base talk Rihanna’s new album is going to be biggest comeback of the century after 25. Agree?

[Massive_Teardrop]

I think it’ll be her biggest era ever and potentially the biggest comeback in recent times if the music is right

[Cruel Summer]

I really think it’s going to be less of a moment than a lot of people are expecting. It’s been so long at this point, with a release still nowhere in sight, for her to maintain the hitmaking power that she once had, and she was only ever a decent album seller after building up to that point through her career. She’s still Rihanna, and I still expect a #1 single and album, but I think it would be a mistake to assume she has enough hype to pull in a massive volume of units or to get several back-to-back major smash hits. Six years (nearly seven) and counting is a long time in the music world. Even Adele, force that she is, was impacted significantly by that long wait, and she had the benefit of Easy On Me being a major smash single by the time of the album’s release. Beyoncé, too, was certainly impacted by the gap between Lemonade and Renaissance. Rihanna may be a powerful force with excellent celebrity standing, but nobody is immune to the passage of time.

[zzmyth]

lets be honest... we dont know WHEN or HOW..... we dont even know IF there is going to be a R9...

 

It all depends tbh.

 

If she does a Loud kinda release and promo.... or if she does an Anti kinda promo

[Robyn.]

5 hours ago, Squall said:

What does being an album seller have to do with... falling off?  Never said Gaga maintained her level and I even specified "at a time" in one of my post  Her falling off or not doesn't change the fact Rihanna was more of a single seller than an album seller  

 

As for the bold part: I guess that's why artists, especially new artists, sometimes struggle to release an album because their label wants them to release a big hit before letting them release an album     

Because when you're judging an artist's selling power, you will look at their OVERALL career and not 1 or 2 albums that sold well and then deem them as "an album's seller!!11" because of it... 

 

So you still haven't answered the question, if hit singles is all it takes to sell albums then why are Bebe Rexha or Anne-Marie's albums not selling? 

Edited September 22, 2022 by Robyn.

[AbeHicks]

3 hours ago, Cruel Summer said:

I really think it’s going to be less of a moment than a lot of people are expecting. It’s been so long at this point, with a release still nowhere in sight, for her to maintain the hitmaking power that she once had, and she was only ever a decent album seller after building up to that point through her career. She’s still Rihanna, and I still expect a #1 single and album, but I think it would be a mistake to assume she has enough hype to pull in a massive volume of units or to get several back-to-back major smash hits. Six years (nearly seven) and counting is a long time in the music world. Even Adele, force that she is, was impacted significantly by that long wait, and she had the benefit of Easy On Me being a major smash single by the time of the album’s release. Beyoncé, too, was certainly impacted by the gap between Lemonade and Renaissance. Rihanna may be a powerful force with excellent celebrity standing, but nobody is immune to the passage of time.

This. There is a whole new generation of music listeners now who don't even know who she is. She is smart to stay away, by now she would just be embarrassing herself.

[Klein]

1 hour ago, Robyn. said:

Because when you're judging an artist's selling power, you will look at their OVERALL career and not 1 or 2 albums that sold well and then deem them as "an album's seller!!11" because of it... 

 

So you still haven't answered the question, if hit singles is all it takes to sell albums then why are Bebe Rexha or Anne-Marie's albums not selling? 

The reality is that both of you are somewhat right but you don't seem to understand each other. I'm gonna stick to pure sales since that's what you have been discussing.

 

Is Rihanna a bad album seller? Of course not, she sold 33.5M albums. That's an average of 4.2M per album. This is a GREAT result, especially when you consider the fact that all her eras bar ANTI were cut short to start the next one.

Yes she is behind Taylor, Beyoncé or Lady Gaga (who respectively average 5.5M - 5.7M* - 5M), but that doesn't mean her total sales are something to laugh at and definitely does not mean they are bad (especially since she annihilates Beyoncé and Lady Gaga streaming wise). She is not a monster album seller but that's definitely more than respectable.

*Renaissance numbers are obviously not taken into account yet

 

But is it true that Rihanna needs more hits than her peers to sell album? Yes.

If you calculate the amount of sales generated by each top 10 singles* on their album (basically, I divided total album sales by the number of top 10 singles), one top 10 single translates to 1.5M album sales for Rihanna, while it translates to 1.8M for Lady Gaga, 2.3M for Taylor and 2.5M for Beyoncé. 

*just want to point out that I only counted singles in these total top 10s, as album bomb basically have no impact on an album success, however I did count promo singles

 

So yes Rihanna is a good album seller, but it is also true that her sales are a bit below what could be expected considering her out of this world single success. 

[Lost In Paradise]

lol. there won't be an album.

[Buddy]

She'll do Renaissance numbers at the very least, with a streaming single miles bigger than Break My Soul

 

[sweeterareplace]

I feel like Renaissance would’ve been such a good title for her. It has such a nice ring to it “Renaissance by Rihanna”. Also weren’t there rumors of her doing a double album with dance music? I wonder if she will still go through with that since she will probably get a lot of Bey comparisons. I have a feeling R9 is gonna be a really short 11-12 track album tho and that it will be a grower like Anti but well worth that wait.

[badgirlriri]

8 hours ago, Klein said:

 

But is it true that Rihanna needs more hits than her peers to sell album? Yes.

If you calculate the amount of sales generated by each top 10 singles* on their album (basically, I divided total album sales by the number of top 10 singles), one top 10 single translates to 1.5M album sales for Rihanna, while it translates to 1.8M for Lady Gaga, 2.3M for Taylor and 2.5M for Beyoncé. 

*just want to point out that I only counted singles in these total top 10s, as album bomb basically have no impact on an album success, however I did count promo singles

 

So yes Rihanna is a good album seller, but it is also true that her sales are a bit below what could be expected considering her out of this world single success. 

