Oldfield was rewarded for helping to scar a generation of moviegoers for life when a condensed version of his eerie masterpiece picked up the Best Instrumental Composition GRAMMY in 1975. And the soul legend further leaned into its supernatural theme in 2013 when he appeared as a witch doctor in a Bud Light Super Bowl commercial soundtracked by the ominous chart-topper. Along with giving GRAMMY gold to the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Slayer and Vampire Weekend, the Recording Academy has embraced the odd musical spooktacular in several forms. “I have to appreciate ‘Bam Bam.’ I have no problem talking about it because it’s mine. I did the song, so I’m not tired of talking about it. I’m not tired of playing it either,” Sister Nancy says. “Mad Professor is someone I look up to. He’s a genius, and I love working with him,” Sister Nancy adds. She continues to release new music of her own, though she believes in letting projects simmer before embarking on something new.
Her first hit single was “Pon de Replay,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart in 2005. This pivotal move allowed her to focus on honing her vocal talents and recording a demo album that would ultimately pave the way for her music career. Her third album, “Good Girl Gone Bad,” marked a significant turning point in her career, showcasing her growth as an artist and solidifying her image as a bold and edgy figure in music. The record also featured popular single “Where Have You Been,” as well as “You da One,” and title track “Talk That Talk.” “We Found Love” later won Best Short Form Music Video at the 2013 Grammys. The upbeat pop record featured her first radio hit, the club anthem “Pon de Replay,” which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Since then, the singer has released seven more albums, which are all platinum or multi-platinum, making her one of the best-selling artists in the world.
After exploring pop-leaning sonics she first found with Red, Swift worked with Martin and Shellback again on most of 1989. 1989 was lauded by critics for its infectious synth-pop that was reminiscent of the 1980s, yet still had a contemporary sound. 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. In her liner notes, she references Pablo Neruda’s poem “Tonight I Can Write,” stating that “Love is so short, forgetting is so long” is the overarching theme for the album. From addressing the aforementioned VMA incident in the forgiving “Innocent” to a toxic relationship in “Dear John,” Speak Now also hinted that her rose-colored glasses were cracked, but Swift (and her songwriting) was only becoming stronger because of it.
Midnights: Encapsulating Her Artistic Magic
Rihanna has delivered pop hit after pop hit since bursting onto the music scene in the mid-2000s. The album’s lead single, “Work,” featuring rapper Drake, spent nine weeks at No. 1 and earned two Grammy nominations. In January 2016, Rihanna released her eighth album, Anti, allowing Jay-Z’s online streaming site Tidal to exclusively feature the collection of tracks for a week. The album included “We Found Love,” a track with DJ Calvin Harris that won the 2013 Grammy Award for best short-form music video. Less than a year later, when Rihanna was only 16 years old, she left Barbados to move in with Rogers and his wife in Connecticut and work on recording a demo album.
But if you want to add a bit of prestige to your supernatural soundtrack, there’s another list of Halloween-friendly songs to check out — one that highlights another celebrated annual occasion. With Halloween celebrations in full swing this Oct. 31, revisit some eerie or ghoulishly titled songs that have been awarded golden gramophones, from the ‘Exorcist’ theme to Eminem and Rihanna’s “The Monster.” More than 40 years later, she’s still happy to discuss and play that single she recorded back in Kingston as a young woman.
The album’s first half features strong 1980s pop influences, while the second half leans more toward traditional R&B. Rihanna’s music is primarily R&B and pop singer, and incorporates elements of various genres like dancehall, EDM, and adult contemporary. Rihanna became the first person to headline a Super Bowl halftime show while pregnant, revealing her pregnancy during the performance. The Super Bowl performance earned Rihanna five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including one for Outstanding Variety Special (Live). In August, she was honoured with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, where she performed a series of medleys of her most successful songs. The album was released exclusively on the streaming service Tidal on January 28, 2016.
