The song’s success buoyed sales for her debut full-length recording, Music of the Sun (2005), on which conventional R&B ballads shared space with Caribbean-flavored dance-pop that showcased her melodious Barbadian lilt. About the same time, she started a girl group with two friends, and in 2004 she attracted the attention of Evan Rogers, an American record producer. In September 2008, Rihanna joined fifteen other female artists to record and perform the song „Just Stand Up!“ during the Stand Up to Cancer television special. That year, she released a photo book documenting the Last Girl on Earth tour, serving as a companion to her album Rated R (2009). Rihanna has eight number-one singles on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, seven on the Airplay chart, and sixteen on the Rhythmic chart. Jocelyn Vena of MTV News observed that Rihanna often creates music videos that are thought-provoking and aligned with the themes of her songs.
On „Father Figure,“ she flips the power dynamic between a „showman,“ someone who thought they were pulling the strings, and a showgirl. On stage, fans were seeing the same steadfast, resilient showgirl they were seeing throughout the tour perform three-hour sets. After The Tortured Poets Department provided insight into how she coped during the beginning of the tour while dealing with two relationships breaking down, producing tracks like „The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived“ and „loml,“ The Life of a Showgirl is a sharp turn in the other direction. The 12-track record is an amalgamation of what was going on behind the scenes throughout the latter half of The Eras Tour. Take a look at how tracks like „The Fate of Ophelia“ and „The Life of a Showgirl“ hint that Swift is happier and more inspired than ever.
And on Aug. 13, she opened up about the concept and creation of the record on her now-fiancé Travis Kelce’s podcast, „New Heights.“ To help explain this chapter of her life, Swift brings together a myriad of collaborators — from Stevie Nicks as fellow poetess, to duets with Florence Welch and Post Malone — and leans on real and fictional characters, like Clara Bow, Peter Pan („Peter“), and Patti Smith. It pokes fun at so-called fans who overstep with her personal life („But Daddy I Love Him“), says goodbye to a city that gave her a home („So Long London“), and muses on how her own celebrity has stunted her growth („Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?“). As a result, there had arguably never been more excitement for a Taylor Swift album than for The Tortured Poets Department — especially because the announcement came on the heels of her lucky 13th GRAMMY win in February.
It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks and peaked at number two in the UK; it was also the latter country’s best-selling song of 2010. In June 2010, she collaborated with rapper Eminem on the single „Love the Way You Lie“. In support of the album, Rihanna embarked on the Last Girl on Earth tour from 2010 to 2011. The single „Rude Boy“ peaked atop the Hot 100 for six weeks, while „Russian Roulette“ and „Hard“ both peaked within the top ten.
She scored another No. 1 hit with the single “Rude Boy,” while the tracks “Hard” and “Russian Roulette” landed squarely in the top 10. Good Girl Gone Bad remains her best-selling album with over 10 million copies sold worldwide. Her lead single “Umbrella,” featuring Jay-Z, lead the Billboard Hot 100 for a whopping seven weeks and later won the Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2008. Her sophomore effort, A Girl Like Me, followed in April 2006, incorporating reggae, rock, and pop influences.
Looking at Lover retrospectively, it’s an album that almost symbolizes a bookend in her discography. Writing reputation became a lifeline following the events that catalyzed it — a way to shed the so-called snakeskin and make peace with however the public wanted to view her. And even despite matching the 1.2 million first-week sales of her previous releases, some concluded that the album was her first commercial failure when compared to 1989. Even after Swift spent some time away from the spotlight, the public didn’t immediately gravitate toward her return.
- She plays with time — speeding it up in „Starlight,“ dabbling in the past in „All Too Well,“ and reframing it in „State of Grace“ — to better understand her experiences.
- For her work on the single, Rihanna received her first Academy Award nomination, for best original song.
- Rihanna’s demo was sent to rapper Jay-Z, who had just become the president and CEO of the record label Def Jam Recordings.
- The album included “We Found Love,” a track with DJ Calvin Harris that won the 2013 Grammy Award for best short-form music video.
- Rihanna, who has not released a full album since 2016’s „Anti,“ voices Smurfette in the film.
- Rihanna began her music career at the age of 16 when she signed with Def Jam records.
- Swift herself has long embodied independence through redefining over and over what it means to be a pop star for over two decades.
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.
On the Life of a Showgirl track directly named after the late icon, Swift circles back to the themes she touched on with folklore’s „Peace“ and the tension between her private reality and her public persona. While half of The Life of a Showgirl’s 12 tracks peer into the darker corners of fame and explores the loneliness, scrutiny and fractures that used to come with it, the other half are dedicated to falling completely head over heels. And on The Tortured Poets Department’s „The Prophecy,“ she pleaded for someone to change what she believed to be her predestined future of being alone and what she’d give up to find someone she loves.
It topped the charts in several territories, spending ten consecutive weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart and seven at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 162,000 copies in its first week. Regarded as a turning point in her career, it marked a shift from the Caribbean-influenced sound of her earlier work, embracing a more contemporary pop direction driven by uptempo dance tracks. It became her first RIAA-certified double platinum album, surpassing one million units sold. Soon after releasing Music of the Sun, Rihanna began working on her second studio album in September 2005.
The line debuted in a Paris pop-up on May 22 before a worldwide online release seven days later, featuring clothing, accessories, and footwear. It included an array of products including foundations, highlighters, bronzers, blush compacts, lip glosses, and blotting sheets, and was praised for offering shades that catered to all skin tones. The $10 million partnership produced a wide range of beauty products, with the first collection released on September 8, 2017, in stores and online across more than 150 countries. Over the next two years, she released a variety of footwear in different styles and colourways, all receiving positive responses from critics and consumers alike. Rihanna went on to collaborate with numerous fashion houses, including Dior, Stance, and Manolo Blahnik. She also established a photography agency, A Dog Ate My Homework, representing photographers Erik Asla and Deborah Anderson.
