In 2016, it was confirmed that Rihanna would release her music through her own label, Westbury Road Entertainment, founded in 2005 and named after her childhood home in Barbados. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, 16 artist stakeholders co-own Tidal, most of whom own a 3% equity stake. He highlighted her multifaceted career, “from her business achievements through Fenty to her tremendous record as an activist and philanthropist”.
From becoming the first woman and only artist to win a GRAMMY for Album Of The Year four times, to dealing with heightened media scrutiny, to breaking records with her Eras Tour, no one understands the highs and lows of being a showgirl like Swift. Fans rejoiced at having songs to comfort them during difficult times, and artists like Maya Hawke, Gracie Abrams, and Sabrina Carpenter credit folklore for inspiring them to create and be even more emotionally honest in their songwriting. Other songs, including “Death By A Thousand Cuts” and “Cornelia Street,” are Swift at her most vulnerable, reflecting on a love lost and grappling with the extreme worry that comes when you could potentially lose someone. When Swift released the lead single “Look What You Made Me Do,” a song she initially wrote as a poem about not trusting specific people, many assumed the album would center on vengeance and drama. The album also earned Swift several awards — including her second Album Of The Year GRAMMY, which made her the first female artist to ever win the award twice.
Lead single “We Found Love” is undeniably the biggest hit to stem from the Talk That Talk era, spending 10 consecutive weeks atop the Hot 100. Her longing continues in “Where Have You Been,” which flaunts Rihanna’s versatility, flipping Geoff Mack’s 1959 country song “I’ve Been Everywhere” into an infectious EDM banger. It was especially refreshing to see Rihanna emerge from one of the darkest periods of her life as exuberant as ever.
And Eminem that appeared on albums of theirs; many felt her vocals on the latter’s “Love the Way You Lie” (2010) lent resonance to the song’s depiction of an abusive relationship. With the assistance of such high-profile collaborators as Timbaland and Justin Timberlake, she abandoned the tropical rhythms that had adorned her first two albums and recorded a collection of sleek R&B that presented her as a fiercely independent and rebellious woman. He helped Fenty record a demo that led to an audition with the rapper Jay-Z, who at the time headed the Def Jam record label, and he soon signed the budding vocalist. Rihanna exclusively uses her surname for ventures outside of music to keep her business and artistic identities separate. In November 2015, Rihanna partnered with Benoit Demouy to launch Fr8me, a Los Angeles-based beauty and stylist agency supporting artists with commercial bookings, photo shoots, campaigns, and red-carpet appearances. In March 2015, Rihanna was announced as a co-owner of the music streaming platform Tidal, alongside several other artists.
The Tortured Poets Department proves that in the throughline of Taylor Swift’s many artistic eras is a commitment to exploration and a love of autobiographical lyricism. Celebrating her genre-defying and varied discography through The Eras Tour has resulted in old songs having a resurgence, new inside jokes and Easter eggs within the fandom, and a plethora of new listeners being exposed to Swift’s work. Country songs like “cowboy like me” and “no body, no crime” reaches back to Swift’s earlier work in narrative building, seamlessly crafting a three-party story with ease.
“And, baby, that’s show business for you,” Taylor Swift declared after announcing her 12th full-length album, The Life of a Showgirl. But with The Life of a Showgirl, it’s clear she’s closing the chapter — or should we say era — of her life that was the catalyst to the new one she’s stepping into. Yes, she is still the same artist who wrote the fairytale-tinged record Fearless, crafted the indie pandemic escape that was folklore, and dove into the depths of her sadness on The Tortured Poets Department. After the muted sonic tones of The Tortured Poets Department, The Life of a Showgirl is possibly Swift’s most jubilant album yet.
Off stage, though, she was falling in love again — this time with someone who championed her just as much as the fans did in the areas. It’s apt that she would turn to Max Martin and Shellback, her 1989 and reputation collaborators, to bring that same captivating pop soundscape to The Life of a Showgirl and to capture some of the energy Swift was experiencing. And after two decades in the business, the 14-time GRAMMY winner is giving everyone a glimpse of what she describes as “the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic” chapter of her life thus far.

