Rihanna’s New Single Is Flopping: Should She Hire Iggy Azalea?

There is some major bad news for Rihanna. When she released her song “B*tch Better Have My Money” a couple weeks back, it immediately hit No. 1 on iTunes. It was a surprise, especially because the song garnered pretty bad reviews. The song had been received horribly on the Huffington Post and other sites.

“She can’t sing at all, sounds like a pitchy teenage girl trying to get ‘turnt up’ FOH. Still beautiful and a boss, but there’s a limit. lol,” said one Huffington Post user about Rihanna’s new song.

“I have to say, as a fan, I’m a little disappointed. This track does nothing for me,” said another poster.

The comments about Rihanna and her new single on the site Gossip Cop were similar.

“This is horrible. What happened to her saying the new music would be timeless. This is totally horrible and forgettable. As a fan of Rihanna I’m disappointed,” said a user named Shirl.

The comments weren’t much better on Twitter and Facebook. But it was thought that Rihanna had beaten the odds. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case and it looks like Rihanna may have her very first flop single, at least when compared to other lead singles from her albums. “B*tch Better Have My Money” is now at No. 16 on iTunes and dropping pretty fast. It made a splash at No. 23 last week on Billboard’s Hot 100, but Rihanna only moves up four spots to No. 19 this week. It wouldn’t be considered a flop for any other artist, but expectations are much higher for Rihanna.

Chart professionals at Pulse are shocked the song is not doing better. Airplay at pop music stations is starting to really slow down, even though the song did pick up nine adds this week. Perhaps Rihanna needs to go the Britney Spears route and hire Iggy Azalea. Britney Spears eventually stopped producing hits, but was smart enough to hire the Australian rapper for her next single “Pretty Girls,” which is receiving a lot of buzz.

According to Billboard, it’s not all bad for Rihanna. “B*tch Better Have My Money” gives Rihanna her 35th top 20 single. She is close to tying with Madonna, who has 44 top 20 singles. Eventually, Rihanna could tie with Elvis Presley, who has 48 top 20 singles. Rihanna is still young, so she can easily break the records.

Unfortunately, Rihanna is hitting a roadblock that a lot of female singers hit after four or five albums. It happened to Lady Gaga with ARTPOP, it’s starting to happen to Katy Perry, and Rihanna seems like she is following the trend. Let’s hope Rihanna can reinvent herself so she can keep producing No. 1 hits.

[Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images]