Rihanna's "Rated R" Projected To Sell 200K In First-Week, May Miss No. 1 Spot

Grammy-winning singer Rihanna's Rated R will reportedly debut next week with estimated sales of around 200,000, based on one-day projections.

While the numbers are still being calculated, RiRi is likely to debut behind reality television star Susan Boyle.

That's right, folks, the team of Barnett and Boyle, as in Columbia's fearless leader Steve, will be #1 next week with a total that right now appears more than 600k and, dare we say it, could go even higher. Def Jam/IDJ's Rihanna, whose new album Rated R has been getting stellar reviews in the L.A. and N.Y. Times and Rolling Stone, is on line for 180-200k. A couple of Cash Money/Universal Republic acts in Jay Sean and Birdman are the other new releases, both trending in the 30-35k range.

The singer recently touched on the influence Chris Brown had upon the overall project.

"This album is an expression of all those feelings that I went through in the last eight months, just different emotions," she said of the aftermath of Brown's assault. "All of it isn't angry, all of it isn't dark and sad, 'cause I didn't go through that the whole time. That was part of it. It was really a roller coaster, and you get that when you're listening to the album...I really vented on this album, and as I said before, all of it isn't about that specific relationship or what I went through, 'cause that's not who I am. That's not all of who I am."

The project features guest appearances from Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am and Young Jeezy.

Rated R: Mad House, Wait Your Turn, Hard featuring Young Jeezy, Stupid In Love, ROCKSTAR 101 featuring Slash, Russian Roulette, Fire Bomb, Rude Boy, Photographs featuring will.i.am, G4L, Te Amo, Cold Case Love and The Last Song.

Collaborator Drake recently touched on his reaction to the album's sound.

"Rihanna has a great album," Drake said in an interview. "She's got great records that she's using, she's got great records that she's not even using that she has for a later date. I'm excited for her. She deserves everything that she gets...We did do some great work together and hopefully it'll find it's place on some project one day. The record we have is great. It's a special record, so for it not to make it, I know something had to click. It's all good. I think the project's gonna be great no matter what."

Check out a recent Rihanna interview below: