Rihanna’s Latest ‘Flop’ Single Gets A Tiny Boost

Rihanna is doing what many other pop stars before her have done by posing nearly naked after a single has flopped. Her new single “B***h Better Have My Money” dropped out of the top 20 on Billboard’s Hot 100 after only three weeks. While other singers would kill to have a top 20 hit these days (are you listening, Mariah Carey and Madonna?), the failure of Rihanna’s single, which some consider the true first single off of her upcoming album R8, could mean that Rihanna’s career could be on its downward stage.

However, there may be hope. Rihanna’s “B***h” song has made a slight rebound on iTunes and has climbed back to No. 30 in less than a day. It’s unclear how much more promotion that Rihanna will put into the flop single; Rihanna seems to have moved on to “American Oxygen.” Philip Caulfield of the New York Daily News describes Rihanna’s video for “American Oxgyen.”

“Rihanna takes a tour through the good, bad and ugly of American history in her new video for ‘American Oxygen.’ In the opening, images from the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s flash across the screen as Rihanna sings the line, ‘Breathe out/Breath in/American Oxygen.’ The rest of the video juxtaposes scenes of classic Americana — auto workers, Main St., the moon landing, the Statue of Liberty — with darker moments, including footage from riots in Ferguson, Mo., Eric Garner protests and Martin Luther King’s funeral.”

Rihanna is obviously hoping that “American Oxygen” will take away the attention from the poor performance of her previous single. Just to make sure the flop is forgotten, Rihanna did a raunchy photo shoot for V Magazine. The Huffington Post quotes part of the interview.

“The thing that made me fall in love with [‘FourFiveSeconds’] is the juxtaposition of the music and the lyrics. When you read the lyrics it’s a completely different song than what you are hearing. The music is easygoing, but the lyrical content is very loud and in your face. In performing this, the key was to make sure the aggression wasn’t lost.”

In the interview, Rihanna also indicates that she doesn’t care about her privacy anymore. It’s quite a bold statement to make since most celebrities cry about the lack of privacy in the age of TMZ. Rihanna is getting ready to release her new album, R8, which some say will debut as a surprise release. Let’s hope Rihanna can surprise us by releasing songs that are more successful than “B***h Better Have My Money.”

[Photo by Frederick Brown/Getty Images]