Off stage, though, she was falling in love again — this time with someone who championed her just as much as the fans did in the areas. It’s apt that she would turn to Max Martin and Shellback, her 1989 and reputation collaborators, to bring that same captivating pop soundscape to The Life of a Showgirl and to capture some of the energy Swift was experiencing. And after two decades in the business, the 14-time GRAMMY winner is giving everyone a glimpse of what she describes as «the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic» chapter of her life thus far.
Fenty
The two officially dated again for a time, with Rihanna maintaining in a Rolling Stone interview that Brown had changed and that any form of abuse would be unacceptable. In 2009, Rihanna was the center of a media firestorm after a domestic violence incident in which her then-boyfriend Chris Brown assaulted her before an awards show. Prior to that, she was in an on-again-off-again romance with longtime collaborator Drake for more than 7 years, starting in 2009. Most notably, she owns the popular cosmetics line Fenty Beauty, which she launched in 2017.
«SOS» became her first song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100, while «Unfaithful» was a top-ten single worldwide. The song was released on May 25, 2005, and became a commercial success, reaching number two on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart. Departing from Def Jam in favour of Jay-Z’s label, Roc Nation, she released the eclectic Anti (2016)—her second number-one album.
Her most conceptual album to date, Midnights charts 13 sleepless nights and explores five themes, from self-hatred and revenge to «what if» fantasies, falling in love, and falling apart. Sonically, evermore is a slight departure from its sister record; where folklore relies on more alt-leaning and indie-tinged sounds, evermore takes the sonics from all of Swift’s past records — from pop to country to indie rock — and features all of them on one album. Some songs, like «peace,» were recorded in just one take, capturing the essence and fragility in the song’s story, whereas the lyrics for the sun-drenched «august» were penned on the spot as Swift was in her makeshift home studio in Los Angeles. Swift described reputation as a bait-and-switch; at their core, the songs are about finding love in the darkest moments.
- Folklore’s impact on the zeitgeist at a time where everyone was stuck at home helped shape people’s quarantine experience.
- Rihanna soon followed with the album A Girl Like Me (2006), featuring the up-tempo club-oriented “S.O.S.” The song, which was built around a sample of Soft Cell’s 1981 new-wave hit “Tainted Love,” became Rihanna’s first to top the Billboard singles chart.
- Aiming to dismiss her girl-next-door image in favour of a more mature and rebellious persona, she worked with such producers as Ne-Yo, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, and Tricky Stewart for the album.
- Jocelyn Vena of MTV News observed that Rihanna often creates music videos that are thought-provoking and aligned with the themes of her songs.
- She credits that song with sparking her passion for music and partly attributes her presence in the industry to Houston.
The Women Essential To Reggae And Dancehall
It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks and peaked at number two in the UK; it was also the latter country’s best-selling song of 2010. In June 2010, she collaborated with rapper Eminem on the single «Love the Way You Lie». In support of the album, Rihanna embarked on the Last Girl on Earth tour from 2010 to 2011. The single «Rude Boy» peaked atop the Hot 100 for six weeks, while «Russian Roulette» and «Hard» both peaked within the top ten.
Swift’s now-frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff credits her as the first person to take a chance on him as a producer with «I Wish You Would» and «Out Of The Woods»; both tracks exemplified how future Antonoff-produced songs would sound on albums like reputation, Lover and Midnights. The night Red lost the GRAMMY for Album Of The Year in 2014, Swift decided that her next album would be a full-on pop record. Commercially, Red debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 1.2 million copies in its first week, becoming the fastest-selling country album and making Swift the first female artist to have three consecutive albums spend six or more weeks at the top of the chart. Following the more country-influenced Speak Now, some critics and fans found the pop songs on Red were too pop and the lyrics were too repetitive, possibly indicating that she might be selling out.
