Seeing as the mods refuse to change the title of the old thread, we've decided to make a new one. Please don't merge this with the old one mods.

Rihanna has announced that her 8th studio album will be titled ANTI. It looks as though she is gearing up for yet another November release and according to a reliable source it may drop on 6th November:

http://hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=298048

The album artwork has been recently unveiled and depicts a young Rihanna holding a balloon, with a crown covering her eyes. This is intended to represent the idea that, in the words of Rihanna herself, "Sometimes the ones who have sight are the blindest." The album cover was created by artist Roy Nachum:

https://instagram.com/p/8kMpLWBM3l/?taken-by=badgalriri

The cover also has no written words on it, instead a poem is written in braille on the cover. The poem is called "If They Let Us" and was written by Chloe Mitchell:

"I sometimes fear that I am misunderstood.
It is simply because what I want to say,
What I need to say, won't be heard.
Heard in a way I so rightfully deserve.
What I choose to say is of so much substance
That people just won't understand the depth of my message.
So my voice is not my weakness,
It is the opposite of what others are afraid of.
My voice is my suit and armour,
My shield, and all that I am.
I will comfortably breath in it, until I find the moment to be silent.
I live loudly in my mind, so many hours of the day.
The world is pin drop sound compared to the boom
That thumps and bumps against the walls of my cranium.
I live it and love it and despise it and I am entrapped in it.
So being misunderstood, I am not offended by the gesture, but honoured.
If they let us…"

More about the album cover here:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/fe...pr775V9YLGAm7Q

Now to the music . Rihanna has released 3 singles during 2015. However it is unclear if these 3 singles will in fact make it onto the album after delays and an apparent reworking of the material. We've also heard a number of other snippets which may or may not make the cut, but no official tracklist yet:

FourFiveSeconds
Bitch Better Have My Money
American Oxygen
James Joint (Interlude)
Only if For a Night (Snippet) - samples Florence and the Machine
Higher (Snippet)
Nothing's Promised (Snippet)
Kiss It Better (Snippet)

It's been nearly 3 years since Unapologetic, but finally Rihanna's 8th studio album seems to be approaching a release date. Discuss the album here

I love how she has taken her time with this album. and I love all we have heard so far.

'Taken her time' is a bit of an understatement, no? It's been 3 years since Unapologetic. It's also not really been fair on her fans to have been teasing this for well over a year (snippets from the studio etc) with pretty much NO real information until the last week. The hype for this album has turned into people just being pissed off by it. She's managed to find time to do endless magazine interviews, coaching on The ****ing Voice USA, promoting fashion stuff, and all sorts of other nonsense that isn't music. If this album is anything but incredible start to finish, her fans are gonna be so mad.

You do have a point. There was a point a few months ago where I was becoming impatient but then I accepted that a November release was highly likely. You could see it coming a mile off in the way she was drip feeding info and then going completely silent for long periods. I read earlier that the original plan was to release the album in March. She was due to perform a new single at the BRITs but cancelled at the last minute. It's clear that there was a delay which hadn't originally been the intention. Probably why BBHMM video took so long as she dropped it just before people lost interest and there's been another long gap since.

Randomly releasing new singles without any real strategy is always going to fail.

BBHMM would've done better with a pre-order and then released to iTunes/Spotify the same day as the music video premiered. The whole thing combined could've given Rihanna a much bigger hit. That said, I thought BBHMM was horrendous so in a way I'm glad that song failed to do anything worth while.

Look forward to given it a listen, I wasnt a fan of BBHMM but thought American Oxygen was good. Does the title stand for something?

No it doesn't. Rihanna posted this definition on Instagram:

https://instagram.com/p/8kCWwChM9G/?taken-by=badgalriri

Looks like she's just running with the idea that she always delivers what her fans are least expecting. I'd say that's a pretty accurate statement based on this campaign so far .

Oh and American Oxygen just isn't very good. It goes on for 2 minutes longer than it should and the song never really goes anywhere. I get what she was going for with the video but this song simply isn't single material especially for someone like Rihanna who usually delivers with her singles.

