I am no Mary stan, but for those of you who don't know Mary J. Blige ALWAYS releases her albums around the holidays. (i.e. 'The Breakthrough' 'Stronger With Each Tear' etc.) and her numbers are always around the 300k-500k mark.

Rihanna's fan base is DEFINETLY growing, but Mary has a huge LOYAL fan base that has been riding with her for years, meaning that even when she put out "so so" music, people will still buy the album because it's Mary, Rihanna on the other hand has to do much more. Let's not forget 'Loud' came out last year around the same time and sold about 200k-210k, which was good for Rihanna, but pretty poor for her to be releasing her album around the holidays.

Furthermore, I really am excited to hear her new material, however I feel either she or her label are really rushing things. They are trying to clone the success of 'Loud' and I feel like it's going to back fire because it's becoming overload, besides the girl is STILL on tour like c'mon at LEAST give it two more singles and a Jan-Feb release date. I get they want her to sell albums but I mean you can't except the fact Rihanna is a singles artist, people buy her songs not her albums. IDK i hope she's successful again with this album, and by the time she releases another, they don't overexpose or overwork her. It's looking like a crash course.