Welcome to the Fan Blog. The blog contains the old data from the Space Covers album.

- - Rihanna's touring - -
December 2011

You probably know, that Rihanna likes basket ball. If you think a little, you probably find the reason for her favorite sport.

- Rihanna's favorite sport comes from her race.
- Basket ball and running in athletics are the sports, where black African people are majority.
Now that we know why Rihanna is so keen with Basket Ball, you could test, if you knew the reason, why black people rule the Basket Ball ?

- The answer comes from the nature of Rihanna's race.
- From the human races Africans are the tallest and the biggest. Tall black basket ball players are almost unbeatable for white people.

Because the schedules were too tight for her physics, she was suggested, that she would hike the fees and ticket prices, so much, that the demand for the concerts would be considerably lower. She rejected the idea. She wanted, that all her fans, who wants to see her, can come and see her, with reasonable ticket prices. So she chose to play in the big summertime arenas, which can ( at the highest ) take over 100 000 people per concert.

She has already signed to play in a big concert in Europe, London.

- - Cheer up the artist and band - -

If you stay at your place and make enough noise after the concert, the artist usually comes back and plays an additional song for you. Artists usually have at least one practiced song for the audiences who really likes and loves them. If you for example did not hear the latest single in the concert, it is probably reserved for the encore.

- - How to get there ? - -

The old intercontinental inter-rail railway-tickets for young adults are still available. The cheap, unlimited summertime tickets have been popular amongst young festival and concert people for decades.

Continental flights in Europe are nowadays quite cheap. EU citizens do not need passports, when traveling from one EU country to another. Schengen deal was extended to all EU countries in the year 2007.

- - Optional Concerts - -

So far Talk-That-Talk album and singles from the album have beaten all Rihanna's earlier records ( Christmas 2011 ) . So, it is possible, that she signs also few other concerts in Northern hemisphere before the summer.

? This is the way Rihanna talked and acted right after the cancelled concerts. Sort of promised, that she would make a full scaled tour for Talk-That-Talk too, but she can of course change her mind afterwards. The situation, where she talked that talk wasn't very easy for her.

- In Hyde Park you are free to speak - -

Next summer Rihanna has a big concert in Hyde Park, London. 

Hyde Park is very famous, historical place. General Human Rights include a statement about the Freedom of Speech. According to the Freedom Of Speech, all people are allowed to speak and express their opinions freely. Before internet and social medias came, Speakers Corner in Hyde Park was the only place in the world, where people were allowed to express their opinions and speak freely to the masses.

General human rights are published by United Nations. Before a country can get a membership in UN, a nation must add general human rights into it's legislation. In communist countries like Soviet Union, China and Cuba these rights were even more important than in Western Countries. People who lived in Soviet or Soviet Satellites often complain about the lack of freedom. They were for example very used to criticize the politics from the real things, and the stupidities they did. A thing which is very rare in Western Countries. 

The communist countries were ( at least principally ) controlled and owned by the people. Not by few rich capitalists and people with an enormous lust of power. These things were and are in the communist ideology. The ideology was visible also in the corrupted communist countries.

- - Grand Openings Cheers you up - -

Grand openings / long introductions are played in concerts, when Rihanna ( the big star ) comes to stage for the first time, and the concert begins.

Historical background of the openings is very simple. And still in force. The openings were and are played for the audiences during the time, artists, dancers, band members and orchestra came and took their places on the stage. 

In principle it is very easy to create mind lifting grand opening, with what the artist or band starts the concert. But it is very difficult to create a mind lifting opening, without ruining the song after it. 

The nature of the opening and song are very different. Opening is a short sequence, which is played only once or twice. Song is a long, durable sequence, which is repeated many times. When you try to make a full length song from mind blowing opening, you are always certain to fail. The opening loses it's tension and attractiveness very quickly.

When people buy tickets to the concerts, they come to listen the songs, not the short openings. So it is important to make the openings so, that they do not ruin the listening experience of the songs. Songs people came to hear and cheer.