I don't think there's evidence that single success are supposed to correlate to album sales the way you're suggesting though. 

Edited September 23, 2022 by badgirlriri

[Roberto]

If she ever releases something again, it will be an event, that's for sure. Her current streaming numbers are really good, considering she hasn't released an album in almost 7 years, so, it would do more than fine. 

[Robyn.]

16 hours ago, Klein said:

The reality is that both of you are somewhat right but you don't seem to understand each other. I'm gonna stick to pure sales since that's what you have been discussing.

 

Is Rihanna a bad album seller? Of course not, she sold 33.5M albums. That's an average of 4.2M per album. This is a GREAT result, especially when you consider the fact that all her eras bar ANTI were cut short to start the next one.

Yes she is behind Taylor, Beyoncé or Lady Gaga (who respectively average 5.5M - 5.7M* - 5M), but that doesn't mean her total sales are something to laugh at and definitely does not mean they are bad (especially since she annihilates Beyoncé and Lady Gaga streaming wise). She is not a monster album seller but that's definitely more than respectable.

*Renaissance numbers are obviously not taken into account yet

 

But is it true that Rihanna needs more hits than her peers to sell album? Yes.

If you calculate the amount of sales generated by each top 10 singles* on their album (basically, I divided total album sales by the number of top 10 singles), one top 10 single translates to 1.5M album sales for Rihanna, while it translates to 1.8M for Lady Gaga, 2.3M for Taylor and 2.5M for Beyoncé. 

*just want to point out that I only counted singles in these total top 10s, as album bomb basically have no impact on an album success, however I did count promo singles

 

So yes Rihanna is a good album seller, but it is also true that her sales are a bit below what could be expected considering her out of this world single success. 

I did understand his point, I just didn't agree with him. 

 

Yes, singles are meant to promote an album but his theory that more hit singles equated to more album sales is relatively false and there are many counterexamples to that. I'll also point out that if Rihanna's average is lower, it's because she didn't really breakthrough as a mega superstar until GGGB happened, her first two albums are almost like fillers in her discography. 

 

For instance, Katy was a huge single seller and her album sales are weaker than Rihanna's. Same for Ariana back in 2014 with My Everything when album sales were still somewhat strong, she bagged several top 10 hits and yet the album's pure sales were subpar compared to other hit albums released that year.

[supertiffany]

On 9/22/2022 at 5:30 PM, Robyn. said:

Here we go again  This myth that Rihanna's album sale are an anomaly is completely false.

 

What you're completely ignoring, is that Rihanna's strenght was CONSISTENCY. She wasn't selling 15 million copies per album, but every album was still selling well. 

 

Let's take Gaga vs Rihanna as an example :

 

Gaga

The Fame/The Fame Monster :  15 million pure (two albums)

Born This Way : 6 million pure

Artpop: 2.1 million pure

Joanne: 1.3 million pure

 

Big sales during the first stages of her career, and then she fell off

 

Rihanna

GGGB: 9 million pure

Rated R: 3.3 million pure

Loud: 6.6 million pure

Talk That Talk: 3.8 million pure

Unapologetic: 3.7 million pure

 

Album sales globally spread out throughout her career. And yet you'd consider Gaga more of an album seller? Make it make sense. 

 

Plus, your logic that a big hit is expected to make the album sell is also another lie. Why aren't all these faceless singers on the radio bagging hits with DJs and other known producers making a brand for themselves? 

 

Argue with the voices in your head

wait

 

seems like Riri is also an good in album selling too

[Klein]

12 minutes ago, Robyn. said:

I'll also point out that if Rihanna's average is lower, it's because she didn't really breakthrough as a mega superstar until GGGB happened, her first two albums are almost like fillers in her discography.

To be fair, you are disregarding AGLM that sold 3.77M pure sales so far, this is better than RR or ANTI, an kinda on par with TTT and Unapologetic.

Also, since we are talking about pure sales, albums like ANTI, folklore, evermore, Lemonade, Joanne or Chromatica are actually the ones lowering the artists' average since they were released in the streaming era. 

 

17 minutes ago, Robyn. said:

For instance, Katy was a huge single seller and her album sales are weaker than Rihanna's. Same for Ariana back in 2014 with My Everything when album sales were still somewhat strong, she bagged several top 10 hits and yet the album's pure sales were subpar compared to other hit albums released that year.

I agree with this part. It's true that in my previous post I only included artists that are considered stronger album seller than Rihanna, but I had also looked the numbers for Katy Perry and her average album sales generated by a top 10 hits was significantly lower (and also her average in general). This is why I said she has a great result with a 4.2M average.

 

19 minutes ago, Robyn. said:

his theory that more hit singles equated to more album sales is relatively false

And finally for this point, I agree with this "theory". It is objectively true the more successful singles you get, the more it'll generate album sales. This is why GGGB and Loud are Rihanna strongest sellers: she got the most hits out of those. This is why 1989 for Taylor, TFM for Lady Gaga, or IASM and DIL for Beyoncé are their strongest sellers. This is also true for Katy Perry and Teenage Dream. It is generally true for a the very vast majority of artists. 

 

 

But to be clear, at no point did I suggest that Rihanna is a weak album seller. The numbers speak for themselves. She just isn't as strong as some of her peers, but is above some others. Not weak, not strong, "just" a good album seller (which anyway is counterbalanced by her excellent streaming numbers). 

[dooart]

i honestly think she'll break them...

[mirihaii]

She aint coming back... Deal with it....

[rihsus]

23 hours ago, mirihaii said:

She aint coming back... Deal with it....

this aged like milk sweetie