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It’s been an interesting 2015 for Rihanna. While she remains famous to a degree that is basically impossible to comprehend, and while her fashion empire continues to expand (now including sock lines and beauty agencies), she has continued to frustrate fans who are eager (“eager” is putting it mildly) for her eighth studio album. (Rihanna released her first seven albums over the course of eight years, the most recent being 2012’s Unapologetic.)
She released three singles this year—“FourFiveSeconds,” in January, “Bitch Better Have My Money,” in March, and “American Oxygen,” in April—yet none of the three were followed, as many hoped or assumed, with an album release. In October, amidst all kinds of rumors about Rihanna wresting control of her music and releasing it on her own, the title of the disc—Anti—was revealed, along with album art. But now we’ve reached December, and, despite a string of Samsung ads teasing the release, as well as the announcement of an Anti World Tour, we still, basically, have no idea when this album is coming!
But today we learned that not releasing an album . . . didn’t matter at all when it came to her popularity among listeners. Despite not yet putting out “#R8,” as it is referred to her by her fans, Rihanna still reigned supreme this year. Spotify has released its end-of-year data, and Rihanna was the most streamed female artist, worldwide, with over 1 billion streams and 57 million listeners (it should be noted that Taylor Swift’s catalogue is not available on Spotify). Just imagine how many streams Rihanna will be in for next year, if there’s an album’s worth of new material from her (though, honestly, we would not be too surprised if the album didn’t come until 2027 at this point).
Drake was the most streamed male artist this year (1.8 billion streams, 46 million listeners), and Major Lazer’s “Lean On”—ubiquitous this summer—was the most streamed track, listened to over 540 million times in 2015. The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness was the most streamed album of the year, with 60 million listeners.
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