The thing that differentiated her from other writers — and still does to this day — is her songwriting. The world now knows Taylor Swift as a global pop superstar, but back in 2006, she was just a doe-eyed country prodigy. Despite its ghoulish title, artificial intelligence appears to be the object of terror in what many, including the GRAMMY voters who awarded it Best Pop Duo/Group Performance in 2024, regard as the highlight of SZA’s sophomore. But four years after the Team Edward vs Team Jacob saga wrapped up, folk hero Jason Isbell proved mythical bloodsuckers weren’t a barrier to awards success. David Bowie fans may well feel aggrieved that his post-punk classic «Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)» was entirely ignored by GRAMMY voters, while the bro-step banger it inspired was showered with awards. It’s a bold feminist act that helped power parent album CrazySexyCool to diamond status and was deservedly rewarded with Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal at the 1996 GRAMMYS (where CrazySexyCool was also crowned Best R&B Album).
Following the success with folklore and evermore, Swift’s intrigue was at a then-all-time high upon the release of Midnights. Although the album is a departure from the two pandemic sister albums, the overall creation process didn’t differ too much. On Midnights, Swift leaves behind indie folk sounds and returns to the pop production of 1989 and Lover. After coming out of the folklorian woods following folklore and evermore, fans and critics alike were intrigued to see what direction Swift would take on her next studio album. Even so, its poetic lyricism and mystical storytelling cleverly foreshadowed what was to come with subsequent albums, particularly The Tortured Poets Department.
Instead, she wanted to capture the years of her life while they still represented what she was going through, writing about what she was observing and experiencing, from love and friendship to feeling like an outsider. Written throughout her adolescence, Taylor Swift was recorded at the end of 2005 and finalized by the time Swift finished her freshman year of high school. In a genre dominated by men, the odds were already stacked against Swift when she first broke into country music as a teenage female artist.
Throughout The Life of a Showgirl, Swift, Martin and Shellback craft tracks that go beyond what they created with 1989 and reputation. Reuniting with her pop powerhouse collaborators Max Martin and Shellback, who worked on her biggest pop radio hits like «We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,» «Delicate,» «Blank Space,» and «Shake It Off,» was a return to form after the fog of TTPD. («And all the headshots on the walls/ Of the dance hall are of the b—es/ Who wish I’d hurry up and die/ But I’m immortal now.») On «The Life of a Showgirl,» she declares with her fellow showgirl that she isn’t handing over the baton just yet. The showgirl is actually the one in charge («I was your father figure/ You pulled the wrong trigger/ This empire belongs to me»), alluding to her battle to retain her masters.
Rihanna hits the blue carpet for ‘Smurfs’ premiere in Brussels
The Western-themed «Desperado» lends itself particularly well to covers by country artists, while the Dido-sampling «Never Ending» conveys the uncertainty she feels about entering a new relationship. Subsequently, Rihanna held the No. 1 spots on the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 simultaneously, her second time achieving such an impressive feat. But the dancehall masterpiece is one of a kind for Rih’s refusal to water down the Jamaican patois (different from her native language of Bajan Creole) — proving that she is fully aware of her impact as one of the biggest Caribbean-born artists to make it in the U.S. ANTI lives up to its name in its first 40 seconds, via opening track «Consideration.» The minute she declares, «I got to do things my own way, darling,» it’s apparent that ANTI is not your average Rihanna album. But that shift began with 2015’s criminally underrated «American Oxygen.» Her most political statement at the time, the goosebump-inducing lyrics detail Rihanna’s journey as an immigrant, foreshadowing her then soon-to-be massive Fenty Beauty success.
Swift felt a «quiet conclusion» after finishing up evermore, describing that it was more about grappling with endings of all «sizes and shapes,» and the record represented a chapter closing. «Closure» is a «skittering» track that has the same energy as tracks like Lover’s «I Forgot That You Existed,» whereas the ballad «champagne problems» is thematically reminiscent of Swift’s Speak Now track «Back To December» where she takes responsibility for her lover’s heartache. Folklore’s impact on the zeitgeist at a time where everyone was stuck at home helped shape people’s quarantine experience. She worked remotely with two producers — again working with her right-hand man Jack Antonoff, and first-time collaborator Aaron Dessner from The National.
Other activities: acting and Fenty Beauty
- He highlighted her multifaceted career, «from her business achievements through Fenty to her tremendous record as an activist and philanthropist».
- Oldfield was rewarded for helping to scar a generation of moviegoers for life when a condensed version of his eerie masterpiece picked up the Best Instrumental Composition GRAMMY in 1975.
