russian Roulette” and “Hard” both peaked within the top ten.
Rihanna has received multiple Grammy Award nominations for her albums, winning Best Urban Contemporary Album for Unapologetic in 2014. Two years later, she nearly doubled this feat, producing a whopping five No. 1 hits in 2010, including “Love The Way You Lie” with Eminem, “Rude Boy,” “S&M,” the Grammy-winning “Only Girl (In The World),” and “What’s My Name” featuring Drake. Known for her sexually provocative imagery and wild style, Rihanna made headlines for the sheer dress she wore to the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) awards ceremony in June 2014. On her Grammy-winning 2012 album Unapologetic, Rihanna turned out such hits as the No. 1 Sia-written tune “Diamonds” and “Stay,” featuring Mikky Ekko.
“Wood” and “Honey” capture the playfulness of true love, while songs like “WI$HLI$T” and “Elizabeth Taylor” see love not as a distraction from her life’s work but as the very thing that makes it feel meaningful. Many of the love songs on Swift’s more recent albums are brimming with anxiety, from Lover’s “Cornelia Street” (“I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends”) to folklore’s “Peace” (“The rain is always gonna come if you’re standing with me”). One of the biggest takes by critics — that borderlines on sexist at times — is that Swift won’t be able to write good, reflective music that cuts deep like the songs that orbit around heartache and pain.
Everything that happened after the success of Fearless pushed Swift from country music’s best-kept secret to a mainstream star. It might not be the romantic tale Swift dreamed of growing up, but her sophomore album signalled that bigger things were to come. It won Swift’s first Album Of The Year GRAMMY in 2010, at the time making her betista casino the youngest person to win the accolade at age 20.
Highly regarded as Swift’s magnum opus, Red sees the singer shed the fairytale dresses and the girl-next-door persona to craft a body of work that has now been deemed as her first “adult” record. Writing the entire album herself, Swift used Speak Now to prove her songwriting prowess to those who questioned her capabilities. For the first time since becoming an artist, she was forced to reckon with the concept of celebrity and how turning into one — whether she wanted it or not — informed her own writing and perception of herself. On the album’s liner notes, Swift says Fearless is about “living in spite” of the things that scare you, like falling in love again despite being hurt before or walking away and letting go.
It topped the charts in several territories, spending ten consecutive weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart and seven at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 162,000 copies in its first week. Regarded as a turning point in her career, it marked a shift from the Caribbean-influenced sound of her earlier work, embracing a more contemporary pop direction driven by uptempo dance tracks. It became her first RIAA-certified double platinum album, surpassing one million units sold. Soon after releasing Music of the Sun, Rihanna began working on her second studio album in September 2005.
Early life
It was a very vulnerable time in my life, and I refused to let that be the image. In addition to being a talented recording artist, Rihanna is a billionaire entrepreneur with multiple successful business ventures. Rihanna’s latest work, Anti, arrived in January 2016, topping the mainstream album chart for two weeks. In June 2007, Rihanna released her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, to much fanfare. The album’s second single, “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want,” made it into the top 40. Rihanna released her debut album, Music of the Sun, in August 2005.
Swift felt a “quiet conclusion” after finishing up evermore, describing that it was more about grappling with endings of all “sizes and shapes,” and the record represented a chapter closing. “Closure” is a “skittering” track that has the same energy as tracks like Lover’s “I Forgot That You Existed,” whereas the ballad “champagne problems” is thematically reminiscent of Swift’s Speak Now track “Back To December” where she takes responsibility for her lover’s heartache. Folklore’s impact on the zeitgeist at a time where everyone was stuck at home helped shape people’s quarantine experience. She worked remotely with two producers — again working with her right-hand man Jack Antonoff, and first-time collaborator Aaron Dessner from The National.
Following the release of Unapologetic and the ensuing tour, she expressed a desire to take a break from recording, saying she wanted “a year to just do whatever I want artistically, creatively”. That same month, the Official Charts Company reported she had sold 3.87 million records in the country over the past year, placing her at number one among the 2013 Brit Awards artist nominees. Rihanna’s seventh studio album, titled Unapologetic, was released on November 19, 2012. A dance-oriented pop and R&B album, Talk That Talk opened at number three on the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 198,000 copies, while debuting atop the UK Albums Chart with 163,000 units sold. Rihanna aimed to explore more sexually expressive themes on her sixth studio album, Talk That Talk, which was released on November 18, 2011. A dance-pop record, Loud debuted at number three in the US with first-week sales of 207,000 copies.
After exploring pop-leaning sonics she first found with Red, Swift worked with Martin and Shellback again on most of 1989. 1989 was lauded by critics for its infectious synth-pop that was reminiscent of the 1980s, yet still had a contemporary sound. She plays with time — speeding it up in “Starlight,” dabbling in the past in “All Too Well,” and reframing it in “State of Grace” — to better understand her experiences. In her liner notes, she references Pablo Neruda’s poem “Tonight I Can Write,” stating that “Love is so short, forgetting is so long” is the overarching theme for the album. From addressing the aforementioned VMA incident in the forgiving “Innocent” to a toxic relationship in “Dear John,” Speak Now also hinted that her rose-colored glasses were cracked, but Swift (and her songwriting) was only becoming stronger because of it.