It appears Def Jam are wasting no time rushing out a re-release of Rihanna‘s latest effort ‘Rated R‘. For in a recent interview with the the BBC, Ryan Tedder, the hitmaker behind Beyonce’s ‘Halo’, confirmed that he will be heading into the studio with the model at the start of the new year. Check out an excerpt from the feature:
Those so far on his radar include Ne-Yo, the Noisettes. Lupe Fiasco, Imogen Heap and in the new year, Rihanna.
He admits he’s been trying to synchronise schedules with the Umbrella singer for about a year and a half now and wants to get her pushing the boundaries.
He said: “She’s in a darker musical place right now… she’s got enough of those songs on Rated R to last for a while.
“I can do stuff dark musically, haunting kind of thing, but I want to have her do something vocally that she’s never done before.”
While news of a all-but-confirmed re-release comes as no surprise, two things really struck me upon reading this. The first being that in trying to get her to do something vocally she’s never done before, perhaps he could actually get RiRi to sing out of her mouth instead of her nostrils. More than anything though, it really drove home how disgusting the industry can be at times…it’s as if a re-release was always in the pipeline (yes, we all knew it was coming, but the confirmation leaves a salty taste in my mouth). Surely the general premise of re-releases are to extend the shelf-life of an already-successful album or a poorly selling album that never got a chance first go round (in the way of promotion etc)?
Whatever the eventual fate of ‘Rated R’, there’s no doubt its numbers to date are atrocious – when considering all the promo, sympathy, interviews, her success with her last album and all that jazz. If folk weren’t buying into it now, I have no idea why a re-release – which all indications point to being planned before the original even came out – is being given the green-light. As I type, the notion of another entirely new LP being rushed out next year came to mind, which IMO is equally as bad. SMH…