Single Review: Rihanna ft. Young Jeezy - 'Hard'

When it comes to releasing singles, you obviously need to kind of business savvy because releasing the wrong lead single - or even two singles - which paint your album in a bad light will result in a pretty much dead-on-arrival album with enough sales to certify it plastic. Ask The Saturdays - it's no mystery that their management in the single release department is absolutely appalling, as their second single releases from all three of their albums so far have been much more acclaimed, publicly and critically, than the first single.But when you consider re-releasing singles, you need to have some kind of motive because let’s face it - the option to release it in the first place meant it wasn't the greatest demonstration of your single releasing savvy. One obvious reason for re-releasing a song is if you weren't very well known around the single original release, á la HURTS, with 'Wonderful Life', or Florence + the Machine with 'Dog Days Are Over'; another, less heroic reason would be if there’s no more 'good' songs on your album. This results in (because all other 'good' songs are re-released, yet the album hasn’t faired so well as you'd hoped sales-wise) a re-release of the least successful single, in the hope it somehow magically becomes a 'good' single second-time round. Of course, the latter method is all very stingy and irritating; just make a better album.