User:Tomica/Sandbox24

Legacy and influence


Rihanna's first albums established her as a "Pop/R&B Princess" by music critics; Nick Levine of Digital Spy described her third studio album Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded, as the closest thing to a Thriller that 2007/8 is likely to produce. Her single "Umbrella", famous for its "ella ella" hook, is considered by Rolling Stone to be one of the 500 greatest songs of all time and received critical acclaim. The music video for "We Found Love" was well received; winning the Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video and MTV's Video of the Year. Many critics including Rolling Stone compared it to Danny Boyle's Trainspotting. Time included Rihanna on its 100 Most Influential People in 2012, fashion designer Stella McCartney writing, "She's one of the coolest, hottest, most talented, most liked, most listened to, most followed, most impressive artists at work today, but she does it in her own stride. She works hard, very hard." The following month, Forbes ranked Rihanna fourth on their Most Powerful Celebrity 100 list, with earnings of $53 million between May 2011 and May 2012.

Rihanna has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In the United States, Rihanna has sold over 9.8 million albums, while Nielsen SoundScan ranked her as the best-selling digital artist in the country, breaking a Guinness World Record for digital single sales of over 58 million as of 2012. She has released six Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified platinum and multi-platinum albums in the United States. Her collaboration with Eminem, "Love the Way You Lie", together with "Umbrella", "Disturbia", "Only Girl (In the World)", "We Found Love", and "Diamonds", are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. The singer has accumulated twelve number one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, tied with Madonna and The Supremes for fourth place, as the artists with the fifth-most number ones in the chart's history. She has been named the top Pop Songs chart artist of the past twenty years by Billboard; she ranks first with most entries (36), most top tens (23), and most number ones (10). As of June 2012, Rihanna has sold over 14 million singles and six million albums in the United Kingdom. She is the tenth best-selling and the second best-selling female singles artist in the country, only behind Madonna.

Rihanna has directly influenced artists such as Justin Bieber, Ellie Goulding, Demi Lovato, and Willow Smith. Rihanna has an honorary title of Ambassador for Culture and Youth in Barbados. Additionally, she is the most popular person on the social network Facebook, has the fourth most followers on Twitter, and is the most-viewed artist on YouTube. On March 7, 2013, Spotify announced that Rihanna is the most streamed artist worldwide.