 

-- Fans : Fan mails --
December 2011

Usually the music people are very friendly and understanding towards their fans, and the things they talk about are related to their music.

No need to be afraid of them. The people they sometimes slaughter and mock on their sites and tweets ( and who gets fired after first or second angry tweet ) are usually gossip editors and other word-twisters / stupid conclusion makers. When you track the chain, at the end you usually find some published dirt and lies about their private life. Published in some media or on some media-like site.

- - Who writes them ? - -

Rihanna writes the Twitter notes ( regardless of the dialect, subject and time ) by herself. Her official fan-club releases tweets with unknown author. 

The Twitter arrangement was made for Rihanna's fans. So that you can always be sure, that it is Rihanna, who is talking to you, not a hired staff member, etc.

On Rihanna's friend's Britney's ( Spears ) twitter, staff signs the tweets which are not written by Britney. All unsigned tweets are written by Britney.

- - Let's get serious - -
New Year 2011 - 2012

Rihanna is an addict, not a drug addict like Boys. Smoking, drug use and heavy drinking destroys your voice quite quickly. During their active career, singers usually use intoxicating stuff cautiously. 

So. During the New Year's party,  she spent most of the time with her cellular phone, reading and writing tweets from and to her fans. She said, that she had a good time in party.

For the younger readers and Rihanna's fans could tell, that it is not very unusual, when spouse is not the primary target of the loving feelings.  There are children, work, fans, and so on. Depends on the couple, but new-born babies are almost always certain to pass spouses.

- - Fan mail responses - -

Rihanna is a very popular singer, most popular in You Tube, the second popular in Facebook and amongst 10 most popular in Twitter. ( Christmas 2011 )

The maximum number of tweets, a single person can read per day is only ten thousand. She cannot re-follow, and become friends with all her followers and fans.

Besides. She has to spend lots of time for making songs, albums and planning live performances to you. The things you really want from her.

? Hot love notes you sometimes see on Rihanna's twitter are usually taken from the lyrics of her existing or forthcoming songs. And when this is the situation, your "mission" as a fan is to memorize or find out the name of the song from which the words are taken.

- - - -

If you are lucky, you can get a personal answer from your favorite artist / band. Rihanna for example checks her tweets almost everyday. Then she publishes fan tweets or answers to few randomly selected fans. The tradition came to music at the time with Rock'n'Roll ( 1950 - 60 ). In the 70's and 80's most popular artists used to hire people for reading and writing answers to the fans. And their mails.

-- Always talking / tweeting to her relatives --

When you read Rihannas re-tweets in twitter, quite a many of her fans have taken her last name to their ids. So. It often looks like, that she is tweeting and talking to her flesh and blood.

Although the fans are much like family members to us, and we must think about them very often, they are not usually Rihanna's relatives, whose tweets Rihanna publishes and answers in her Twitter.

Robyn chooses friendly tweets which she publishes and answers on random basis.

- - Fan mail addition - -

When a desperate gossip editor wants comments from a celebrity or power keeper, she or he tries to make the target annoyed and angry. So that she / he would open his / her mouth.

So. You can be quite sure, that not all of the people Rihanna follows and re-tweets are really good friends with her. A racist incident in Portuguese hotel ( during Loud tour 2011 ), which made her really angry and opened her mouth, is a very good example from this.

The critics who concentrate on the musical issues belong to business They are not very common targets for responses and mocks.

? If you are not familiar with Caribbean dialect, Rihanna uses Nigga or Black, when she talks about her African roots. Rihanna's father is Irish.

- - Methods are new - -

Internet has changed the world of music quite a lot. The personal sites of artists and bands are the biggest and most powerful medias in the world. Especially for artists and bands themselves.

Eminem, who is currently the most popular artist of the world ( December 2011 ) has over 8 million Twitter fans ( which he hardly never uses) and over 50 million Facebook fans. Lady Gaga and Rihanna, who are next, make music to different genres. All three leading artists have also different fans. "Love the way you lie" single gathered Eminem's and Rihanna's fans together, and the song was very popular. The song is / was twice as popular as Rihanna's other songs.

