“That Rihanna reign just don’t let up”, a prophecy that holds truer than ever as we reflect on the last year in the superstar’s record-breaking career. 2011 saw Rihanna continuing to sell millions upon millions of albums, receiving a flurry of prestigious awards, dominating the airwaves with her smash singles, gracing covers of magazines around the world, embarking on a massive international tour spanning over a hundred cities, lending her iconic brand to several billion dollar cooperation campaigns, and still managing to find time to record yet another album filled with a collection of songs that have Rihanna fans gitty with excitement as to what 2012 can only bring. Rihanna has become the rare form of pop star that has managed the seemingly impossible act of, not only maintaining, expanding her popularity and quality as the years of her reign accumulate.
Loud sold over 6,000,000 copies internationally propelled by it’s string of smash singles, acclaimed promotional performances, and critical praise. It is, to date, Rihanna’s fastest selling album to reach that sales bracket and the second best seller, of any artist, since it’s release. However, Rihanna was not about to milk the success dry from the project, and announced mid-year that she was working on her follow-up already. Talk That Talk was released worldwide in late November to an opening of over 500,000 copies sold — easily clearing her career biggest launch. Following, just two weeks later, Talk That Talk continued to break Rihanna records by becoming her fastest album to shift over a 1,000,000 units. Having sold a career total of over 26,000,000 albums bodes well with her retaining her lead as the most successful album’s artist since her debut over half a decade ago.
With such a welcoming reception from the public, naturally came a new high of recognition this year from nearly every prestigious outlet in the music industry. The year began with a Grammy win for the lead single off Loud, “Only Girl (In The World)”, in “Best Dance Recording”. Rihanna performed twice that night, her five-time Grammy nominated collaboration, “Love The Way You Lie”, and her upcoming 2012 nomination, “What’s My Name”. The performances were met with rave reviews including Time Magazine calling for the “2011 Grammys be renamed: The Rihanna Show”. (The Grammy committee clearly took notice for the upcoming 2012 ceremony, as the recently revealed nominations include a nod in the highly coveted “Album of The Year” category for Loud.) Following the Grammys, she jetted across the Atlantic to attend the Brit Awards the following day, in which she won “International Female Artist of The Year”. Rihanna took to twitter to express her excitement to her fans: “Came with a Grammy, left with a Brit!!!” In May, we saw Rihanna kicking off the return of the Billboard Music Awards with a performance of her #1 single, “S&M”, with fellow pop star Britney Spears. She was awarded that night with “Female Artist of The Year”, based on statical success on their charts. She followed out the year with a series of wins including People’s Choice (Pop Artist, Song, & Music Video), American Music Awards (R&B Album), BET Awards (Female R&B Artist), and a Soul Train Award.
Read Vogue: “Rihanna Living Out Loud”
Rihanna’s continuing success with hit singles this year lead Billboard to recently consider that Rihanna could soon potentially surpass The Beatles landmark #1 record. In this report they note that Rihanna is the fastest and youngest solo artist to achieve 11 chart toppers, both records previously held by Mariah Carey (the current leading solo artist in Hot 100 toppers). Additionally, she is only the fourth female artist to achieve as many following Mariah, Madonna, and Whitney Houston. In 2011 alone, Rihanna accumulated an additional two number #1s on the Hot 100 in “S&M” and “We Found Love”. The later has spent 8 weeks at the pole position, earning the title of not only Rihanna’s career longest #1 but the longest running #1 of the year. “We Found Love“‘s extended run also grouped her as one of only four other artists in Hot 100 history to have had three songs remain at #1 for at least seven weeks. Since 2010, Rihanna has spent 23 weeks at #1, and 76 weeks in the Top 10. Rihanna collected Top 10’s this year in “S&M”, “Cheers (Drink To That)”, “We Found Love”, and “Take Care” in the record-breaking speed total of 21 career titles. Rihanna also further extended her record of most Billboard Pop Song Chart #1’s in the chart’s history with 9 and Top 10’s with 19. Rihanna has sold more digital singles than any other artist in the US with over 60 million units sold. As with all Rihanna’s singles, the success of these chart toppers is not limited to the US. Rihanna leads the United World Singles Chart with over 22 million points for the year. “We Found Love” went #1 in 15 countries including a 6 week stay at #1 in the UK, becoming the longest running #1 of the year and the longest since her very own “Umbrella” in 2007. It was her sixth #1 in five consecutive years, a record unequaled by any other female solo artist. It also tied her with Madonna for most trans-Atlantic #1 singles. Adding to the series of extraordinary feats in the UK, she was the first female artist to ever top the singles and albums chart simultaneously with two different albums (Loud, Talk That Talk) and singles (“What’s My Name”, “We Found Love”) in the same year. The Official Chart Company later announced that she was the leading artist in single sales of the year, and second in album sales (behind Adele). She now ranks only behind Madonna in single sales for female artists and only behind Madonna and Kylie in #1s in the chart’s history. Another similar achievement was accomplished this year when “S&M” hit #1 in Australia, placing her only behind Madonna, Kylie, & Delta Goodrem chart toppers in their history.
