Is Beyonce becoming a wannabe Rihanna?
Barry_Clarke
Posts: 2,683 Forum Member
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She seems to be stealing her image, and is losing what once made her a multi million seller of albums. Her last video "Partition" had no resemblence of what Beyonce once stood for which was a "classy performer and artist". Rihanna has different sides to her, she can get away with it, as she has that young audience she is selling to. Beyonce now is coming off as just a wannabe, trying to tap into Rihanna's younger audience, however at her age and as a mother it is coming of as desperate!
Thoughts ??
Thoughts ??
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Beyonce and Rihanna already have the same audience, nothing has changed with 'BEYONCE'. Beyonce is not a wannabe, sorry but that's a ridiculous statement to make.
At her age? As a mother? That should make no difference.
Fine, but then many people think that it was her best. Plus it became her most critically acclaimed album, until 'BEYONCE' was released.
How so...?
If the album only sold because of the release strategy, then it would have plummeted down the charts after around a week when all the hype around it died down. Instead it continued to sell strongly for weeks after.
I don't know how you inferred that from my post, particularly when I only said that I thought the release strategy was clever, but the album in my view, didn't live up to the hype. I didn't even mention album sales.
There are many critically acclaimed albums out there which most people haven't heard of, the real testament to success is the longevity and impact. The album may be sustaining decent sales, but singles are key to longevity and nothing released from this album seems to be doing all that well by Beyoncé's standards.
What even happened to XO? She released it and it didn't go anywhere. The album sales are healthy, but this campaign will die down very quickly judging by the under-performance of the singles released, even Lady Gaga has done better with BTW and her recent releases.
Singles are meant to push and promote an album, mostly in the weeks/months predating it's release. With the album being released a week beforehand, singles instantly became less important. Since thousands of people had already been buying the album for 7 days previously to the release of the singles, a large chunk of sales went to the album already. I'm sure if just the single had been released it would have went at least top 2, what with all the fans who had been waiting for music from her since 2011.
If you look at the singles from BTW that came AFTER the album release, they only charted at 23 (You and I) and 16 (Marry the Night) in the UK. Granted they weren't "lead singles" but I don't consider Beyonce's singles to be proper "lead singles" either because they weren't released prior to the album.
How has Lady Gaga done better with her recent releases? Because Applause went to number five? Do What U Want peaked at 9, which Drunk in Love matched that. Regardless of singles success Beyonce's album has already sold MANY more units than Artpop anyway. As you said, it's sustaining good album sales, which implies that so far the lack of a highly successful single is not particularly relevant to the longevity and success of the album.
XO was released at the same time as Drunk In Love. Not sure why she did that but as it turned out it was DIL that got all the attention and started selling better.
'4' was her first truly original album, and it didn't sell all that well (I loved it). At the same time Rihanna was having hit after hit, and was seen as being very sexy, risque and on top of all of that - relatable.
I do think that Beyonce seeing all of this, jumped onto social media, and began to slowly reformulate her own image in the same style as Rihanna. I like the album quite a lot, but it's quite clear she pulled out all the stops to get the same attention. She was beginning to fade whether people care to admit it or not, and being honest it does look a bit desperate coming from a mature married woman - a mother - who has been in the game for 15 years. Even Jay-Z, in his mid 40's - parades round like someone half his age. Whether she will ever replicate the same success is debatable.
I don't think Beyoncé has changed her image a great deal to be honest. When it comes to visuals, is there much of a leap between Baby Boy and Drunk in Love? I'm not sure there is. In what ways do you think she's copying her?
Re: comparing Rihanna and Beyoncé. As a casual fan of both (I've only really bothered with the singles), I think they're very different artists. Whereas about 5 years ago I preferred Beyoncé, I actually think Rihanna has grown into a more interesting artist. Sure, she doesn't write her songs but at times she seems so emotionally invested in some of her songs/performances, I find her the better performer
How so?
Beginning to fade? Why's that? Because one album sold less than her others? If Beyonce was beginning to fade then nobody would have been excited and bought her surprise album when it dropped, it would have just lingered in the 20's. It wouldn't have been the event that it was.