Besides the fans, the sites of the most popular musicians have also far more visitors than the biggest medias of the world. In media power most popular artists beat all big medias and news agencies. All alone. Besides the big visitor amounts, most of the visitors are friendly. There aren't very many visitors, who come to check, what  that ---piip, censored, piip, piip -- wrote and lied this time.

Facebook, Twitter and You Tube have nothing to do with the vast fan and visit amounts. They are only platforms. Music is the thing, which makes the pages and sites popular. A famous musician gets the same visitor and fan counts everywhere. On every platform.

Big cap between in the Follower and Friend counts come from the thing, that Facebook is popular all around the World, and Twitter is popular in United States only. Could for example mention that the most popular artists of the United States, are the most popular Twitter. In Facebook you have to be popular all over the world. 

Rihanna

- - Fans : Beauty pageant - -

The next contester, Rihanna, is 16 years old beauty from Barbados. Rihanna says, that she appreciates honesty in other people and in her relationships. Later she has said that fans are her biggest love. In general it is quite common that parents love their children more than their spouses.

So. You can be quite sure, that she is not having secret love affairs behind your back. You can also be quite sure, that her fans are the first one's to know about the major changes in her social status.

- - Challenging the King of the Rock'nRoll - -

Elvis is said to be the King of the Rock-n-Roll.

Elvis was a very talented singer and his voice is unbeatable. Far more better than best opera singers have. Pitch variance of his voice was app 10 full notes, without changing his voice.

When other singers start to make versions from his songs, sooner or later they come to the conclusion, that all I can do is to try to get as near to Elvis as possible. It is not possible to beat or get anywhere near his performances. You have to flatten the melodies from his songs, and skip over the most difficult note sequences.

Rihanna is also very talented singer. One of the best of the current times. Most of her songs are too difficult to almost all the others. She can change her singing voice at no time, without any difficulties. Pitch variance of her voice is very near Elvis. Over the standard requirement of 6 to 7 full notes. The standard requirement for the singers comes from the composers. Almost all melodies / voice tracks are composed so, that they cover one octave. Not very easy to compose interesting melodies with lesser notes.

Rihanna is practicing and improving her voice all the time. Possible that some day she can reach and even pass the King's levels. She has made few songs which are near Elvis' levels. In her most popular solo song Only Girl, there are parts where she has to sing 10 full notes.

- - In The Studio - -

Rihanna is not only a singer, she is also a music maker. While writing this, Rihanna is working with live Dvd/Brd from Loud tour. She promised to check, if she could get good, native live-like surround sound to it. You are shouting in back, just like you did in the concert, she is singing in the front speakers, special effects are scrolling around the room, and so on.

- - New to Rihanna and her music ? - -

If you are not very familiar with Rihanna's music, and you like Boys, you can buy her records without worry of wasting your money. Her music is a bit difficult and durable. First you have to listen her album few times. After you get used to the music, her albums usually last at least 100 playtimes. Before you put the record to your collection and start to search something new. You can preview the songs and albums at her site.

If you got interested Rihanna's music after listening Talk-That-Talk, Loud is very near TTT. Remixed version from Good Girl Gone Bad is an improved version from the original album. Remix version misses two quite good songs, Sell Me Candy and Rehab. Remixed Rated-R is an experimental album, you probably prefer the original Rated-R from these two.

If you have a habit of listening music or radio when you do something,  in a long run A Girl Like Me and Good Girl Gone Bad ( original  / revised version ) probably raises to your favorite background albums.  Talk-That-Talk and Load tend to drag your attention from the things you are doing.

Besides the recommendation, you can check the albums from Rihanna's web site. You'll get there with links above.

