*Last Wednesday, Rihanna’s entire eighth album, “Anti,” leaked online, and according to a representative from Tidal, Universal Music Group is to blame for the premature leak. After the 13 songs first appeared on Jay Z’s streaming service, Tidal took down the album’s page, but fans who acted quickly were able to save the music, with many taking to social media to post clips of the tracks.
Tidal’s Director of Marketing, Grace Kim, commented on the situation, saying that despite the leak “Anti” still moved 1.4 million units in just 15 hours.
“Look, we know what happened here, in the sense that unfortunately we still rely on systems, and there was a system error. But I don’t think it hurt it at all,” she said.
According to a representative from Tidal, Universal Music Group’s is to fault for the leak.
via SPIN:
In regards to TIDAL’s “systems error,” Kim is “referring to a system error caused by Universal Music Group. The error was not something TIDAL caused.”
“Anti” is Rihanna’s first album in more than three years, and according to the NY Times, it had a “low start on the Billboard album chart, opening at No. 27” — the singer’s lowest opening chart position. Nielsen reported that the album sold fewer than 1,000 copies in the U.S. The album also had 4.2 million streams and 126,000 sales of individual tracks, according to weekly data from Nielsen.
The low sales for “Anti” comes from Tidal itself, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons the Universal leaked it. On Monday, a Tidal spokesman said that the album was put on sale late Thursday, after Samsung’s exclusive giveaway period ended, giving the album just a few hours to rack up sales for the week.
Regardless of “Anti’s” final numbers, the album did not have the blockbuster chart opening that she is accustomed to. Rihanna’s last album, 2012’s “Unapologetic,” opened at No. 1, and each of her seven earlier studio albums opened in the Top 10.
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