How Popular would Rihanna be if she still released music?

[dynamite 57,332]

1 minute ago, PartySick said:

Woo sold it for me. I love freaky sounding sh*t  after that, the rest of the album fell into place.

And see, I didn't really care for Beyoncé's stuff until Cowboy Carter  

You're just a more sofistycated person than me 

[PartySick 158,088]

Just now, dynamite said:

You're just a more sofistycated person than me 

I think I just don't really care for pop music™️  

[Railing 2,798]

37 minutes ago, dynamite said:

If she continued releasing catchy music then I think she'd still be popular to a degree, how popular is impossible to say because we've seen how the mighty can fall and how fickle society is, people move on very easily 

Katy Perry's problem is everything she's released after Prism has been crap (or not good enough to return her to her former glory), Witness was cringe, bad image, acting weird and desperate, releasing mediocre single after single, unsure what the point of any of them are, and now working with dr luke on another weird unappealing album

Smile being so forgettable that it was left out of this analysis entirely is telling 

[dynamite 57,332]

1 minute ago, Railing said:

Smile being so forgettable that it was left out of this analysis entirely is telling 

The album cover alone is 

[AVeryGagaHolyDick 24,870]

Hard to tell, but part of me thinks she would be even more successful, probably the most successful female singer of all time. She’s kinda fvcked now after waiting for so long. The hype is there and people will be disappointed. She’ll still sell well of course, but yeah, her prime days are over like Adele’s.

Edited February 18 by A Very Gaga Holida

[holy scheisse 22,173]

26 minutes ago, Mirrion Rizzons said:

Of course, songs like talk that talk etc didn't really go anywhere, but I mean more like a total floppage 

Oh ya you’re right then she’s had successful albums after albums. I bet she would still have had successful albums and collabs ppl seem to universally like her across lots of demographics. I think gen z would be into her too they grew up with her everywhere as kids 

[dynamite 57,332]

45 minutes ago, PartySick said:

Aw I like Witness

I have reached Witness, the albums before it are all great... Didn't fully realise how many good songs she has

The opening track is good, I don't remember it being good... 

The verses of Hey Hey Hey remind me of Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Smith, do you hear that?

Edited February 19 by dynamite

[salty like sodium 1,689]

1 hour ago, holy scheisse said:

There’s no way to know obviously BUT I will say that she actually did have “flops” various singles from various albums of hers didn’t do well despite other singles from the same albums smashing. 

she was still getting hit after hit. i think she has 14 #1s or something which is impressive considering she got those within then years and it took mariah carey three decades to get to 19 (which is the current record) lol.

edit: actually beatles are number 1, then mariah. riri is third and achieved that in just 10 years. https://www.billboard.com/lists/artists-most-number-one-hits-all-time-hot-100/mariah-carey-18/

 

If anything, Rihanna retiring was great for Beyoncé and Taylor Swift's careers, pretty sure there's a huge audience overlap between the three...

Edited February 19 by salty like sodium

[RochestrMonstr 3,110]

13 minutes ago, salty like sodium said:

within then years and it took mariah carey three decades to get to 19 (which is the current record) lol.

Mariah got 15 of those in one decade

[Bronco 10,218]

Honestly if Ri came back with the dancehall vibe she started following with Anti and was rumoured to be working on for the next album I think she'd be big. 

Because she would fill a void. No one's successfully stepped into the space she's left open. 

SZA is starting to, but without fully picking up the Navy atm. Doja/Megan/Cardi all ate more into the Nicki Minaj space. 

Beyoncé and Rihanna overlapped to an extent. But never seemed to negatively affect the other due to personality differences- Rihanna being the bad island girl to Bey's image as the consumate professional.

[faysalaaa 4,305]

2 hours ago, Mirrion Rizzons said:

That's true, Rihanna always felt pretty immune to criticism in that sense, but of course nothing is absolute

Rihanna was heavily criticized After the Good Girl Gone Bad album, and it ended after she released Unapologetic. Ofcourse all that criticism also came with alot of success, but she was never respected as a artist. I think Anti really made people respect her as an artist, but she stopped after that, so im not sure where she would be today.

[Joshie 725]

Rihanna will always smash. That’s my opinion.

[Lil1th 466]

Idk, j̶o̶n̶b̶e̶n̶e̶t̶ r̶a̶m̶s̶e̶y̶s Katy's issue is she self sabotaged herself and didn't stick to her proven formula and during witness got an Ellen haircut and made music videos that seemed forced to be cool and memeable, not to mention she made bad jokes about Britney which made people hate her more.

Smile sort of helped her regain a bit of her respect despite failing commercially, then people were excited for her comeback just for her to pick dr. Luke as EP then made things worse by releasing a cringe fake woman empowerment video allegedly to be "ironic" but clearly wasn't. All of that was going to tank katy further which makes me almost think she wanted to ruin her legacy.

While Rihanna might not have kept the momentum, she probably would have had at least moderate success and then could have made a comeback/Renaissance like we are seeing with Gaga, I just think Katy and Rihanna are two vastly different situations, BUT I also sort of think she could have hindered Taylor a bit if she kept releasing and had a similar popularity.

Sorry for the katy rant but she used to be one of my favorites and it makes me irrationally pissed off lol

Edited February 19 by lil1th

[Wet Fire 7,342]

The thing is all of her albums have had hits. She somehow manages to.give one hit or two per era. And if she continued that I think her legacy and popularity would remain the same, if not bigger.

[Anderson123 38,057]

I think Rihanna would’ve had a couple more successful eras after Anti if she stayed. She should’ve done the reggae album followed by the dance hall one and people would continue to support her because she is COOL to like. She is very unique, she’s edgy and a rebel so her idgaf attitude has always been something fun about her. 

The thing with Katy is that she tries too hard. She tries to be quirky, funny, makes incredibly generic pop songs and people who put her where she was at that time were the ones going to party and clubs. Those people have clearly gotten older and don’t care about that anymore. 

Rihanna isn’t always a songwriter but she has a bit more control about the songs she picks. Katy just crawled back to Luke to try to do something similar to the old days. And she has been trying to do this since Never Really Over.