2011 also saw Rihanna’s presence grow in quantum leaps outside the charts. Being cited by Anna Wintour, herself, as being one of the leading artists in fashion today, Rihanna made her long anticipated debut on the covers of both American and British Vogue. Italia Vogue named her Woman of The Year. Rolling Stone and Esquire Magazine both published their first cover featuring Rihanna and the later elected her “Sexiest Woman of the Year”. Rihanna also made returned visits to the covers of Cosmopolitan and Glamour Magazine.
Further signifying the power of her brand, she was chosen to be the face of multi-million dollar campaigns for giants including Armani, Nivea and Vita Coco. The Barbados Tourism Authority also signed Rihanna to a multi-year contract to exclusively promote her hometown island giving her the title of Tourism Ambassador. Her signature perform was launched earlier in the year to such success, that she already has a sequel scheduled for release in 2012. Rihanna also was cast in a role in Peter Berg’s Battleship, of which she has been featured extensively in promotions for the film releasing in summer 2012.
Last Girl On Earth Tour was still finishing up earlier this year, but that didn’t stop Rihanna from announcing her biggest and most successful tour yet, Loud Tour. The tours consisted of over a hundred arena dates this year, including a record-breaking 10 sold-out London O2 dates due to demand, Rock In Rio headliner, and her first stadium concert in Barbados. The tour, featuring over two dozen of her biggest hits, was acclaimed by critics and applauded by fans. Being a globe-trotting superstar hasn’t side-tracked Rihanna from continuing her efforts in Philanthropy however. In fact, she was honored at DKMS 5th Annual Gala for her tireless work in the fight against Leukemia.
Read Billboard: “Could Rihanna Be Bigger Than The Beatles On The Hot 100”
Social Media is another one of Rihanna’s fortes now. She has 47 million fans on the most popular social network, Facebook, becoming the leader of any artist. She has approximately 11 million twitter followers and interacts with them daily on a personal level unmatched by an celebrity of her stature. Rihanna is the most subscribed artist on Youtube with a total of 1.9 billion music video views on her channel (an additional 620 million if you include her official featured videos). On the popular music play-count service Last.Fm, she has the most unique listeners of any female solo artist, with over 3 million. According to Fame Count, she is the fastest growing artist on the web at the moment.
It is through this mountain of success, acclaim, and support that it has become impossible for even Rihanna’s most belligerent of detractors, to ignore that Rihanna, at the age of only 23, has permanently ingrained herself a place in pop culture history. How does Rihanna go about dealing with this level of fame and increasingly high-level of expectation? She was quoted in Vogue, “When something feels real, you don’t have to make any apologies for it. When it feels good to you nothing else matters. Everything else is just noise.”
Purchase Rihanna’s new album, Talk That Talk, on iTunes today!
Joint reporting by SRP Music Group, Roc Nation, and Island Def Jam. Special thanks to Billboard Magazine, Conde Nast, and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
For further information, please contact:
Gabe Tesoriero
Island Def Jam Music Group
Tel. +1 212 445 3632
Email: [email protected]
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2 - Music Of The Sun
4 - A Girl Like Me
9 - Good Girl Gone Bad
3.5 - Rated R
6 - Loud
Talk That Talk will be at 1.5 million by next week and Loud is still pushing units. She's also got a few remix albums, which have probably have moved close to 0.3-0.5 combined worldwide.
Looks reasonable to me For once a label isn't greatly exaggerating sales.
Queen.
For once a label isn't greatly exaggerating sales.