She recalled performing Carey’s 1993 song “Hero” at her high school talent show. Rihanna praised Madonna’s ability to change her fashion and music repeatedly, while remaining a “real force in entertainment”. On Talk That Talk (2011), Rihanna expanded on her dance-pop style while adopting a more overtly sexual persona and incorporating elements of R&B, hip-hop, dancehall, and dubstep. Aiming for artistic growth, A Girl Like Me expresses personal experiences that typical young adult women undergo, with ballads that were described as elegant and mature. Rihanna’s early dancehall roots are evident on her first two albums, Music of the Sun (2005) and A Girl Like Me (2006). In Barbados, Rihanna drew early inspiration from reggae, soca, and hip-hop, and after relocating to the US, she was introduced to a wider variety of genres, including rock.
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In addition to her musical career, Rihanna acted in the movies Battleship (2012) and This Is the End (2013). In 2023 she returned to the stage for the first time in some four years, performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. Included in the total were prominent collaborations with hip-hop artists T.I. The album that followed later that year, Rated R, much of which she cowrote, was marked by icily stark production and brooding lyrics that touched on revenge. With the effervescent dancehall-inflected single “Pon de Replay” (2005), Rihanna immediately captured an international audience.
Rihanna, who has not released a full album since 2016’s “Anti,” voices Smurfette in the film. The songstress herself shared a sweet note on Friday, Aug. 29, thanking her fans and those who “gave me a chance over the years.” To celebrate her success in the music business and beyond, Rihanna is releasing “R20” merch and a vinyl album boxed set, which are available for pre-order on her official online store.
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- With these endeavors combined with her musical empire, Rihanna has not only cemented her legacy in music but also positioned herself as a powerful icon in the world of entrepreneurship.
- The Tortured Poets Department proves that in the throughline of Taylor Swift’s many artistic eras is a commitment to exploration and a love of autobiographical lyricism.
- 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.
- Following the release of Unapologetic and the ensuing tour, she expressed a desire to take a break from recording, saying she wanted “a year to just do whatever I want artistically, creatively”.
- Rihanna’s first studio album, Music of the Sun, was released in August 2005 to much intrigue.
Her most conceptual album to date, Midnights charts 13 sleepless nights and explores five themes, from self-hatred and revenge to “what if” fantasies, falling in love, and falling apart. Sonically, evermore is a slight departure from its sister record; where folklore relies on more alt-leaning and indie-tinged sounds, evermore takes the sonics from all of Swift’s past records — from pop to country to indie rock — and features all of them on one album. Some songs, like “peace,” were recorded in just one take, capturing the essence and fragility in the song’s story, whereas the lyrics for the sun-drenched “august” were penned on the spot as Swift was in her makeshift home studio in Los Angeles. Swift described reputation as a bait-and-switch; at their core, the songs are about finding love in the darkest moments.
Swift felt a “quiet conclusion” after finishing up evermore, describing that it was more about grappling with endings of all “sizes and shapes,” and the record represented a chapter closing. “Closure” is a “skittering” track that has the same energy as tracks like Lover’s “I Forgot That You Existed,” whereas the ballad “champagne problems” is thematically reminiscent of Swift’s Speak Now track “Back To December” where she takes responsibility for her lover’s heartache. Folklore’s impact on the zeitgeist at a time where everyone was stuck at home helped shape people’s quarantine experience. She worked remotely with two producers — again working with her right-hand man Jack Antonoff, and first-time collaborator Aaron Dessner from The National.
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In December, Nancy will headline a celebration of her career featuring female artists including Renée Neufville. In August, she released a new Mad Professor-produced album, Armageddon — her first LP in over 20 years. Rihanna comes out of left field with the Prince-inspired “Kiss It Better,” the album’s second single, which sees the superstar falling back on addictive sex that “feels like crack” to justify a destructive relationship. The black-and-white, red paint-splattered album cover signals a rebirth, featuring a real-life image of Rihanna as a child. Released four years after Unapologetic — her longest gap between albums at the time — ANTI illustrated Rihanna’s greater desire for quality over quantity. With 13 No. 1s and twice as many top 10 hits under her belt, Rihanna set out to create timeless music instead of chasing a radio-friendly formula with her 2016 magnum opus, ANTI.
- 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.
- Subsequently, Rihanna held the No. 1 spots on the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 simultaneously, her second time achieving such an impressive feat.
- Rihanna became the first person to headline a Super Bowl halftime show while pregnant, revealing her pregnancy during the performance.
