Saturday, May 24, 2025

Rihanna’s Return Single “Lift Me Up” is a Letdown with Mediocre Sales, “Wakanda” Soundtrack Has Slow Start on Charts

You’d think a new song from Rihanna, a new “Black Panther” soundtrack– they’d be big sellers, right?

But Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up,” released in advance of the soundtrack from which it comes, has been a sales disappointment. Luminate says the single has sold about 265,000 copies. It’s number 5 on iTunes, and has something like 34 million streams. But when it’s all added up, “Lift Me Up” is a letdown.

Meanwhile, the “Wakanda Forever” soundtrack landed at number 12 on Friday on the hitsdaildouble chart. Total sales came to around 28,000 copies. That’s about 12,000 fewer than Bruce Springsteen’s new album, “Only the Strong Survive.” The top two albums for last week were Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” (another 200,000) and Drake right behind her with 172,000 copies of “Her Loss,” his album with 21 Savage.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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