France Album Sales: Rihanna
Loud (2010) Era
Hits, hits and more hits. While Eminem song on which Rihanna was heavily featured Love The Way You Lie was comfortably inside the Top 10, Rihanna herself was back with her own lead single, Only Girl (In The World).
Runner up for five weeks in the Single Chart due to a teen song ahead, the smash was two weeks #1 in the Digital Chart. Both simultaneous hits being part of the new album Loud, released in late November, this record smashed from day one. Debuting at #3 with 20,800 sales, all four Rihanna albums since her debut registered bigger debuts than their predecessor. It must be noted Loud was the second best seller of its debut week but digital sales, that I already added to the 20,800 figure, weren’t allowed in French charts until January 2011. Within’ seven weeks, the album sold an impressive 106,000 copies in 2010.
What’s My Name? featuring Drake (#16) and more than anything S&M kept the album hot in early 2011. The latter went to #3 in the overall chart, #1 in the Digital front. By late February the album was still reentering the Top 10 at #9 thanks to those smashes. During its first 17 weeks the set never dropped below #18, by very far the best run of a Rihanna album.
California King Bed was weak peaking at #30 and as a result the album went down to #44. To every lower profile single Rihanna always seem to have hiding one big hit to relaunch the machine yet, this time it was Man Down. This song was #1 virtually nowhere except in France were it shot to the top for five weeks, a massive success. Not only that, the album Loud climbed all the way from #44 to #7 during the next weeks with a new four months run inside the Top 20.
This very solid trajectory brought 207,000 sales in 2011 and 313,000 in its first 59 weeks. Rated R also sold about 20,000 units in 2011 and Good Girl Gone Bad 15,000. Both albums also sold 10,000 more copies within’ a 4CD box along with Music Of The Sun and A Girl Like Me.
Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify
- Only Girl (In The World) – 130,238,000
- S&M – 108,317,000
- What’s My Name? feat. Drake – 71,010,000