- It was a very vulnerable time in my life, and I refused to let that be the image.
- In 2007, Rihanna effected a transformation from teen pop princess to superstar and sex symbol with her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, fueled by its smash hit lead single “Umbrella,” featuring Jay-Z.
- Seven years into an already extraordinary career, 2012’s Unapologetic became Rihanna’s first album to debut at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart.
She first gained prominence in 2005 with her debut album «Music of the Sun,» which quickly established her as a force in the music industry. Known for her unique style and chart-topping hits, she has influenced music and fashion worldwide. She told Winfrey that Brown may have been the love of her life and she has developed “a very close friendship” with him. The pair worked together on the song “Birthday Cake,” released that year.
Eventually, her bold move to the United States at 16 years old marked the beginning of her journey to stardom, as she pursued her passion for singing and songwriting with determination. Despite these difficulties, Rihanna showcased resilience and creativity from a young age, channeling her personal experiences and pain into music. She is the eldest of three siblings, navigating a childhood fraught with challenges, including her father’s struggles with substance abuse and her parents’ tumultuous marriage, which ultimately ended in divorce when she was just 14. Rihanna, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988, in St. Michael Parish, Barbados, is a globally betista casino renowned pop star, singer, and fashion icon.
She’d see visceral images in her mind — from battleships to tree swings to mirrored disco balls — and turned them into stories, sometimes weaving in her own personal narrative throughout, or taking on a narrator role and speaking from the perspective of someone she had never met. Crafting a world with characters like the folklore love triangle between those in «betty» and «august,» as well as Rebekah Harkness from «the last great american dynasty» (who once lived in Swift’s Rhode Island mansion), was Swift’s way of venturing outside her typical autobiographical style of writing. Without exactly setting out to create an album, she began dreaming of fictional stories and characters with various narrative arcs, allowing her imagination to run free. But Lover was more than any accolades could reflect — it was Swift’s transitional album in many ways, notably marking the first album that she owned entirely herself following leaving Big Machine Records for Republic Records in 2018. This evolution is mentioned throughout Lover, particularly in a direct callback to 2012’s Red, «Daylight,» which sees her describe her love as «golden» rather than «burning red.»
Rihanna has released numerous hits, including «Umbrella,» «Diamonds,» «We Found Love,» and «Disturbia.» Rihanna began her music career at the age of 16 when she signed with Def Jam records. In addition to her chart-topping hits, Rihanna has capitalized on her fame with lucrative endorsement deals and her own successful brands, including Fenty Beauty, which revolutionized the beauty industry with its inclusive products. As a pioneer of the music industry, her earnings from album sales, touring, and streaming have consistently placed her among the top earners in entertainment. As an expectant mother, Rihanna continues to inspire her fans, demonstrating a balance between her music career and her personal life.
The line debuted in a Paris pop-up on May 22 before a worldwide online release seven days later, featuring clothing, accessories, and footwear. It included an array of products including foundations, highlighters, bronzers, blush compacts, lip glosses, and blotting sheets, and was praised for offering shades that catered to all skin tones. The $10 million partnership produced a wide range of beauty products, with the first collection released on September 8, 2017, in stores and online across more than 150 countries. Over the next two years, she released a variety of footwear in different styles and colourways, all receiving positive responses from critics and consumers alike. Rihanna went on to collaborate with numerous fashion houses, including Dior, Stance, and Manolo Blahnik. She also established a photography agency, A Dog Ate My Homework, representing photographers Erik Asla and Deborah Anderson.
«Wood» and «Honey» capture the playfulness of true love, while songs like «WI$HLI$T» and «Elizabeth Taylor» see love not as a distraction from her life’s work but as the very thing that makes it feel meaningful. Many of the love songs on Swift’s more recent albums are brimming with anxiety, from Lover’s «Cornelia Street» («I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends») to folklore’s «Peace» («The rain is always gonna come if you’re standing with me»). One of the biggest takes by critics — that borderlines on sexist at times — is that Swift won’t be able to write good, reflective music that cuts deep like the songs that orbit around heartache and pain.