One last thing: Billboard now reporting the album is NOT being released on 6th November.

I'm still shocked that all singles flopped (arguably FFS did alright but for a Rihanna lead it wasn't great). I'm not sure how successful this album will be.

Something to tide you over with:
Check out Rihanna's recent set at Rock In Rio. One of her best live performances imo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MKMODYjVHg

The set list was so good too.

FourFiveSeconds didn't flop, it annoys me when people say it did. YES it didn't compare to the performance of Diamonds/We Found Love/Only Girl/Umbrella, but that's an incredibly high standard to compare to. For any other artist, having a single as huge as FFS would be a huge achievement.

BBHMM didn't do well because A) it's not very commercial friendly and B) it's release strategy was a total mess.

American Oxygen I'm not even going to pass comment on. Definitely one of the worst songs she's recorded since 2007. I think of all her songs in the last 8 years, both singles and album tracks, only Phresh Out The Runway, Say It and Fool in Love are worse.

I don't mind her but not sure how much shelf life she has. I don't think she is a great great singer and she seems to sell because of her great image, looks, marketing (Jay-Z) etc...

I know we say that for most singers these days but the likes of Mariah, Beyonce and Adele all or ONCE had great voices and sold because of that first. When her image dies not sure if she will recover imo.

i read yesterday that its apparently being released on 6th November. But surely that cant be right because it would have been confirmed by now

As I posted earlier, Billboard reported that it is NOT being released on 6th Nov.

I suspect Rihanna's original promotional campaign had heavily invested in Tidal becoming a 'thing' and when it failed to catch on, her team have done some full-on backpedalling which has caused a lot of delays for everything to be rejigged

Originally Posted by scratchy23:
“FourFiveSeconds didn't flop, it annoys me when people say it did. YES it didn't compare to the performance of Diamonds/We Found Love/Only Girl/Umbrella, but that's an incredibly high standard to compare to. For any other artist, having a single as huge as FFS would be a huge achievement.”

EXACTLY! FFS was platinum over here and double platinum in America, it may haven't have gotten to number one but it doesn't mean it was a flop!

Looks like Adele's album is definitely coming next month then. It'll be interesting to see how they work around that release as the hype will be huge. Can't help but wish that it was Ri doing the surprise TV teasers rather than the mess that her promo has been so far. I still think she needs a big single to stop this album from under performing in sales . Announce a release date, then drop the single AND promote it properly through live performances.

What an absolute mess of a release. The worst thing for her fans is it probably won't be released until next year now. Since we all know from November the charts are going to be about one woman only...

I'm now starting to now think that it wont be til next year now too. Next month is out the window now seeing as we're now over halfway through October. That only leaves December which is a possibility but i do think if it was gunna be December, even now we would already know about it. i may be wrong but Britneys last album was released in the early December and im sure we were told early-mid October it was getting an early December release.

Unless Rihanna is planning a surprise release which i dont think she is, i think a 2015 release is now out the window

Worth pointing out that Rihanna will be performing at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show which airs on December 8th. Could she announce a new single ahead of that possibly and perform it there? She'll be performing two songs so I expect her to perform BBHMM and another. Neither FFS or AO really suit the tone of the show so she could do something new.

A reminder of her brilliant 2012 performances at the show (just because ... ):
Diamonds
Phresh Out The Runway

Surprise surprise, Rihanna has now cancelled her appearance at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. 2016 it is.

Quote from daily mail article "forced to cancel her performance as she is pre-occupied with finishing her new album, People reports"

How the hell is it not even finished??

Is she not supposedly filming a video this week?

I'm still holding out for a surprise November 13th release.

I read that report. But a point worth making: BBHMM video was filmed 3 months before she released it.

Jesus, I hadn't realised she had that in the can for so long. She's possibly delaying the release further because of Adele and just getting everything lined up to go big in the new year. She needs a big smash to kick this thing off properly.