Artistry

Her debut album, “Music of the Sun,” further solidified her presence, selling over two million copies worldwide and setting the stage for her meteoric rise in the years to come. Jay-Z was immediately captivated, signing her on the spot and launching her career in the music industry. Her journey from a small island to the bustling music scene of America marked the beginning of her transformational career. Relocating from her home in Barbados to Connecticut, she stayed with music producer Evan Rogers and his wife.

  • 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.”
  • Following the career-pivoting Rated R, 2010’s Loud offered a welcome return to the West Indian artist’s earlier sound.
  • The single “Rude Boy” peaked atop the Hot 100 for six weeks, while “Russian Roulette” and “Hard” both peaked within the top ten.
  • Looking at Lover retrospectively, it’s an album that almost symbolizes a bookend in her discography.
  • 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”.
  • While “What’s My Name?” may not outshine Rih and Drizzy’s other collabs — including 2011’s “Take Care” or 2016’s “Work” — the second she sings, “Hey, boy, I really wanna see if you can go downtown with a girl like me,” it’s impossible not to whine your waist to the riddim.

Charts

Eventually, her bold move to the United States at 16 years old marked the beginning of her journey to stardom, as she pursued her passion for singing and songwriting with determination. Despite these difficulties, Rihanna showcased resilience and creativity from a young age, channeling her personal experiences and pain into music. She is the eldest of three siblings, navigating a childhood fraught with challenges, including her father’s struggles with substance abuse and her parents’ tumultuous marriage, which ultimately ended in divorce when she was just 14. Rihanna, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty betista casino on February 20, 1988, in St. Michael Parish, Barbados, is a globally renowned pop star, singer, and fashion icon.
This initial success paved the way for her subsequent albums and chart-topping singles, solidifying her status as a pop powerhouse. Just months later, Rihanna released her first single, “Pon de Replay,” which quickly climbed the charts and established her as a formidable newcomer in pop music. The pop star has an impressive 64 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including 14 No. 1 hits and 32 tracks in the top 10.

  • On Talk That Talk (2011), Rihanna expanded on her dance-pop style while adopting a more overtly sexual persona and incorporating elements of R&B, hip-hop, dancehall, and dubstep.
  • And “Haunted,” a poetic lament to unrequited love (“Rose perfume, low-lit room/ I’ll pretend you’ll stay forever”) soundtracked by shuffling bossa nova beats and sultry strings, casts its most potent musical spell.
  • She has sold over 60 million albums worldwide, landed 14 Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers, and won nine GRAMMY Awards.
  • Yes, Rihanna has won multiple awards, including several Grammy Awards and MTV awards for her outstanding contributions to music.
  • Less than a year later, when Rihanna was only 16 years old, she left Barbados to move in with Rogers and his wife in Connecticut and work on recording a demo album.
  • 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 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.
Released on November 20, Rated R marked a shift away from the upbeat sound of Rihanna’s earlier albums, embracing a darker, more introspective tone with rock influences. The case garnered widespread media attention, particularly after TMZ published a leaked police photograph showing Rihanna with visible injuries. In 2008, she announced her romantic relationship with singer Chris Brown and topped the Hot 100 once again with a feature on rapper T.I.’s song “Live Your Life”. Having sold nine million copies as of 2023, Good Girl Gone Bad is her best-selling album worldwide. In support of the album, Rihanna embarked on the worldwide Good Girl Gone Bad Tour in September 2007, performing 80 concerts across five continents.

Halloween Songs That Have Won GRAMMYs: “Thriller,” “Ghostbusters” & More

More than its predecessor, Fearless blurs the line between country and pop thanks to crossover hits like “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me,” yet still keeps the confessional attributes known in country songwriting. Even as a new country artist, critics claimed that she “mastered” the genre while subsequently ushering it to a new era — one that would soon see Swift dabble in country-pop. One writer in particular, Liz Rose, applauded Swift’s songwriting capabilities, stating that she was more of an “editor” for the songs because Swift already had such a distinct vision.

