NON-RIHMERGENCY: The Many False Alarms for Rihanna's ANTI Album

Rihanna also began teasing snippets of herself recording in the studio. I recall myself thinking, This album is coming soon, and thus preparing reinforcements.

Ne-Yo gracefully teased that, “The stuff I’ve heard is absolutely incredible” and advised us to “just gear up for it.”

Rihanna and others around her kept teasing (see: this Vulture timeline).

In a story about her “finally” setting a release date, MTV News wrote, “The wait is (maybe) almost over.”

Rihanna told Entertainment Tonight, “I’m really excited about the music that we’ve been working on, so I can’t wait for people to hear it” and said the album would be coming “very soon.”

Rihanna’s Eighth Album Isn’t Coming Out As Soon As We Thought After All — What An ANTI-Climax!

False Alarm #2: February/March 2015???

Rihanna’s love-it-or-hate-it acoustic jam “FourFiveSeconds,” with Paul McCartney and Kanye, came and went at the top of the year without making much of a commercial impact.

Was Rihanna compelled to keep giving updates to stay in the mix? Was this all ad hoc? (Probably). She hinted at the album’s release again with this photo that made me grow out my eyebrows.

A month later came the modern-day freelancer’s anthem, “Bitch Better Have My Money.” With its release, a Rihanna album was kind of expected (See Kara’s Mayday), but never came.

In June, Page Six wrote about Rihanna’s rumored issues creating a single: “Is Rihanna Struggling to Produce a Hit Song?” A source told the paper, “The singles haven’t caught on. She’ll be fine because she’s Rihanna—but it’s not a good thing that the songs haven’t stuck.”

Translation: Rihanna is still in the process of recording her album, which is perfectly fine.

The wait meanwhile spurred all sorts of unhinged headlines, including Cosmo’s “In Continued Excuses Why Rihanna’s New Album Is STILL Not Here, She’s Just Been Cast in a New Sci-Fi Movie.”

False Alarm #3: November 6, 2015????

A November 6 date was tossed around, but again shot down (kind of like a man down). A source told Billboard the album still didn’t have a release date. And Rihanna revealed to NME in a cover story that the album wasn’t even finished. “It’s never done until it’s done,” she said, twisting the knife.

Weirdly, Rihanna’s dad Ronald did an interview with The Sun U.K. where he reportedly said his daughter is worried that the music isn’t ready:

“Robyn is not happy with the new album. She’s not comfortable with it. When she went over the songs she found all these little things she wanted to change and was worried about it. It’s a long process and isn’t easy. It’s been three years now since her last album and she wants this to blow everything else away, no competition, because she’s calling it her ‘first album.’”

Maybe—December, 2015?????

This is the rumored new release date for ANTI. Continue to wait.

Billboard reports, via a source, that Rihanna is still stuck on choosing the perfect singles and is cancelling promo that was supposed to align with the album’s release (i.e. the Victoria’s Secret show):

…A source told Billboard last week that it’s in the works, though it hasn’t yet been finalized—Rihanna is reportedly lining up her own Samsung deal to the tune of $25 million for her album and subsequent world tour, which has apparently been held up due to changes to the final LP. There are streaming questions as well; Rihanna was one of the 16 artists announced as a co-owner of TIDAL, while Samsung has its own streaming service, Milk Music.

Ah, well there you go, Tidal is to blame for everything.

Image via Getty