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Rihanna Nabs One Million ‘Anti’ Downloads In 24 Hours, Is ‘The Happiest Girl In The World’ [Video]

By Maat van Uitert
Published on: 02:32 PST, Jan 29, 2016

In less than 24 hours, Rihanna has racked up over one million downloads of Anti on Tidal, making the singer “the happiest girl in the world” after three years of teasing fans about the Anti release date. On January 27, after much fan speculation that Anti would never be finished, Rihanna surprise released the album, shocking the Navy and spurring a fan frenzy to grab the latest songs from the Barbadian singer.

But the savvy Rihanna did not stop there. The following day, she released a deluxe version of Anti on iTunes and Tidal, which include three new songs, “Goodnight Gotham,” “Pose,” and “Sex With Me.”

“1 MILLION in under 15 hrs!!!! NAVY R die!!!! Thank u to all my fans and @samsungmobileus,” Rihanna tweeted in celebration of her one millionth download in just one day.

Clearly excited by her fan’s reception of Anti, Rihanna also tweeted that “[y]ou guys legit made me the happiest girl in the world!! I’m so grateful that you appreciate the #ANTI album! It’s the most rewarding feeling.”

In addition to being downloaded over one million times (Rihanna gave fans a free download, which helped boost the still-impressive number), Anti had also been streamed over 13 million times in the first 14 hours over Tidal, according to Billboard, making it one of the most successful Rihanna albums to date.

The album has met with generally positive views so far, with Time magazine lauding the cohesive nature of the songs on the record. In the past, Rihanna has been criticized for choosing songs that sounded good individually but did not comprise a cohesive body of work. In fact, according to songwriter Sia, the demo version of “Diamonds” was so close to the finished version Rihanna recorded that at first, Sia thought it was her voice on the track. Not wanting to make that mistake a second time, Rihanna made sure everything on Anti is personal and reflects the artist herself.

Although she released several singles last year, including a collaboration with Kanye West and Paul McCartney on “FourFiveSeconds,” “B***h Better Have My Money,” and “American Oxygen,” none of these singles made it onto the singer’s new record. For the first single from the album, “Work,” Rihanna collaborated with Drake.

In a past interview with MTV, Rihanna confessed that she wanted to make Anti more about her than the singer’s previous albums. For Anti, Rihanna said she “wanted songs that I could perform in 15 years,” instead of songs that would be a hit today but gone tomorrow.

In the past, Rihanna confided at the time that she “didn’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me,” explaining that for her new album, Rihanna wanted to perform “songs that are timeless,” which explains why she took so long choosing songs for the new record.

In fact, it took the singer a long time to create Anti, and even up to the last minute, she was still choosing songs, according to “Diamonds” songwriter Sia. Fans began to wonder if Rihanna would ever release the record.

Collaborating with Samsung to promote their Galaxy line of mobile phones, Rihanna hyped up the release of the record with her ANTIdiaRy app, which took fans through different “rooms” as part of the album’s release. However, Rihanna kept the release date of Anti a closely-guarded secret.

Still, with rumors abounding that Rihanna is set to perform at Super Bowl 50 with headliners Coldplay, fans expected a release date somewhere near the date of the football game. The success of Anti so far means that Rihanna continues her status as one of the most successful female artists in history, with as many number one singles as Michael Jackson.

What do you think of Rihanna surprise dropping Anti? Do you like the album? Leave a comment below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VADyyzkCPcU

[Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images]

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