You're saying that she changed her image and everything to sell records, and yet she initially sold very many records based on her name alone. Nobody saw the looks in her videos or heard her new songs until after buying the album. They bought the album because it's Beyonce, they discovered her supposed "new style" after doing so.
Regardless, I don't think she looks anything like Rihanna in her visuals, and certainly doesn't sound anything like her. Her style hasn't changed, apart from having short hair in some of the videos. As I said in another post, Beyonce has always had sexual songs and visuals. It's not a new thing.
Album sales are constantly getting lower, so perhaps it is unlikely she will replicate the sales figures of her first album. Perhaps a more fair and relevant point to make is the fact that the album has outsold Rihanna's most recent album 'Unapologetic' in the space of less than 3 months. She's also outsold 'Prism', 'ARTPOP' and 'Britney Jean'.
She's doing better than her contemporaries, and it's not because she's cut her hair short.
And I really don't get the comment about her jumping on trends. For example since when has she done a typical dance song produced by someone like Guetta? If anything you could accuse Rihanna of jumping on trends with songs like Only Girl and Who's That Chick (I love Rihanna by the way so this isn't a dig, I loved those songs).
Disagree about the comment about her fading away with the release of 4. She done Glastonbury which was massive, and the singles may not have sold as well as her others but the album still did well, considering it was a R&B album not full of typical chart hits. She was still in the media too. That's like saying Rihanna was fading away when she released Rated R.
I agree with all of this.
4 didn't do too badly commercially at all. And it had some big hits come off the back of it - Run The World is well known, Best Thing I Never Had did OK (#3 in the UK), Love on Top did well across the world and Countdown is a fairly well known Beyonce tune too.
And how has she faded away or flopped in recent years? Yes, she had quite a long break without releasing any music, but she has been in the public eye relentlessly, with the Superbowl last year, the various endorsements she's done and her tour. She may not have been dominating the charts but she's kept herself as one of the biggest artist and biggest earners in the world.
And of course dropping the album. I wouldn't call the singles flops either. Drunk in Love has done incredibly well, #2 in America and Top 10 in the UK, which ain't bad for a post-album track from a record that's sold millions of copies worldwide already. XO has kind of underperformed but I still think it's early days with that one too. Partition we can't even comment on yet, give it a chance for God's sake!
Is that the first time you've seen her perform? If it isn't then surely you know she can let her voice do the talking if she wants. There's over 15 years worth of evidence of this. If she wants to do a sexy performance then I don't see the issue.
People seem to be ignoring the Brits where she stood there in a long dress and sung.
That says a lot though doesn't it? The arse antics are talked about but the singing ignored!
I totally don't agree with this.
Beyonce has always had a range of songs from ballads to dance to sexier songs! The same applies to her most recent album…! If she only ever sung in long dresses singing ballads everyone would complain because they can't reach the same notes & they're not as worthy of radio plays for this reason. Because lets remember she needs to sell songs in different areas & appeal to different people.
I think Beyonce still has class even when her videos, like partition, are a little more provocative.. especially if we're comparing her to a lot of other singers in recent years! Why can Rihanna get away with dancing 'sexy' but Beyonce can't .. because she's a mother & a wife? because that's a bit ridiculous!
It just seems odd to me that some people are acting like this is the first time she's danced sexually. It's like get over it, it's not the first time or the last. Surely people are seen some of her music vids before 'Beyoncé'?
I guess if people keep judging her on that one performance then it probably says more about them than it does Bey.
For the record I do like Rihanna - but SOS? Where Have U Been? Could easily be said she's channelling B in those videos. You could probably go on all day about how these artists 'copy' each other if you really wanted!
This.
i am huge fan of rihanna too, but they are different and i don't think beyonce would be comfortable fully adopting rihanna's persona. beyonce is just experimenting with her sound and image, just like many other female artists have done before her.
Just because Beyoncé is a superior singer to Rihanna doesn't mean she has to do ballads all the time.
Also, her album seems to be selling pretty darn well.