Rihanna

She formed a girl group with two classmates; when they were 15 years old, they scored an audition with music producer Evan Rodgers, who was visiting the island with his Barbadian wife. She is also a businesswoman who owns multiple ventures, including the popular cosmetics line Fenty Beauty and the lingerie brand Savage X Fenty. For her work on the single, Rihanna received her first Academy Award nomination, for best original song. Rihanna began working on a new record, but the project was delayed as she took a break from music.
Instead, she wanted to capture the years of her life while they still represented what she was going through, writing about what she was observing and experiencing, from love and friendship to feeling like an outsider. Written throughout her adolescence, Taylor Swift was recorded at the end of 2005 and finalized by the time Swift finished her freshman year of high school. In a genre dominated by men, the odds were already stacked against Swift when she first broke into country music as a teenage female artist.

Oldfield was rewarded for helping to scar a generation of moviegoers for life when a condensed version of his eerie masterpiece picked up the Best Instrumental Composition GRAMMY in 1975. And the soul legend further leaned into its supernatural theme in 2013 when he appeared as a witch doctor in a Bud Light Super Bowl commercial soundtracked by the ominous chart-topper. Along with giving GRAMMY gold to the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Slayer and Vampire Weekend, the Recording Academy has embraced the odd musical spooktacular in several forms. “I have to appreciate ‘Bam Bam.’ I have no problem talking about it because it’s mine. I did the song, so I’m not tired of talking about it. I’m not tired of playing it either,” Sister Nancy says. “Mad Professor is someone I look up to. He’s a genius, and I love working with him,” Sister Nancy adds. She continues to release new music of her own, though she believes in letting projects simmer before embarking on something new.

Midnights: Encapsulating Her Artistic Magic

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.
Swift also found a new sense of creativity within this new mindset, one where she aimed to still embed playful themes in her songwriting but with less snark than that of “Blank Space” and “Look What You Made Me Do.” Leaning into Lover being a “love letter to love,” Swift explored every aspect of it. After finding love amongst chaos with reputation, Swift was learning to deal with the anxiety and fear of losing her partner — became a major theme of another aptly titled album, Lover. With time, though, it became clear that the response to reputation became muddled with the public’s overall perception of her at the time — some even claimed that Swift was ahead of her time with the album’s overall sound. Although Swift said that the album has its vindictive moments — even declaring that the “old Taylor” is dead on the bridge of “Look What You Made Me Do” — it’s a vulnerable record for her. Following the release of 1989, Swift became a cultural juggernaut, and the album has had an omnipresence in music since. And where some might trade a hit or two at the expense of their artistic integrity, Swift didn’t falter — instead, her lyrics were just as heartfelt and intimate as they were on prior albums.
The record also featured the popular power ballad “Unfaithful,” as well as singles “We Ride” and “Break It Off.” The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 chart and earned her first No. 1 hit with the catchy pop single “SOS,” which spent three weeks atop Billboard’s Hot 100. In 2008, Rihanna topped the chart three times, twice with her own songs “Disturbia” and “Take a Bow,” plus a feature on T.I.’s “Live Your Life.” She has also earned nine number-one songs on the UK Singles Chart and ranks second to the Beatles for the most million-selling singles in the country. This made her the artist with the most digital single awards and the first performer to exceed RIAA’s 100 million cumulative singles certification threshold. With estimated worldwide sales exceeding 250 million records as of 2023, Rihanna is one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
She especially enjoyed singing and won a high-school talent show with a rendition of a Mariah Carey song. As a child, she listened to Caribbean music, such as reggae, as well as American hip-hop and R&B. Rihanna (born February 20, 1988, St. Michael parish, Barbados) is a Barbadian pop and rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer who became a worldwide star in the early 21st century. In 2022, Rihanna advocated for reforming the global financial system to better address climate change and poverty, including providing aid to nations most affected by climate-related crises. In October 2019, she stated that she declined to perform at the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show in support of Colin Kaepernick following the controversy surrounding his role in the national anthem protests. Proceeds from the single supported the fundraiser, which ultimately helped raise $100 million for cancer research.