why RiRi can sing ballads hit and Leona cant

[Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,240
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RiRi first two singles off her new album were ballads and were huge hits WW, but when Leona sings I]with a way better voice[/I ballads everybody groans :confused:

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  • mkirilenkofanmkirilenkofan Posts: 1,024
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    Well Rihanna has released a ballad on pretty much all of her releases except Talk That Talke and Music Of The Sun.

    A Girl Like Me - 'Unfaithful''
    Good Girl Gone Bad - 'Take A Bow'
    Rated R - 'Russian Roulette'& 'Te Amo'
    Loud - 'California King Bed'

    With Leona, many actually do not realise that she has good up-tempo stuff and her label tend to shy away from her releasing that stuff or is it Leona that does not want to release it?

    Spirit - 'Forgive Me' & 'Misses Glass'
    Echo - 'Outta My Head'
    Glassheart - 'Glassheart' & 'Collide'

    I guess people hear more of Rihanna with up-tempo and generally like to hear a ballad from her.

    Is it worth noting that I think that 'Diamonds' was the best ballad of last year.....
    And also that 'Glassheart' was the best up-tempo of the year......
  • wilpeepwilpeep Posts: 256
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    Rihanna's ballads and mid-tempos are better songs than Leona's, but that's probably because she can afford better producers and writers.
  • mkirilenkofanmkirilenkofan Posts: 1,024
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    Rihanna worked with Stargate on 'Diamonds'...Leona has worked with Stargate.

    Rihanna worked with Kuk Harrell on 'Stay'......Leona has worked with Kuk Harrell.
  • Hav_mor91Hav_mor91 Posts: 17,183
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    Rihanna works harder she promotes herself to the hilt and make sure everyone knows her new single and album and hits u over the head until its sold at leat 300K then on to the nextt one. Leona sit on her hands and expects her work to be a success without doing very little to help sell it. Also Rihanna's ballads tend to be better or at least more current.
  • LandslideBradLandslideBrad Posts: 5,085
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    Hav_mor91 wrote: »
    Rihanna works harder she promotes herself to the hilt and make sure everyone knows her new single and album and hits u over the head until its sold at leat 300K then on to the nextt one. Leona sit on her hands and expects her work to be a success without doing very little to help sell it. Also Rihanna's ballads tend to be better or at least more current.

    Exactly. You can say a lot about Rihanna but her work ethic is amazing, she never stops.
  • Eric_BlobEric_Blob Posts: 7,756
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    Rihanna is more popular than Leona which helps her.

    Also, Stay has been huge, but Rihanna's last massive ballad hit before that was Take a Bow in 2008. In 2009/2010 time, it was extremely difficult for anybody to get a hit with a ballad. That's why people like Lady Gaga and Ke$ha, who only got famous in 2009, never released a ballad. They didn't want to risk a flop single. At the time the way to go was just endless electropop songs, which is why they took that easy route.

    But now ballads become commercially viable again. Leona might have a better chance today, although as a pop star she's less popular than she was in 2008, so she would probably struggle to get her songs on the radio now. But if she can get Capital FM to play one of her songs regularly during the day time, she'll probably have herself a big top 10 hit.
  • Zack06Zack06 Posts: 28,304
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    Rihanna's rise to prominence happened slightly earlier than Leona's.....

    Rihanna just has a very very good team of writers and A&R who find her great songs. Leona's team tends to find good songs then just let them go in favour of other, not always better songs. Leona's voice is better, BL was just as successful as Umbrella, but Rihanna has sustained her success where Leona hasn't.
  • kryskryskryskrys Posts: 3,322
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    It's because almost all of Leona's singles are ballads or mid-tempos. People generally get bored of artists who sing slow songs all the time. Rihanna sings a good mixture of dance songs, mid-tempos and ballads. So when she does releases a ballad it sounds more special and it makes people pay attention.