- Though it’s been close to a decade since Rihanna’s last studio album, 2016’s ANTI, she reminded the world of her reign with her 2023 Super Bowl halftime show — which also marked her first time taking the stage in five years.
- 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.
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In 2015, Rihanna became the first artist in history to have 100 million singles digitally downloaded and streamed. Interestingly, Unapologetic was the first Rihanna album to hit No. 1 on the pop charts. “Umbrella” topped the Billboard singles chart and earned Rihanna her first Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. In 2007, Rihanna effected a transformation from teen pop princess to superstar and sex symbol with her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, fueled by its smash hit lead single “Umbrella,” featuring Jay-Z. In early 2011 the album’s sexually provocative single “S&M” became her 10th number one Billboard hit—which made her, at age 23, the youngest artist ever to reach that milestone.
A pop and reggae album, A Girl Like Me peaked at number five on the Billboard 200 chart, with 115,000 copies sold in the US in its first week. Impressed, Rogers arranged a second meeting with Rihanna and her mother—this time without the other two girls—and later invited them to his hometown in Connecticut to record demo tapes for record label submissions. Around this time, Rihanna began listening to reggae artists such as Sizzla and Damien Marley, as well as R&B musicians like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. She is the highest-certified female digital single artist by the Recording Industry Association of America, and has seven diamond-certified singles and fourteen number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. These albums contained the US number-one singles “Rude Boy”, “Only Girl (In the World)”, “What’s My Name?”, “S&M”, “We Found Love”, “Diamonds”, and “Work”. The albums spawned the singles “Pon de Replay” and “SOS”, which peaked at numbers two and one on the US Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
No longer was she the girl writing songs like “Fifteen” in her bedroom — now she was working through becoming a highly publicized figure. Although Swift’s eponymous debut is underappreciated now — even lacking its own set on Swift’s Eras Tour — Taylor Swift’s forthcoming rerecording is arguably the most anticipated by fans, who are eager to hear the songs with the singer’s current and more refined vocals. The album’s lead single, “Tim McGraw,” an acoustic country ballad inspired by Swift knowing her relationship was going to end, represents an intricate part of Swift’s songwriting process; meticulously picking apart her emotions to better understand them. As a songwriter, Taylor Swift set the tone for what would be expected of her future recordings — all songs were written by her, some solely and others with one or two co-writers.
She also won her first GRAMMY in 2008 (Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for “Umbrella”) and scored four other nominations, including Record Of The Year. Good Girl Gone Bad remains Rihanna’s best-selling album and marks her greatest reinvention as she adopted a more rebellious sound. The melancholy “Rehab” is a clever metaphor for lost love, co-written by Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. Produced by Tricky Stewart, the LP’s juggernaut lead single “Umbrella” featuring Jay-Z skyrocketed to No. 1 in 17 countries. Her official introduction to the world also hit No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart; she boasts 33 on the tally, second behind only the Queen of Pop herself, Madonna.
Its second single, “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want”, peaked at number 36 in the US. After Rihanna signed with Def Jam, Jay-Z and his team spent three months completing her debut studio album. She waited in Jay-Z’s office while lawyers finalized a six-album contract with Def Jam. In early 2005, she performed in New York City for Jay-Z and music executive Antonio “L.A.” Reid, singing Whitney Houston’s “For the Love of You” along with demo tracks “Pon de Replay” and “The Last Time”.
As Swift revealed on May 30, she bought back the master recordings of her first six albums, marking the first time she’s been in control of her entire discography. Throughout a total of 31 tracks, the prolific songwriter shelved the glittery pop radio-friendly tunes in favor of more subdued, synthy and heart-wrenching songs. Midnights betista casino helped further solidify Swift’s larger-than-life status at the finale of the 2024 GRAMMYs, too, as she became the only artist in history to win Album Of The Year four times. Along with breaking several streaming records — including becoming the first album to exceed 700 million global streams in a week — it was Swift’s 11th No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200, and was the highest-selling album of 2022 (and, remarkably, the second best-selling of 2023).
Their “FourFiveSeconds” is a pop-folk hybrid with a universal message about carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Another overlooked jam, her sultry “Can’t Remember to Forget You” duet with Shakira sees both stars trade lines about struggling to let go of an undeserving lover. Both larger-than-life productions won GRAMMYs for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2010 and 2012, respectively.