Rihanna's manager says fans need more new material
The music industry routine of releasing a new album every three to four years is no longer viable, Rihanna's manager has argued.
"Kids want new material all the time," said Jay Brown, who has overseen the singer's career since she signed as a teenager.
"I think you become disposable when you put out an album every three years."
Brown was speaking as Rihanna, 23, prepared to launch Talk That Talk, her sixth album since 2005.
She has sold more the 20 million albums worldwide, recording new tracks in mobile studios as she tours, allowing for an almost unbroken schedule of annual releases.
"It's not like we force her," said Brown. "She goes into the studio because she likes it."
The star's manager, who works for Jay-Z's Roc Nation company, added that he felt albums had become bloated, with unnecessarily long running times.
"Nobody, when they're buying an album, wants to skip over tracks," he said.
"If there are too many songs, you dilute what you're trying to do."
He pointed to Sarah McLachlan's 1997 album Surfacing as an example of an ideally-paced record. The Grammy-winning work featured just 10 tracks and clocked in at a compact 41 minutes.
It was released at a time when record companies, keen to make CDs look like value for money, packed out discs to their maximum, 80-minute capacity.
More recently, some of the biggest-selling international hits, including Amy Winehouse's Back To Black and Adele's 21, have featured similarly slight running times.
Rihanna has followed suit. Talk That Talk, is just over 35 minutes on the standard edition.
"When we were deciding the tracks to put on there, I wasn't thinking about minutes and seconds," said Brown. "I just wanted to make sure it was all hits."
The album, which was played to journalists in London on Thursday afternoon, continues Rihanna's fusion of eurodance, R&B and reggae.
Early tracks maintain the uptempo club feel of her recent number one single, We Found Love, while the Bajan singer's predilection for raunchy lyrics is unabated on songs such as Roc Me Out and Watch N' Learn.
The record is released by Mercury on 18 November.