Rihanna Gets 390% Boost In Song Sales Following Super Bowl Halftime Performance
Bajan superstar Rihanna has seen a boost in song streaming and sales since her debut at the Super Bowl Halftime Show on Sunday.
According to Luminate (formerly MRC Data/Nielsen Music), RiRi’s digital album sales have increased by 301%, while digital song sales have seen a climb by 390% in the US. On-demand audio streams, on the other hand, have increased by 211% between Saturday, February 11, and Monday, February 13.
Luminate also noted on Wednesday that some of the songs which made up the nearly 14-minute set also saw an increase in sales and streams. They are as follows:
Umbrella
Digital Song Sales: +499%
On-Demand Audio Streams: +236%
Diamonds
Digital Song Sales: +1,023%
On-Demand Audio Streams: +358%
Pour It Up
Digital Song Sales: +1,387%
On-Demand Audio Streams: +470%
Rude Boy
Digital Song Sales: +748%
On-Demand Audio Streams: +357%
We Found Love
Digital Song Sales: +852%
On-Demand Audio Streams: +297%
Where Have You Been
Digital Song Sales: +1,272%
On-Demand Audio Streams: +459%
The performance was just enough to satisfy the appetites of musically deprived fans across the world who had not seen her in action in seven years.
Of course, once she touched the stage inside the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, the biggest news of the night was that her ‘special guest’ was actually unborn baby number two with her rapper boyfriend A$AP Rocky.
The Only Girl In The World singer didn’t even make an attempt to hide her baby bump in the all-red ensemble, courtesy of Loewe and Alaïa. But pregnant or not, she put on a show, which also included dance routines.
Today (February 15), she broke the internet once again with official photos of her baby boy, and an exquisite shot of her nuclear family on the cover of British Vogue.
During her interview with British Vogue, which chronicled the entire shoot experience, as well as Rihanna’s ‘new normal’ as a mother, businesswoman and artist, she noted that she is adamant about releasing her long-awaited album R9 this year.
“I want it to be this year,” she told British Vogue. “Like, honestly, it’d be ridiculous if it’s not this year. But I just want to have fun. I just want to make music and make videos.”
“And I need the right background music with the visuals. I can’t just go shoot a video to me talking,” she added in the interview.
Although her fans have been on an emotional roller coaster of anticipation, to being disappointed about suspected release periods over the last two years, the singer admitted that the delay is owed to her obsession with perfection and outdoing her last album—Anti.
“When you come off of an album like Anti…In hindsight, it really is my most brilliant album. I say that because in the moment, I didn’t realise it. But it always felt like the most cohesive album I’ve ever made. When you break it down and you realise this album goes from ‘Work’ to ‘Kiss It Better’ to ‘Needed Me’ to ‘Love on the Brain’ to ‘Sex with Me’ to ‘Desperado’ and somehow it all fits and not for a second did you glitch?” she rhetorically asked in the interview.
“…But there’s this pressure that I put on myself. That if it’s not better than that then it is not even worth it.” she told British Vogue “It is toxic. You’re right. It’s not the right way to look at music because music is an outlet and a space to create, and you can create whatever. It doesn’t have to even be on any scale. It just has to be something that feels good. It could just be a song that I like. It literally could be that simple.”
Again, she reiterated that she will no longer hold herself in a headlock and give herself the grace to execute the project.
“So I realised that if I keep waiting until this feels right and perfect and better, maybe it’s going to keep taking forever and maybe it’ll never come out and no, I’m not down to that. So I want to play. And by play, I mean I have my ideas in my head, but I can’t say them out loud yet,” she said.
Back in 2019, the Rude Boy singer confirmed to Vogue magazine that R9 was going to be “Reggae-inspired or Reggae-infused,” and had noted that it was “not gonna be typical of what you know as reggae, but you’re going to feel the elements in all of the tracks.”
It noted that Rihanna, in elaborating on why she chose the Reggae route for her new album, had explained that “that the genre was an important part of her becoming who she is”.
Reggae always feels right to me,” she said. “It’s in my blood. It doesn’t matter how far or long removed I am from that culture, or my environment that I grew up in; it never leaves. It’s always the same high. Even though I’ve explored other genres of music, it was time to go back to something that I haven’t really homed in on completely for a body of work.”
In trying to pinpoint Rihanna’s possible collaborators, Time had noted that producer The-Dream, who is one of her longtime collaborators who helped make her mega-hit Umbrella, had confirmed that he was working on the new album, although he wasn’t sure when the music would be coming out.
Rapper Haiti Babii, it said whom Rihanna herself has endorsed, had also revealed in an interview with BET that in a FaceTime conversation with Rihanna in May 2019, she had said Koffee was among her cadre of writers.
“While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Koffee is writing for R9, it would be a fitting choice given that Rihanna’s new album is Reggae-inspired,” Time noted.