title: Len Wein

text: Wein returned to comics writing for DC in the late 2000s, where he collaborated in the DC Comics nostalgic event "DC Retroactive" writing stories for the one-shot specials "Batman – The '70s" (September 2011) drawn by Tom Mandrake and "Green Lantern – The '80s" (October 2011) drawn by Joe Staton. The hardcover collection of his 10-issue "" was published in August 2011. In 2012, Wein worked on the "Before Watchmen" project, writing the mini-series "Ozymandias" with art by Jae Lee and the serialized feature "Curse of the Crimson Corsair" with art by "Watchmen" colorist John Higgins. The hardcover collection of the "Ozymandias" storyline spent several weeks on the "New York Times" Bestseller List in 2013. In 2015, he and José Luis García-López produced "Batman '66: The Lost Episode", a comics adaptation of a Two-Face story pitch by Harlan Ellison originally intended for the "Batman" television series. In 2016, DC published a six-issue limited "Swamp Thing" series by Wein and artist Kelley Jones.


title: Len Wein

text: Wein's first wife was Glynis Oliver, a comics colorist who spent years on the "X-Men" titles. Following their divorce, he married Christine Valada, a photographer and attorney, in 1991, and became stepfather to Michael Bieniewicz-Valada.


title: Len Wein

text: On April 6, 2009, Wein's California home burned down with considerable loss of property and mementos, including his Shazam Awards. He and his wife also lost their dog, Sheba, to the fire. Beginning October 26, 2009, Valada appeared on and won the television game show "Jeopardy!", becoming a four-time champion with winnings of over $60,000. She indicated on the show that she would use the money to recover or replace much of the artwork and books the couple lost in the fire.


title: Goddess movement

text: The Goddess movement includes spiritual beliefs or practices (chiefly Neopagan) which emerged predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction to perceptions of predominant organized religion as male-dominated, and makes use of goddess worship and can include a focus on female people, or on one or more understandings of gender or femininity.


title: Goddess movement

text: The Goddess movement is a widespread, non-centralized trend in Neopaganism, and therefore has no centralized tenets of belief. Practices vary widely, from the name and number of goddesses worshipped to the specific rituals and rites used to do so. Some, such as Dianic Wicca, exclusively worship female deities, while others do not. Belief systems range from monotheistic to polytheism to pantheistic, encompassing a range of theological variety similar to that in the broader neopagan community. Common pluralistic belief means that a self-identified Goddess worshiper could theoretically worship any number of different goddesses from cultures all over the world. Based on its characteristics, the Goddess movement is also referred to as a form of cultural religiosity that is increasingly diverse, geographically widespread, eclectic, and more dynamic in process.


title: Goddess movement

text: In the 19th century, some first-wave feminists such as Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton published their ideas describing a female deity, whilst anthropologists such as Johann Jakob Bachofen examined the ideas of prehistoric matriarchal Goddess cultures. There are also post-traditional Goddess feminists who claim that female theologies are more ancient, having emerged during the Upper Palaeolithic period or 30,000 years ago. It is said that these theologies were suppressed when Christianity outlawed all pre-Christian religions through a series of edicts by Theodosius I. These ideas gained additional traction during the second-wave feminism movement. In the 1960s and 1970s, feminists who became interested in the history of religion also refer to the work of Helen Diner (1965), whose book "Mothers and Amazons: An Outline of Female Empires" was first published in German in 1932; Mary Esther Harding (1935), the first significant Jungian psychoanalyst in the United States; Elizabeth Gould Davis (1971); and Merlin Stone (1976).


title: Goddess movement

text: Since the 1970s, Goddess Spirituality has emerged as a recognizable international cultural movement. In 1978 Carol P. Christ's widely reprinted essay "Why Women Need the Goddess," which argues in favor of the concept of there having been an ancient religion of a supreme goddess, was presented as the keynote address to an audience of over 500 at the "Great Goddess Re-emerging" conference at the University of California, Santa Cruz; it was first published in "The Great Goddess Issue" of "" (1978). Carol P. Christ also co-edited the classic feminist religion anthologies "Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality" (1989) and "Womanspirit Rising" (1979/1989); the latter included her essay "Why Women Need the Goddess."


title: Goddess movement

text: From 1974 to 1984, "WomanSpirit", a journal edited in Oregon by Jean and Ruth Mountaingrove, published articles, poetry, and rituals by women, exploring ideas and feelings about female deity. The journal "The Beltane Papers", which started publication at about the same time, continued until mid-2011. In 1983, Jade River and Lynnie Levy founded the Re-formed Congregation of the Goddess, International (RCG-I) in Madison, Wisconsin. RCG-I continues today with groups called "Circles" in many U. S. localities, as well as an educational program, priestess training, and ordination. The Goddess movement has found voice in various films and self-published media, such as the trilogy made by Donna Read for the National Film Board of Canada.