    Leona might technically have the better voice, but I personally find Rihanna's voice more interesting and I believe everything she sings. I can't imagine Leona doing a better job of Cold Case Love, Russian Roulette or Unfaithful, for example.
  • Hav_mor91Hav_mor91 Posts: 17,183
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    Eric_Blob wrote: »
    Rihanna is more popular than Leona which helps her.

    Also, Stay has been huge, but Rihanna's last massive ballad hit before that was Take a Bow in 2008. In 2009/2010 time, it was extremely difficult for anybody to get a hit with a ballad. That's why people like Lady Gaga and Ke$ha, who only got famous in 2009, never released a ballad. They didn't want to risk a flop single. At the time the way to go was just endless electropop songs, which is why they took that easy route.

    But now ballads become commercially viable again. Leona might have a better chance today, although as a pop star she's less popular than she was in 2008, so she would probably struggle to get her songs on the radio now. But if she can get Capital FM to play one of her songs regularly during the day time, she'll probably have herself a big top 10 hit.

    You can blame it on trends etc but even when Leona tried releasing uptempo's it still was not a success. Leona doesn't promote her music or adhere herself to big stations as she is usually off trend and lazy with her music. People like Rihanna, Gaga, Ke$ha, And Katy Perry all sell more as they promote their work and have a good team behind them something Leona does not nor i she willing to even tor or perform on things other than Syco created fprmats.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,100
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    It's simple really. Leona has a bunch of ballads and it's boring after a while. Rihanna doesn't so it is good to hear them. Rihanna can't sing that well live, but she releases some great records. Adele is arguably the new queen of ballads, but even she released Something to cut the ballads. Stay hasn't grown on me just yet, but I think it has more to d with my dislike for the video. Leona is just boring after a while, tbh.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 954
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    Leona might have the better voice but it's Rihanna's voice that keeps me coming back for more.
  • StratusSphereStratusSphere Posts: 2,813
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    Maybe yes, as people have said, because a ballad stands out with Rihanna's release schedule.

    Rihanna has about 5 big ballad hits - Take a Bow, Unfaithful, Diamonds, Stay and Russian Roulette - her first single was 2005 and she's released near 40 singles since then.

    Compare to Leona - the only single of hers I can think of that WASNT a ballad is Collide - thats one uptempo single out of about ten singles total, probably, and she started releasing music in about 2006 didnt she?

    Also I'm not sure a lot of people are....excited, by Leona, I think is the word. People may like her or like her music but I never have felt a buzz about her releasing music, the 'what will she do next' factor that most of the other big pop girls have - Katy Perry, Gaga, Beyonce, Rihanna - with all the hype, new stylings, new types of music, the big album campaigns, etc. On the surface, Leona pretty much appears to be the same shy, long brown haired girl who won the X Factor - which is nice enough, but not that exciting. She hasnt been able to portray to the wider public - like myself - that she's 'become' a star, particularly - she seems to be doing samey stuff all the time. And for a young woman, this seems strange - she's not seeming to be influenced by or following trends, etc.
  • barlowconnorbarlowconnor Posts: 38,120
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    I like Rihanna's ballads better than Leona's.
  • ashtray88ashtray88 Posts: 1,531
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    Rihanna gets better promotion. She's been on a roll and hasn't stopped and I say good for her. Also Diamonds and Stay are actually really good songs. Unfaithful is another good ballad by her. Otherwise I hate all her ballads, especially "California King Bed" one of the worst songs ever.

    People are way too hard on Leona though. But her management and promotion have been handled terribly and she releases the wrong singles. Maybe she make a comeback with her fourth album though.
  • iseloidiseloid Posts: 9,392
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    ashtray88 wrote: »
    Rihanna gets better promotion. She's been on a roll and hasn't stopped and I say good for her. Also Diamonds and Stay are actually really good songs. Unfaithful is another good ballad by her. Otherwise I hate all her ballads, especially "California King Bed" one of the worst songs ever.

    People are way too hard on Leona though. But her management and promotion have been handled terribly and she releases the wrong singles. Maybe she make a comeback with her fourth album though.

