Rihanna releases music surprise for 20th anniversary of debut
Though it’s been close to a decade since Rihanna’s last studio album, 2016’s ANTI, she reminded the world of her reign with her 2023 Super Bowl halftime show — which also marked her first time taking the stage in five years. She has sold over 60 million albums worldwide, landed 14 Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers, and won nine GRAMMY Awards. 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. Though a new album still eludes the Rihanna Navy, their fearless leader hasn’t been completely musically absent in the years since ANTI‘s release.
In contrast to the fairytale motifs and happy endings of Fearless, evermore saw Swift become fixated on “unhappy” endings — stories of failed marriages (“happiness”), lifeless relationships (“tolerate it”), and one-time flings (“‘tis the damn season”). Like its (literally) folklorian sister, evermore was a surprise release at the end of 2020, marking the first time Swift didn’t have distinct “eras” between albums. It was exciting enough for Swifties to experience one surprise album drop from Swift, an artist who typically has an entire album campaign calculated. At the 2021 GRAMMYs, folklore took home Album Of The Year, making her the fourth artist in history to win three times in the Category. After its release, folklore became the best-selling album of 2020 after selling 1.2 million records. Lover became Swift’s sixth No. 1 album in America, making her the first female artist to achieve the feat.
The lead single, “Work”, topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, with the third and fourth betista casino singles, “Needed Me” and “Love on the Brain”, peaking within the top ten. With an eclectic blend of genres such as pop, dancehall, and psychedelic soul, Anti peaked at number one on the Billboard 200, marking her second chart-topping record in the US. It spent ten non-consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making it both Rihanna’s longest-running chart-topping single and the longest-running number one song in the US in 2011. To support the album, Rihanna launched the Loud Tour in June 2011, which included a record-breaking ten sold-out shows at The O2 Arena in London—the most by a female artist in the venue’s history.
- In support of the album, Rihanna embarked on the Last Girl on Earth tour from 2010 to 2011.
- The project yielded a string of successful songs, including the US number-one singles “Umbrella”, “Take a Bow”, and “Disturbia”.
- No matter what genre Rihanna touches or what artist she links up with, she brings her full self to each session whilst completely immersing herself into the music — taking on different personas to make the collab well worth it.
- Her ability to captivate audiences across both music and film realms underscores her dynamic artistry and continued relevance in the entertainment industry.
- The melancholy “Rehab” is a clever metaphor for lost love, co-written by Timbaland and Justin Timberlake.
- Rihanna’s latest work, Anti, arrived in January 2016, topping the mainstream album chart for two weeks.
2006: Career beginnings with Music of the Sun and A Girl Like Me
Rihanna returned to her more upbeat sound with her fifth studio album, Loud, which was released on November 12, 2010. The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 chart and sold 181,000 copies in its first week. The incident and its aftermath influenced her artistically, prompting her to begin work on her fourth studio album, titled Rated R, one month after the Grammy Awards. The reissue of Good Girl Gone Bad, subtitled Reloaded, was released on June 2; selling 63,000 copies in its first week, it helped the original album rise to number seven in the US. The resulting album, Good Girl Gone Bad, was released on May 31, 2007, to critical acclaim. Aiming to dismiss her girl-next-door image in favour of a more mature and rebellious persona, she worked with such producers as Ne-Yo, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, and Tricky Stewart for the album.
If Taylor Swift was the soundtrack to navigating the early stages of teenhood, Fearless is Swift’s coming-of-age record. While her songwriting has developed and matured, feeling like an outsider and carving her own path is a theme she still writes about now, as seen on Midnights’ “You’re On Your Own, Kid.” On the track “A Place In This World,” a song she wrote when she was just 13, Swift sings about not fitting in and trying to find her path.
Following the career-pivoting Rated R, 2010’s Loud offered a welcome return to the West Indian artist’s earlier sound. Rated R showcased Rihanna’s undeniable star power, and allowed her to shed her good-girl image once and for all. Badgal RiRi returned to her dancehall roots on her fifth No. 1 “Rude Boy,” which offsets the album’s harrowing motif. The singer had grown in leaps and bounds while taking musical risks, even penning nine of Rated R’s 13 tracks (she had no writing credits on Good Girl Gone Bad). Following three multi-platinum albums in a three-year span, Rihanna’s rebranding as a rebel at heart reached its apex.
Its second single, “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want”, peaked at number 36 in the US. After Rihanna signed with Def Jam, Jay-Z and his team spent three months completing her debut studio album. She waited in Jay-Z’s office while lawyers finalized a six-album contract with Def Jam. In early 2005, she performed in New York City for Jay-Z and music executive Antonio “L.A.” Reid, singing Whitney Houston’s “For the Love of You” along with demo tracks “Pon de Replay” and “The Last Time”.
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Adopting a more mature image, Rihanna rose to stardom and transitioned to dance-pop and R&B with the album Good Girl Gone Bad (2007) and its reissue, subtitled Reloaded (2008). Known for her artistic reinventions, she is an influential figure in both music and fashion. She’s closing a chapter of her life — saying goodbye to the heartbreaks, pleading and scrutiny — and embracing a new, well, era that was quietly created during the behind-the-scenes of The Eras Tour. At its heart, The Life of a Showgirl goes beyond the fame, accolades, praise, and anything else Swift has been awarded in her 20-year career. Swift herself has long embodied independence through redefining over and over what it means to be a pop star for over two decades.