title: Goddess movement

text: Capitalization of terms such as "Goddess" and "Goddesses" usually vary with author or with the style guides of publications or publishers. Within the Goddess community, members generally consider it proper to capitalize the word "Goddess", but not necessary when generic references are made, as in the word "goddesses".


title: Goddess movement

text: Participants in the Goddess movement often invoke ancient religion and mythology. Some skeptics argue that these have been reconstructed from ancient sources and others are modern inventions. Indeed, these myths are not interpreted literally, but rather figuratively or metaphorically as reflecting ancient understandings and worldviews. For instance, creation myths are not seen as conflicting with scientific understanding but rather as being poetic, metaphoric statements that are compatible with, for example, the theory of evolution, modern cosmology, and physics. Mythological sources of the Goddess movement are often often considered modern reconstructions of ancient myths that predated a "patriarchal period," a theory influenced by the Kurgan hypothesis and, therefore, very little would have been written about them. Aside from the reflection of ancient understanding of these, there are adherents who also turn to contemporary scholarship and literature such as Robert Graves' "The White Goddess". Some of this work's interpretation of the Greek mythology (based mainly on James Frazer's "The Golden Bough," such as the annual sacrifice of a king that represents a god) were adopted as the basis to describe the goddess' aging and rejuvenation with the seasons. The myth of Demeter and Persephone is one that has often been reinterpreted.


title: Goddess movement

text: A common claim within the Goddess movement is that myths from supposed ancient matriarchal societies were behind key elements in Christianity, particularly in the beliefs that "matriarchies fostering goddess worship influenced the attitudes of early Christians toward Mary" and that "the Catholic Church was originally matriarchal with Mary Magdalene, not Peter, as its head." The Goddess movement views devotion to female Christian figures such as the female saints as a continuation of ancient Goddess worship.


title: Goddess movement

text: Goddess Spirituality characteristically shows diversity: no central body defines its dogma. Yet there is evolving consensus on some issues including: the Goddess in relation to polytheism and monotheism; immanence, transcendence, and other ways to understand the nature of the Goddess. There is also the emerging agreement that the Goddess fulfills the basic functions of empowering women and fostering ethical and harmonious relationships among different peoples as well as between humans, animals, and nature.


title: Goddess movement

text: One question often asked is whether Goddess adherents believe in one Goddess or many goddesses: Is Goddess spirituality monotheistic or polytheistic? This is not an issue for many of those in the Goddess movement, whose conceptualization of divinity is more all-encompassing. The terms "the Goddess", or "Great Goddess" may appear monotheistic because the singular noun is used. However, these terms are most commonly used as code or shorthand for one or all of the following: to refer to certain types of prehistoric goddesses; to encompass all goddesses (a form of henotheism); to refer to a modern metaphoric concept of female deity; to describe a form of energy, or a process.


title: Goddess movement

text: The concept of a singular divine being with many expressions is not a new development in thought: it has been a major theme in India for many centuries, at the very least as far back as the 5th century, though hymns in the early Vedas too speak of a one-Goddess-many-goddesses concept.


title: Goddess movement

text: Another point of discussion is whether the Goddess is immanent, or transcendent, or both, or something else. Starhawk speaks of the Goddess as immanent (infusing all of nature) but sometimes also simultaneously transcendent (existing independently of the material world). Many Goddess authors agree and also describe Goddess as, at one and the same time, immanently pantheistic and panentheistic. The former means that Goddess flows into and through each individual aspect of nature—each tree, blade of grass, human, animal, planet; the latter means that all exist within the Goddess.


title: Goddess movement

text: Starhawk also speaks of the Goddess as both a psychological symbol and "manifest reality. She exists "and" we create Her" (italics hers). Carol P. Christ (2003), describes what she sees as similarities between Goddess theology and process theology, and suggests that Goddess theologians adopt more of the process viewpoint.


title: Goddess movement

text: The theological variations that characterize the Goddess movement can also be classified into two: the views that describe the Goddess as a metaphor and those that consider the Goddess as a deity. The former emerged from among Jewish and Christian adherents and maintains that the Goddess serves as the means of talking about, imagining, or relating to the divine and this is demonstrated in the push to recover the feminine face of God based on scriptural and historical sources. On the other hand, the theology that the Goddess is a deity, with importantly and unchangeably female persona, emerged out of the feminists who came from polytheistic faiths such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Native American, and traditional African religions. The goddesses in this theology are rarely understood as metaphors or images since they have distinct individual features and that worshippers can interact with their suprahuman personages or symbols.


