After the album briefly surfaced on Tidal early Wednesday night, Rihanna’s ANTI is finally here. Her eighth studio album and the follow-up to 2012’s Unapologetic features her Drake collaboration “Work” and a cover of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes.” The record was executive produced by Kanye West and is available on Tidal now.
Rihanna, who first came to be in 2005 when the then seventeen year old released her debut album titled ‘Music of the Sun’, has since grown into the ultimate pop star, leaving behind her island girl days. In only ten years, she has achieved 13 Billboard Hot 100 number ones, released eight albums, and sold over 264 million records worldwide.
Her first album in three years- titled ANTI, is a major step away from the Barbadian singer’s previous work. The album offers a range of tones, styles, and moods from both grunge to goddess esque. It was available as a free download last week and includes the 13-track standard edition. A deluxe edition with three bonus tracks became available on January 29 via Tidal.
The album features writing/production contributions from the Weeknd (“Woo”), Timbaland (“Yeah, I Said It”), The-Dream (“Woo”), Travis Scott (“Woo”), DJ Mustard (“Needed Me”), Hit-Boy (“Woo”), PARTYNEXTDOOR (“Work”), Boi-1da (“Work”), and more.
“I’m a huge Rihanna fan but this entire album, I feel is a disappointment. She didn’t deliver to the best of her ability and although Rihanna is super successful- it’s sad that not all of that hype has to do with her music” Meerab Kaleem, senior, said.
ANTI will be released on physical CD on February 5, Billboard reports. It will be available in both standard and deluxe versions.
However, the album doesn’t feature any of her singles from last year, including “Better Have My Money,” “FourFiveSeconds”, and “American Oxygen.”
The cover was designed by Roy Nachum, and is inscripted with poems written in braille by Nachum and Chloe Mitchell (who also worked on the art for Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy).
Since last year, Rihanna launched a digital experience called ANTIdiary, a digital tour of a mysterious mansion where listeners were able to hear snippets of the album’s tracks. She also launched Instagram and Twitter accounts teasing the release.
As for its reception, ANTI received a platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) two days after its release as a result of Samsung purchasing one million copies of the album in advance that were then given away as a free download, part of the $25 million deal signed by Rihanna in 2015. The album then debuted at number 27 on the Billboard 200 on February 1, 2016. Although over 1.4 million copies were downloaded from Tidal, Billboard and Nielsen Music did not recognize the count of the sales, because they were distributed by Samsung.
“Her album could’ve been so much more than it actually was- but I hope she learns her lesson and just improves as an artist and release amazing, addictive music that were used to from her” Asma Ahmed, sophomore, said.
Starting this month till the rest of 2016, Rihanna will embark on a 70 plus show world tour to support the album with the Weeknd, Big Sean, and Travis Scott.
