Not bad at all.

The important is where you finish not where you start .

See Adele, Born This Way etc..

Great numbers

Why are you so interested in the first week alone? Wfl and diamonds never debuted with over 200K but sold over 3 million in the U.S and over 8 million worldwide
This is by no means impressive for the song, it isn't a Roar or a Shake it Off or Applause. The song is different from Rihanna's usual songs and isn't the kind of music the pop girls have been slaying with, over 180K in 8 days would be incredible.

Good. Unlike that song.

To compare it to other pop girls such as Taylor, Katy, Ariana;

- Their audiences are really more axed towards younger, teenagers, more girls too and those are the ones who buys the music quickly.
- Their songs are pop-mainstream, meaning that it sounds good and people like them right away; therefore buying them right away
- They advertise their comeback with HUGE campains. I can remember Katy before Roar; there was promo everywhere for Roar way before it went on iTunes; meaning that everyone knew she had something coming.

As for Rihanna;

- Targets a more global-all ages audience.
- FFS has a different sound, more artistic that won't automatically appeal to everyone. As compared to Only Girl who is really bubblegum pop, which is probably why it had a better start than We Found Love, Diamonds and FFS - who are all more risky, different songs.
- Rihanna didn't do ANY promo for FFS. People still don't know about it that much.

That's it? Fff. Underwhelming.

It just shows she needs radio and promo to keep selling. Imagine now if radio was not behind her like other artists, she would be ****ed.

Not great at all.
Applause did 163,000 second week.

This is horrible no matter how you try to spin it. You have a huge popstar and two legendary musicians on a track and it's only selling this? What happened to people being thirsty for Rihanna's new music?

This is honestly not tragic considering how different it is from what people are used to hearing from her and, while it does have tons of starpower behind it, there's been zero promo. Not great, but not terrible results.

And that song also had a video during its second week, so this comparison is invalid.

Can't wait for 45S to sell 160k when the video comes out then!
Oh wait.... -1 on iTunes..

weak numbers, kanye west AND one of the Beatles , that's all.
there is no way even billboard were impressed with these numbers, considering how they were talking it up as the song to dethrone uptown funk on their podcast. they were expecting 300k+

Let's hope radio doesn't drop this after like 70M peak (if it gets there in the first place)

top 10 on lock?