    This. Rihanna is forced to keep going.
  • Toy_HeroToy_Hero Posts: 11,358
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    I think it's silly for people to say Leona shouldn't just be doing ballads. For me, it's like 'stick to what you're good at' Look at Adele, she's pretty much released all ballads as well and it hasn't done her any harm. Ballads are what made Leona's career, and I think when they try to push her down a different path, or change her sound, it might push some of her fans away.

    I love Collide, it's an absolute banger for me. But I remember reading a lot of youtube comments from fans who were kinda put off by it since it wasn't her usual sound. But sometimes it's like she can never win. If she's singing ballads, she's boring and samey yet when she released Collide she was being seen as trying to be something she's not.

    I guess for me personally I love the ballads. Look at her best selling songs, Bleeding Love, Run, Happy, Better In Time. I guess it's what brought her fans to her. I think her last album flopped because of a serious lack of ballads and songs that didn't use her big voice. Leona needs to stick to putting emotion into her songs because it's what made her. But I dunno what she needs to do next because it's like Adele and Emeli Sande have taken her patch haha
  • Linda_AndersonLinda_Anderson Posts: 169
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    I couldn't stand Diamonds. And I do love Leona singing ballads but maybe she has too many ballads. Maybe she needs a bit of variation in her music.
  • iseloidiseloid Posts: 9,392
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    I couldn't stand Diamonds. And I do love Leona singing ballads but maybe she has too many ballads. Maybe she needs a bit of variation in her music.

    I agree with the last bit. Just a tad would be nice. Songs like Sugar and When It Hurts are her future plus songs like Better In Time. Great vocals, lyrics and production.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,280
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    I agree with pretty much a lot of the post on this thread. When you look at Leona's discography, 80% of her singles are ballads. When she tries to do something up-tempo like Forgive Me, it sounds quite underwhelming (the video was awful as well). I really didn't like her Echo era. I loved Collide. Very dance but it was one of her better efforts of something "not ballad". I think I read somewhere that she wanted to sing something different rather than her usual ballad when she did Collide.

    As for Rihanna, she does mainly dance stuff and most of her songs are pretty catchy. That being said, Rated R is my favourite album of hers. It has a great mix of fire and vulnerability, in my opinion. Russian Roulette and Te Amo are really amazing. I didn't like her Talk That Talk era, although We Found Love and Where Have You Been were the exceptions (perhaps the only two songs I loved from that era). Plus, she has great marketing team, in contrast to Leona's. Every Rihanna single are constantly on radio and music video channels/VEVO and are played insanely to death. Whereas, Leona's promotions were average at best.
  • mysty211mysty211 Posts: 4,935
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    Rihanna has done more tours. She makes record after record. She is constantly in the public eye. She promotes herself. Her songs gets a lot of airplay.

    Leona should be more successful but she has only done two tours including the one she's doing now. She's taken too long to release new material. She isn't releasing the right songs. Like she should've released "Glassheart" or "Sugar" two brilliant tracks that would do well. I heard Leona said she prefers to sing ballads maybe she has been asked to sing other songs but she wants to release ballads as she did say she doesn't care about chart success as long as people hear her music.

    I honestly prefer Leona to Rihanna though . I don't like the way Rihanna is now and her songs aren't as good like I felt her latest album was awful. I preferred Rihanna in her early years .Also Rihanna is releasing more chart uptempo current songs.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 120
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    In my opinion rihanna connects to a song more i really feel the emotion of the song where leona who I think has an amazing voice for me doesn't always connect to what she is singing
  • wilpeepwilpeep Posts: 256
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    Rihanna worked with Stargate on 'Diamonds'...Leona has worked with Stargate.

    Rihanna worked with Kuk Harrell on 'Stay'......Leona has worked with Kuk Harrell.

    Then I guess Rihanna just got the better songs. She also sells sex in pretty much everything she does, so she's guaranteed hits, especially with her star status.
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