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The singer/songwriter also picked up a Best Traditional Pop GRAMMY in 2024 for her second LP, an immaculate collection of jazz, pop and classical that bridged the gap between Gen-Z and the Great American Songbook. Still, as a love song dedicated to wife Amanda Shires — and the quiet acceptance that the Grim Reaper will inevitably end their story — it’s certainly no less emotional. Just four years after picking up five GRAMMY nominations for their transatlantic chart-topper “Love the Way You Lie,” unlikely dream team Eminem and Rihanna once again joined forces for another hip-pop masterclass. Traditional Appalachian folk song “O Death” had previously been recorded by the likes of gospel vocalist Bessie Jones, folklorist Mike Seeger and Californian rockers Camper Van Beethoven, just to name a few. The King of Pop picked up a whopping 11 nominations for his first blockbuster album, Thriller, and then converted seven of them into wins, including Album Of The Year. Considering how perfectly Mike Oldfield’s prog-rock epic Tubular Bells complements all-time classic horror flick The Exorcist, it’s remarkable to think that it was recorded before director William Friedkin came calling.
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 Life of a Showgirl: Offering A Peek Behind The Curtain
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.
Retrospective and reflective, Speak Now is an album about the speeches she could’ve, would’ve and should’ve said. The album’s title track pulled from the saying, “Speak now or forever hold your peace,” inspired by a friend’s ex-boyfriend getting engaged; meanwhile, “Mean” was everything Swift wanted to say to a critic who was continuously harsh about her vocals. Along with having more eyes on her, Swift also felt pressured to maintain her persona as a perfect young female role model amid a time when her peers like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato were attempting to rebrand to be more mature and sexier. But this meant that she faced more publicity and criticism, from naysayers who nitpicked her songwriting and vocals to the infamous Kanye West incident at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
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.
- Rihanna’s first studio album, Music of the Sun, was released in August 2005 to much intrigue.
- 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”.
- Rihanna’s early dancehall roots are evident on her first two albums, Music of the Sun (2005) and A Girl Like Me (2006).
- To support the album, Rihanna launched the Loud Tour in June 2011, which included a record-breaking ten sold-out shows at The O2 Arena in London—the most by a female artist in the venue’s history.
- 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.
- Her most conceptual album to date, Midnights charts 13 sleepless nights and explores five themes, from self-hatred and revenge to “what if” fantasies, falling in love, and falling apart.
The dance-pop and R&B heavy record, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart, featured several hit songs, including the singles “Don’t Stop the Music,” “Shut Up and Drive,” and “Hate That I Love You” with Ne-Yo. With its follow-up, “Our Song” — which spent six consecutive weeks on the top of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart — she became the youngest person to solely write and sing a No. 1 country single; she also became the first female solo artist in country music to write or co-write every song on an album. With the dance-pop set Loud (2010), she reflected on the fun she had while recording the album, incorporating ballads, party anthems, and empowering love songs.
An interpolation of Toots and the Maytals’ 1966 song of the same name, Sister Nancy’s in-studio freestyle was laid over sparse rub-a-dub production, allowing her declaration of ambition and skill to ring loud and clear. In addition to her status as a rare female voice in a sea of male performers at the dawn of dancehall, Sister Nancy is recognized for her influential, highly sampled single “Bam Bam.” While Sister Nancy needn’t be reminded of her influence — “I’m the woman who created dancehall … on the mic system, around the sound system. I’m the one who did all of that, first” — the past 15 years have seen the artist receive her flowers on a global stage. “I will never be your ordinary thing. When you come to see me, it doesn’t matter the time or the space, it’s always going to be good.” “People love what I stand for. I always give the audience something they can think about,” Sister Nancy tells GRAMMY.com, Zooming in from a car in Midtown Manhattan.
2011: Domestic violence case, Rated R, and Loud
And yet, she has still come out the other side, sparkling, self-assured and ready to revel in a career built on resilience and reinvention — something only a true showgirl could achieve. When she announced the album, she declared, “And baby, that’s showbiz for you.” No one knows that better than someone who has been through the ringer in the industry like Swift has. What is most apparent on the album, though, is just how much Swift embraces every aspect of who she is.
And in true Swiftian fashion, turning into a pop artist didn’t just prove her genre-shapeshifting capabilities — it further solidified her as an artist who is at her best when she freely creates to her desires and refuses to adhere to anyone. After years of identifying as a country artist and flirting with pop, Swift departed her roots to reinvent herself, no matter what her then-label or critics had to say. On Red, Swift focused on emotions evoked from a hot-and-cold relationship, one that forced her to experience “intense love, intense frustration, jealousy and confusion” — all feelings that she’d describe as “red.”
Although Jay-Z initially thought “Pon de Replay” was too big for a new artist, he invited her to audition. Rihanna’s demo was sent to rapper Jay-Z, who had just become the president and CEO of the record label Def Jam Recordings. In 2005, she became the first artist to sign with Syndicated Rhythm Productions, the production company founded by Rogers and Carl Sturken. Unnamed and without original material, the girl group auditioned for American producer Evan Rogers, who recalled that “the minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn’t exist”. Though she initially planned to finish high school, she ultimately dropped out at age 16 to pursue a music career. Signed to Def Jam Recordings, she debuted with the Caribbean-inspired records Music of the Sun (2005) and A Girl Like Me (2006), both of which reached the top ten of the US Billboard 200.
But if you want to add a bit of prestige to your supernatural soundtrack, there’s another list of Halloween-friendly songs to check out — one that highlights another celebrated annual occasion. With Halloween celebrations in full swing this Oct. 31, revisit some eerie or ghoulishly titled songs that have been awarded golden gramophones, from the ‘Exorcist’ theme to Eminem and Rihanna’s “The Monster.” More than 40 years later, she’s still happy to discuss and play that single she recorded back in Kingston as a young woman.