Rihanna will release her new single, “Diamonds,” on Wednesday at 8 a.m. EDT.
The song is the first single from her seventh studio album, which will come out before the end of 2012.
Rihanna”s dominance at pop radio is due, in part, to her continuous outpouring of music. Most pop artists take some time off between album cycles: not Rihanna. This new album will make her fourth consecutive album released in the fourth quarter since 2009. The only year she has not released a new album since her 2005 debut was in 2008. Even country artists don’t keep up that pace. It used to be that you could set your clock to country to your favorite country artist: they released a new album every year. In part, that was because their fans expected it, but it was also because they tended not to write much of their own material. A producer would help select the cuts, hire the studio musicians, etc. and the artist would spend a few days or weeks (max) in the studio. However, as country artists started writing more of their own material, they too have spread out their release cycle to every 18-to-24 months.
Not only is Rihanna prolific, but her label tends to release at least four singles from each set. Her six available albums have yielded 30 Hot 100 charting songs. She”s logged 11 No. 1s and a total of 20 Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Given the speed of her output, it”s no surprise that she reached that number faster than any other solo artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. Only the Beatles landed 20 top 10 singles faster than Rihanna.
“Diamonds” is also the name of Rihanna”s previously announced world tour, which kicks off in Buffalo, N.Y. on March 8.