Does Rihanna Have Social Immunity?

[Werk 13,166]

I always hear this kind of excuse where people be like "because she's Rihanna" and they don't really care because they already expected this bad girl image or whatever from her. Sorry if this is kind of off subject lol. 

[sipthistea 21,099]

'Cause Rihanna is just a sexy chick with swag, but she doesn't stand for anything.

You never hear an opinion from her. She doesn't speak up about issues. She doesn't have an IMPACT. She's just a cool chick with #1 hits and that's it. And that's her thing. I don't love her or hate her, she just exists. 

Opposite to that, people tend to either LOVE Gaga or HATE her, because of things she does or says. 

[StrawberryBlond 14,880]

I've noticed this as well. Rihanna has got a free pass for so long, whether it's having flop singles or getting back with the guy who abused her (and making him out to be a misunderstood innocent in her Unapologetic album) or having a nasty personality. But marketing is a powerful thing. She just needs to keep up this image of being young and hot and she can sell. Unfortunately, a lot of undeserving people get this luck. but it will run out. The clock already started ticking when Anti underperformed (remember that all the singles post-Work really haven't made a dent internationally) and her touring power is dimming. When she gets older and starts losing her looks, she'll be done. The people who buy her work are mostly the youth market. They only have a short window in which they support an artist and once they're no longer deemed cool, they're done commercially. Just look at previous female pop sensations like Cyndi Lauper, Britney, Xtina, Girls Aloud, Miley, even Katy and Gaga if you want to be really strict. Short window of large commercial success and then a steady fall from grace. Rihanna's on borrowed time already and like I said, we're seeing the beginnings of her decline with Anti.

[Economy 49,859]

11 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

I've noticed this as well. Rihanna has got a free pass for so long, whether it's having flop singles or getting back with the guy who abused her (and making him out to be a misunderstood innocent in her Unapologetic album) or having a nasty personality. But marketing is a powerful thing. She just needs to keep up this image of being young and hot and she can sell. Unfortunately, a lot of undeserving people get this luck. but it will run out. The clock already started ticking when Anti underperformed (remember that all the singles post-Work really haven't made a dent internationally) and her touring power is dimming. When she gets older and starts losing her looks, she'll be done. The people who buy her work are mostly the youth market. They only have a short window in which they support an artist and once they're no longer deemed cool, they're done commercially. Just look at previous female pop sensations like Cyndi Lauper, Britney, Xtina, Girls Aloud, Miley, even Katy and Gaga if you want to be really strict. Short window of large commercial success and then a steady fall from grace. Rihanna's on borrowed time already and like I said, we're seeing the beginnings of her decline with Anti.

All artists are on borrowed time tho

 

Rihanna is literally the oldest relevant artist next to Beyonce and u making her sound like she got a short career  

[StrawberryBlond 14,880]

2 minutes ago, Economy said:

All artists are on borrowed time tho

 

Rihanna is literally the oldest relevant artist next to Beyonce and u making her sound like she got a short career  

From here on out, perhaps. Her selling power has dimmed considerably. I doubt Rihanna will still be rocking up the charts when she's 40. Her entire career is based on being young and hot. When those elements are gone, she won't have anything to fall back on.

[Economy 49,859]

21 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

From here on out, perhaps. Her selling power has dimmed considerably. I doubt Rihanna will still be rocking up the charts when she's 40. Her entire career is based on being young and hot. When those elements are gone, she won't have anything to fall back on.

Perhaps. But i dont see Gaga succeeding at 40 either tbh

 

she will have more fans to tour i think. But in terms of social relevance, i dont think she will have much either

 

i agree long term Rihanna may have little to fall on tho. Even her fans arent that hardcore

[StrawberryBlond 14,880]

6 minutes ago, Economy said:

Perhaps. But i dont see Gaga succeeding at 40 either tbh

 

she will have more fans to tour i think. But in terms of social relevance, i dont think she will have much either

 

i agree long term Rihanna may have little to fall on tho. Even her fans arent that hardcore

I'm not just talking about commercial success. Gaga, if she keeps going the way she is, will at least continue to get critical praise and get great opportunities in terms of collabing with legends and getting acting roles and award nominations. That's why she got an album with Tony Bennett, an Oscar nominated song with Diane Warren and the leading role in an Oscar-bait remake of a hit movie directed by Bradley Cooper. When you're talented, those opportunities will always present themselves, even if you're not commercially successful. But if your entire career is based around commercial success, you won't get these chances. It's like, if you've positioned yourself as a hit-maker and nothing more, once you've had so long in the limelight, no one will be interested in keeping your fame alive. But talent will always be supported in many ways. Legends aren't interested in working with washed-up hit-makers, they want to work with real talent.

[Thomas P 18,479]

I want to preface this by saying that Rihanna is my third favourite singer other than my obvious top 2:

Rihanna is basic. That's just a fact. Does she care that she's a basic trend follower? Not one bit. She puts out songs based on what's popular, and the only time she's experimented with releases is after previous major success. 

Since 2007, she's done the thing that's popular, gets 1-3 hits out of it, and then follows the next trend.

Umbrella matched the R&B/Hiphop/Pop hybrids that were massive in 2007, Take a Bow followed the impact of Irreplaceble, and Bleeding Love in 2008, throw in some major features with the biggest rappers of 2009, then she experimented with songs like Hard and Russian Roulette. The latter tanked, and the former wasn't nearly as successful as her previous hits, so she let out Rude Boy and followed the more hiphop/pop trend in 2010. Then from 2010-2011 she let out Only Girl and S&M following the electronic edgey dance music of Gaga, and What's My Name a timeless sort of R&B crossover that was bound for success. She experimented with Man Down's release, and it didn't do too well, so she let out We Found Love, a complete song of the time when it was released. Diamonds and Stay came out when Ballads were gettin really popular in 2012/13, so she had major success. In 2013/14 she collaborated again with great success, so she let out three relatively experimental tracks in 2015, the first (45S) becoming a minor hit, with the other two not doing well at all. Since those were supposed to introduce Anti to us, she went back and made sure she had some hits for Anti, let out Work, and began the Tropical trend of 2016, with more commercially viable hits throughout the year. She then experimented with her release of LOTB and it saw surprising success (thanks to its predecessor singles).

She's still doing lots of tendy collabs, but I think the main thing people expect from Rihanna is Hits. It's the same for Katy Perry, burn Katy has more of a brand, where as Rihanna it's more full fledge anything that's popular we want her on it sort of thing. With artists like Gaga, expectations for her to be political, brilliant, crazy, talented, and put out successful great music are always being placed on her, and it's not fair, but it shows that Gaga will be the one with the impact where as Rihanna will be the one with the numbers.

Rihanna also has great management that cover everything and with an album release so often throughout the past 12 years, she's bound to see lots of success. 

 

[ItWasntLaauv 6,392]

She has unreal amounts of swagger and she's just naturally and trendsetter imo.

[Phlop 4,773]

She has crossover songs and soo many collaborations that keep her relevant and current. And she now has a legacy behind her and can sing pretty well. 

Yeah she has flops (hell, Rated R, most of TTT, and Unapologetic flopped chart wise) but her hits tend to be huge. And she doesn't break down randomly.

[Brian Ryan 1,468]

95% of those flops you speak do great on and meant for  Urban/R&B/Hip Stations #GagaDailyDoesntListenTo