You have my heart and we'll never be worlds apart

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

02/01/26 : Good Girl Gone Bad - Rihanna

Well, we all saw this one coming, didn't we? Yes, in the first week of '26 we have an album from '07, which is considerably further down the chart than anyone might expect - I'm expecting to enjoy it (I think I've heard it), without loving it.

Actually, this isn't one I've heard but it's pretty decent - I recognised the singles "Umbrella" (although the album version isn't as good for me - way too much Jay-Z), "Shut Up And Drive", "Hate That I Love You" and "Don't Stop The Music" but the rest of it was also very enjoyable. She's got a great voice and it's just all very professionally written and executed - and considering it's now eighteen years old, it really hasn't dated at all. I doubt I'll actively revisit it, but I'd be perfectly happy to do so - it's a well put together album. 

We're all the way down at #59 in the charts this week on her THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH!!! week on the chart - it's amazing we've avoided it so long. This run is, somewhat impressively, it's fifteenth and currently stands at 53 weeks - the only run that's been longer is its first at 101 weeks (where it debuted at #1), but it's also managed efforts of 36 and 51 weeks and it will be interesting to see how much longer it hangs around for.  The top five this week are Olivia Dean, Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift and best-ofs from Fleetwood Mac and The Weeknd (what WERE people listening to at Xmas?!?).

Because it's the first week of the year, we have no new entries - there are plenty of re-entries,with most of them being best-ofs but the two highest ones are from the barely known Taylor Swift at #48 and #49, which gives her one in the top ten, three in the top forty and eight in the entire chart, which is her best performance for some time. Last week, I said that Sombr would go up to #25 and I'm actually slightly impressed with myself that it's at #23 - I've no real clue about Rihanna, but there's no evidence it's going to change greatly, so let's go for #61.

Wikipedia has loads on the album (487 milliPeppers) - it tells us it's her third album and should, on no account, be confused with Nova Lamego airport, which as I'm sure you know serves Gabu in Guinea-Bissau (and has the airport code GGGB). It's another album which used a load of writers - 29 across 12 tracks, with some interesting names popping up including Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen (who also worked on Blue's album we met recently), Ne-Yo, Lionel Richie, Micheal Jackson, Sly Dunbar (of Sly and Robbie fame), New Order and Justin Timberlake - I suspect samples may well be responsible for some of those names appearing.

Critically, the album was reasonably well received - there were some complaints about the variety (whereas I quite liked it), but there was general praise for "Umbrella" - particularly at the Grammy's where the album got seven nominations but only won the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration award for that track. Commercially, it did pretty well globally but, apart from here (where it sold an impressive 2.4 million copies), it actually only hit #1 in Australia, Canada, Croatia, Switzerland and Taiwan - which is quite the mix. But even though it only got to #2 in the US, it sold seven million copies over there, which is quite a few, I guess.

discogs.com tells us that, for a change this year, you're going to have to spend one whole pound to get a decent version of this but you can buy a version which uses the words "limited edition" three times without giving any actual clues as to what you're getting for £127, if you really feel the need to do so. This was a surprising visit (particularly for 2026) but I thought this was a pretty decent album - I don't really understand why it's in the chart and her best-of isn't, but I know better than to try and understand the logic around such things (it's more than possible this only charts because of "Umbrella").

2025 - Over and out
09/01/26 - Decent enough, but mystifyingly successful