- - Rihanna's website : Rihanna-Now - -

On Rihannas web-site you can sit relaxed and listen Rihanna's albums and songs in web-radio quality. Albums and songs are full length, you can play the albums without limitations, purchase demands and breaks.

From her site you can also find, photos, photo-sets, pictures from Magazine Covers with Rihanna on them, music videos, news and tour calendar.

If you are interested in getting social with Rihanna's other fans, there is a video chat on her official web site. There are chatters all day long. Besides the fans, you can occasionally chat with Rihanna too. Due the vast amount of fans, it is not possible advertise her rare appearances in the video chat. If her appearances were advertised the chat would go down because of the rush.

There is also brand new Rihanna Navy section for the Fans. It is mostly a place where you chat with other fans. Discussion forums are the only new and unique things in the section.

It is very easy to spend few hours or the whole day on her site.

? In high-end audio world radio quality is the best possible quality, even better than CD- quality and High End device quality. Broadcasting quality of the big analog radio station is unbeatable. The equipments they use, are very expensive, and their quality beats all the others. Most expensive receivers ( with proper antennas and near enough ) are the only ones, which can match their broadcasting quality.

- - Rihanna's record company - -

Rihanna makes records to the Defjam. Defjam belongs to the DefJam Island label. DefJam Island is part of the Universal Music Group, which is owned by French Vivendi. US based owner's share from Vivendi is less 10%. Vivendi is very famous in Europe from it's Canal Plus satellite channels.

- UMG has nothing to with Universal Pictures. Just like Warner Music Group ( WMG ) has nothing in common with Warner Bros. Third big remaining music company Bartels Music Group ( BMG ) is owned by Japanese Sony. BMG is having a very good time at the moment. Their best selling artist's Adele's latest album has sold over 16 million copies during the year 2011.

Miscellaneous

All you have to do, is to ask

If you are not a regular holiday maker, the staff of your hotel almost always knows about all available local attractions / events. They are always happy to help and advice you. All you have to do is to ask.

All you have to do, is to ask II

If you end up into a fine restaurant in a strange country, and you do not want to look like a native born jerk, there is one question which always helps you. When you ask from the waitress "What do you recommend ?" ( for food / drink ) you are always guaranteed to get recommendations, which do not make you look like an uncivilized jerk.

In Europe, regulars in fine restaurants and hotels pays quite lot of attention to your habits, and to the things you eat and drink. You have to be famous from your vulgar or strange habits, before violations in etiquette are accepted. Even if you are rich millionaire or billionaire, your class and levels are measured by your habits.

There are very many rags from riches millionaires, from United States, who can tell you many stories about the issue. From their own experiences.

- - Deadly Quiz  - -

Do you know who is the most famous victim of AIDS ?
The most famous victim of AIDS is Madonna. When Madonna campaigned against AIDS, gossip medias were loaded with stories about Madonna's AIDS. After the stories she gave up from charity for over 15 years.

Well. Do you know who is the most famous person who actually got and died to AIDS, also in the real life, not only in medias ?
Freddie Mercury, the vocalist of Queen, is probably the most famous person who has got and died to AIDS.

Do you know, what is the best protection against AIDS ?
Rubber is the best protection against AIDS. Never practice casual sex without it. Besides AIDS, it gives also protection against the unwanted father and motherhoods.

-- Tattoos - -
December 2011

Rihanna has lots of tattoos. During the Loud-tour 2011, she is said to have given few comments about the tattoos. She said, that she is not very happy with all the tattoos she has taken. And not very eager to take more. 

- - Unwanted tattoos are bit difficult - -

Quite a many people think, that the tattoos are on your skin for ever. It is not entirely true. There are two ways get rid of the unwanted tattoos :

Skin-colored tattoo is an old way to get rid of tattooed names of your loves ones. After the break up, when your new boy/girlfriend gets annoyed with the tattoo.

Skin colored tattoos are mono-colored, if you take a nice suntan onto your skin, or your skin lightens during the winter, the skin colored tattoo does not change it's color. The place and shape of the tattoo is almost always visible on your skin.

