Latest Artist News

[Andrew.]

From Digital Spy:

Rihanna's had a pretty good year - 'Work' was bloody everywhere, she slayed at the MTV VMAs and Anti has been a critical and commercial success.

But let's not forget how much of a mess that build-up to the album's release was. Rihanna hadn't released an album since 2012's Unapologetic and although she kept herself busy as a featured artist, fans were impatiently wanting more.

Things finally started to get going with the release of 'FourFiveSeconds', 'Bitch Better Have My Money' and 'American Oxygen', plus the announcement of the Anti tour and some weird web #content but no album tracklist or release date materialised.

Then, out of the blue, the album leaked on Tidal before Rihanna herself tweeted a free link as a "gift" to her fans before it became available to buy through usual means.

Looking back now, it's hard to believe this all actually happened, but new information has apparently come to light which could explain why we never saw Anti in 2015.

That Grape Juice has posted an image of an alleged Samsung promotion that lists the release date for Anti as November 21 - the day after Adele released the record-smashing 25.

Compared to the long build-up of Rihanna's album, the time between Adele premiering the advert announcing 'Hello' to the world and the album release was very short indeed, and it's possible the label (or even Rihanna herself) got cold feet.

All we can do at the moment is speculate, and hope that Rihanna talks about the messy Anti build-up campaign when she's promoting her next album (which we're hoping isn't another three and a half years away).