The thing that differentiated her from other writers — and still does to this day — is her songwriting. The world now knows Taylor Swift as a global pop superstar, but back in 2006, she was just a doe-eyed country prodigy. Despite its ghoulish title, artificial intelligence appears to be the object of terror in what many, including the GRAMMY voters who awarded it Best Pop Duo/Group Performance in 2024, regard as the highlight of SZA’s sophomore. But four years after the Team Edward vs Team Jacob saga wrapped up, folk hero Jason Isbell proved mythical bloodsuckers weren’t a barrier to awards success. David Bowie fans may well feel aggrieved that his post-punk classic „Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)“ was entirely ignored by GRAMMY voters, while the bro-step banger it inspired was showered with awards. It’s a bold feminist act that helped power parent album CrazySexyCool to diamond status and was deservedly rewarded with Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal at the 1996 GRAMMYS (where CrazySexyCool was also crowned Best R&B Album).
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.
Swift opted to lean more into radio-friendly hits, which resulted in songs like „Style,“ „Wildest Dreams,“ „Blank Space,“ and „Shake It Off,“ all of which became singles. Often mentioned as a record that inspired a generation of artists from Troye Sivan to Conan Gray, Swift’s confessional, soul-bearing authenticity set a new standard for straightforward pop music. Much like her previous two albums, Swift included songs that were both inspired by her own life and being a fly on the wall. During her NYU commencement speech in 2022, she reflected on this era of her life as one of intense fear that she could make a mistake and face lasting consequences, so the songs were masked in metaphors rather than directly addressing adult themes in her music. Serving as a snapshot of Swift’s life and teenhood, she avoided songwriting stereotypes typically found in country music.
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Redefining its titular term, the four-week chart-topper finds the husky-voiced T-Boz freely admitting to straying from an unaffectionate relationship, proving that the playa anthem wasn’t solely the reserve of their male counterparts. But the song itself did pip fellow superstars Prince, Billy Joel and Lionel Richie to the Best Male Pop Vocal Performance crown. Backed by some fast and furious fiddles, „The Devil Went Down to Georgia“ tells the tale of a young musician named Johnny who bumps into Beelzebub himself during a jam session in the Peach State.
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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 on February 20, 1988, in St. Michael Parish, Barbados, is a globally renowned pop star, singer, and fashion icon.
An Artist Fully Realized
In turn, Swift hasn’t just become one of the biggest artists of all time — she’s changed pop music altogether. Since then, she’s released 12 studio albums, re-recorded four as „Taylor’s Version,“ and cultivated one of the most feverish fan bases in music. Furthermore, the deluxe edition consists of 16 tracks, half of which topped the Dance Club Songs chart — smashing the record (previously held by Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream) for the most No. 1s from a single album. „Same Ol‘ Mistakes“ is a cover of psychedelic rock band Tame Impala’s „New Person, Same Old Mistakes“ — her first time remaking another artist’s song for her own album since „You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)“ on Music of the Sun. The album feels like one big celebration of life, as evidenced by Rihanna’s fire-engine red hair and No. 1 singles „Only Girl (In the World)“ and „What’s My Name?“ (the latter of which was Rih’s first collaboration with Drake). Despite being Good Girl Gone Bad’s lowest-charting single, Timberlake heralded the song as „the bridge for her to betista casino be accepted as an adult in the music industry.“
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It’s a highlight on The Life of a Showgirl as it’s a testament that, regardless of how much time has passed or the fame that Swift has achieved, she still looks back on those who changed her life early on. Swift doesn’t want you to get it twisted, though — this is an album about the life of a showgirl, not an album about being a performer. She’s no longer anxious in love („Eldest Daughter,“ „Honey“) and for the first time, she owns all of her work and is in complete artistic control („Father Figure“).
Rihanna has released numerous hits, including „Umbrella,“ „Diamonds,“ „We Found Love,“ and „Disturbia.“ Rihanna began her music career at the age of 16 when she signed with Def Jam records. In addition to her chart-topping hits, Rihanna has capitalized on her fame with lucrative endorsement deals and her own successful brands, including Fenty Beauty, which revolutionized the beauty industry with its inclusive products. As a pioneer of the music industry, her earnings from album sales, touring, and streaming have consistently placed her among the top earners in entertainment. As an expectant mother, Rihanna continues to inspire her fans, demonstrating a balance between her music career and her personal life.
The lead single, „Work“, topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, with the third and fourth 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.
- It’s been used in film and television, including prominently in 1998’s Nas- and DMX-featuring Belly.
- Seven years into an already extraordinary career, 2012’s Unapologetic became Rihanna’s first album to debut at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart.
- Transitioning from a teen pop sensation to a mature artist, Rihanna’s work reflects her evolving artistic vision.
- Jay-Z was immediately captivated, signing her on the spot and launching her career in the music industry.
- „20 years ago, i left my country, my culture, my food, and family to embark on a journey that started with the release of my very first body of music!“ she wrote in an Instagram caption alongside a montage of her biggest career moments.
- In August 2018, Billboard ranked Rihanna as the tenth-most successful Hot 100 artist of all time and it also named her the top Hot 100 artist of the 2010s.
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„Wood“ and „Honey“ capture the playfulness of true love, while songs like „WI$HLI$T“ and „Elizabeth Taylor“ see love not as a distraction from her life’s work but as the very thing that makes it feel meaningful. Many of the love songs on Swift’s more recent albums are brimming with anxiety, from Lover’s „Cornelia Street“ („I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends“) to folklore’s „Peace“ („The rain is always gonna come if you’re standing with me“). 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.