Nowadays there are also rather cheap surgeries with what you can get better results. Almost impossible to notice tattooed places from the skin.

- - Historic data - -

In the past tattoos were exclusive to prisoners and sailors. If you go to job interview, and the interviewers are elder people. It might be a good idea to hide your tattoos for the interview. In worst possible case you can even lose the job, just because the elder interviewer saw your tattoos.

-- Difficulties with the latest video releases --

If you have difficulties in watching the latest music videos from Rihanna and other famous artists / bands : there are long breaks and sometimes the video play stops completely. If this your problem, no one is making dirty tricks to you, trying to restrict your access to the video, and your web-connection is not necessarily too slow. The reason for the problems is in You Tube.

After the videos are released, there is huge rush, and the underlying hardware / web-servers cannot serve all the people who wants to watch and listen the latest release.

Rihanna's You Da One ( released 22nd December 2011 ) was almost completely inaccessible for 2 to 3 days after the release.

Similar kind of thing takes often place, when some picture set is released in Facebook. By Rihanna or some other famous artist / band.

After Talk-That-Talk was released ( at the end of November 2011 ), Rihanna's own web-site, RihannaNow.Com, was completely down for over a day.

- - Red Tape Systems - -

Do not worry about your privacy on the sites. There are usually so many visitors, that it is not possible for anyone keep records and follow each and everyone the visitors.

Listener

-- Audio CD is not dead --

In record sales audio CD's are far from dead, they are still the biggest medias for the music. iTunes sales is second with app 30% share, and CD sales is app 50% from the sales.

Talking about the sales, the fans always wants their favorite artist to be the biggest and the best selling artist of all. As an example could mention the very last week of the year 2011. During the week Rihanna's fans said, that Talk-That-Talk rose from position 17th to 7th in Billboard 200, on the chart the album rose from position 14 to position 7.

-- Record Collections, part of the decoration ----

The record collections belong to the decoration of the living / guest room.

When you have visitors, you can be quite sure, that during the visit some of them, who likes music goes to the collection. And check albums and covers. A visible collection is a thing, which entertains your guests.

The collections are also quite expensive ( status like ) part of the decoration. Much like book and video shelves. The overall cost of 100 Audio CD's is app $1000 or €1000.

When you buy all your records on touchable, boxed media ( currently Audio Cd ), by the time your visible record collection grows to quite astonishing album counts and the value of your visible, shelved collection ( as part of the decoration ) grows also to quite big numbers.

If you have digital and audio-system, it is usually quite easy to make C-cassette like analog copies from the covered and pictured CD's with your computer. The sound quality of the audio CD is slightly better than digital copy's sound quality.

- - Music as an investment - -

Music is not a very bad investment either.

You can take albums from your collection for re-listening for almost unlimited time.

After the fall from opening the pack, Audio CD's and vinyls keeps their value quite well. And if you run into a desperate flat broke situation, it is quite easy to sell albums from your collection. 2nd hand music markets are big, and it is quite easy to find buyers for the used Cd's.

Value of the rarest albums raises by the time. If you for example manage to get artists' / band members' autographs onto the covers, the future value of the album raises quite a lot. Not forgetting the current value of the signed album.

- - Charts, how they are made ? - -

The charts are always evaluations from the sales. The shop keepers buy Cd's to their storages. No-one knows for sure how many albums are actually sold from shopkeepers' storages during one week. There are so many storages and shop keepers, that it is almost impossible to gather exact data from the sales.

The charts are usually based on the sales of the biggest local resellers ( and radio stations ). If some album is extremely popular in smaller record shops, they for example have a big window-ad / front page sale campaign, you cannot see the sales from the charts. In the past, when European gas stations started to sell C-cassettes for their customers, there were very many gas- station stars, which sold well, but were never seen on the charts.

The record companies and the organizations, which divides and pays the fees to the music makers, knows only the wholesales numbers from the albums and singles ( how many records shopkeepers have bought to their storages, and how many digital copies were sold during the past month ).

Want to be a musician

- - Musicians are entrepreneurs - -

Musicians and also book writer are entrepreneurs, they do not get regular paychecks. They get money from the sales. If musician do not do music, or artists / bands records do not sell, their incomes are very near zero.

The money music makers get from sold songs and albums is far more smaller than price, with what they are sold. Usually less than 10% from the retail price. From the music makers share, the money is divided between artist / band, lyric writer, arranger and composer. All commercial songs have named authors. Authors who are eligible for sales based fees. They are stored into big international dataBases, from where the fees are divided to the music makers or their record companies. Old songs whose authors are not known are recorded as traditional.

Managers, who are often blamed for emptying the pockets of the artists, usually take a provision from the artists / bands fees. When you start your career as recording artist / band, manager is the first person you need. Manager takes care of the practical things for you. Manager negotiates deals with record company and concert arrangers.

Record producers are usually payroll people who work for the record company. They take care and are responsible from practical things around the album / single. They arrange studio times, negotiate with press, contact people who design album covers, takes care of the delivery, etc. When the album is made, they sit in the control room with recorder ( a person ), and give comments about the song / album.

Before hiring the manager you can send demo songs to the record company. Big record companies have departments and smaller have person / persons, which listen to the demo tapes all day long. They search promising songs, artists and bands. The quality of the demo song is not very important.

- - Additional fees / payments  - -

When music is played for public, ( radios, movies, video games, shops, public events, etc ) the player must pay copyright fees for the music makers.

The music makers' share from concert tickets is not very big either. Arrangers need money, advertisers need money, staff need money, band members and dance groups need dressing rooms and money, hotel rooms and traveling costs for the whole crew are quite big.

There was a time ( 70's and 80's ) when the costs and advertising costs of the tours were bigger than the money arrangers managed to get with ticket sales. On purpose. These tours were called promotional tours, their purpose was to increase album sales.

- - Who are the richest ? - -

Amongst music makers the artists and bands which make their music by themselves are the richest. They get all of the music makers money to themselves.

Amongst music makers as group, the composers are the richest. They get money from all songs which are made from the melody.

During the best selling seasons the incomes are big. When compared to the average life-time, the best selling seasons are quite short. Usually only few years and few albums. Therefore music makers are always advised to save some money from the best selling years to the quiet years.

Making Music

- - - - Who is who - - -

Usually songs have two composers and one lyric writer. Another composer makes the notes for the lyrics and singer. Another one ( arranger ) makes notes for the background instruments.

Singer usually adapts the lyrics to the melodies. She also fine tunes the melody, so that it runs smoothly.

Team work and small changes are almost always needed, before the song is ready for recording and live performances.

You can never make music like you speak. Everything must be composed, and everything must have some sort of notes.

Writing melodies and background sequences are very different from each other. Good melody writers are not necessarily good arrangers, and vice versa.

- - In The Studio - -

In the 60's record companies took high quality multi-track tape recorders in use. These recorders made it possible to make these funny noises. Like the Chipmunks songs. In the multi track system, all instruments and voices are recorded into separate tracks. When the chipmunk songs were gathered together into record, the voice tracks of the chipmunk singers were played faster than other tracks.

The biggest benefit in multi-track recorders was that, when one band member or vocalist made a mistake during the recording, her / his track could be re-recorded, without the need of all others to accompany the mistake maker. When the whole band replayed the song after one mistake, it was quite common that some other member spoiled the next recording.

Multi-track tape recorders improved the quality of the ready made songs, and they also reduced the required studio times.

It was also possible to gather best attempts / performances from vocalist and instruments into final song.

Music makers are not like movie makers, they do not usually laugh very much during the recording and after the failed attempt.

Although the recording systems are nowadays digital, the old 16-track system is still in use. Rihanna for example uses often multi-track system's special advantages in her songs. In quite a many songs she for example sings both voice and chorus tracks.