title: Goddess movement

text: Although the Goddess movement has no specific code of behavior, there are commonly held tenets and concepts within the movement that form a basis for ethical behavior. Those participants in Goddess spirituality who define themselves as Wiccan, usually follow what is known as the Wiccan Rede: " 'An it harm none, do what ye will", ("an" being an archaic English word understood to mean "if", or "as long as"). Many also believe in the Threefold Law, which states that "what you send (or do), returns three times over". Some traditions believe that this means it will be returned to the sender three times, or in a portion three times in volume, while others say it will instead be returned to the sender on three levels of being—physical, mental, and spiritual. Still others postulate that the number "three" is symbolic, meant to indicate a magnified karmic result for one's actions.


title: Goddess movement

text: Some people in the Goddess movement honor the Triple Goddess of Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Maiden aspect of the Goddess is the archetype of a young woman or a child, representing independence and strength; the Mother aspect is the archetype of a nurturing mature woman; and the Crone aspect is the archetype of an old woman that represents wisdom, change, and transformation.


title: Goddess movement

text: Because the Crone aspect of the Goddess is understood by some to be destructive at times, some consider it to contain both positive and negative imagery and to present an ethical quandary. The Hindu Goddess Kali, or Kali Ma, is often seen as an example of the Crone aspect. The concept is that the corrective force in a Dark Age must be a righteously directed dark force. Thus, to combat the demons of ignorance, ego, anger, etc., the darker aspect manifests. Later on, even her fierce image softens in the love of her devotees. Her duality is easily reconciled with the monism of Hinduism, which claims to understand the fundamental unity of truth as being impersonal and stratified in an ego-knotted existence (such as the human condition), and thus to the evil or unrighteous she is destruction personified and to the loving and moral devotee she is nothing but the love of the mother.


title: Goddess movement

text: Other Goddess ethical beliefs are that one should not harm the interconnected web of life, and that peace and partnership should be the goals, rather than war and domination. According to Goddess theologian Carol P. Christ the following are ethical touchstones:


title: Goddess movement

text: The Goddess movement draws some of its inspiration from the work of archaeologists such as Marija Gimbutas, whose interpretation of artifacts excavated from "Old Europe" points to societies of Neolithic Europe that were "matristic" or "goddess-centered" worshipping a female deity of three primary aspects, which has inspired some neopagan worshippers of the Triple Goddess.


title: Goddess movement

text: Heide Göttner-Abendroth, working in the 1970s to mid-1980s, called these cultures "matriarchies", introducing a feminist field of "Modern Matriarchal Studies". She presented a theory of the transformation of prehistoric cultures in which the local goddess was primary and the male god, if any, derived his power from the goddess. In what she terms the "Downfall", which occurred at varying times throughout a multitude of cultures, the gods overcame and subjugated the goddesses.


title: Goddess movement

text: Göttner-Abendroth's terminology is idiosyncratic. The term "matriarchy" to describe these cultures has been rejected by many Goddess-movement scholars, especially those in North America, because it implies female domination as the reverse of male domination in patriarchy. These scholars deny such a reversal, asserting these prehistoric cultures were egalitarian, though matrilineal - inherited assets and parentage traced through the maternal line. According to Riane Eisler, cultures in which women and men shared power, and which worshiped female deities, were more peaceful than the patriarchal societies that followed.


title: Goddess movement

text: Ian Hodder's reinterpretation of Gimbutas and Mellaart's works disputes the existence of "matriarchal" or "matrifocal" cultures, as do some other archaeologists and historians in this field. However, mythologist Joseph Campbell compared the importance of Gimbutas' output to the historical importance of the Rosetta Stone in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. Marija Gimbutas, often dubbed "Grandmother of the Goddess Movement" in the 1990s, continues to be cited by many feminist writers, including Max Dashu. Many other scholars, including Joan Marler and Marguerite Rigoglioso, support her work. Still, Gimbutas' theories had been widely criticized as mistaken in their dating, archaeological context, and typologies. Some archaeologists consider her goddess hypothesis implausible, others dismissing her work as pseudo-scholarship.


title: Goddess movement

text: Wicca regards "the Goddess", along with her consort the Horned God, as a deity of prime importance. The earliest Wiccan publications described Wicca as a tribal goddess of the witch community, neither omnipotent nor universal.


title: Goddess movement

text: Many forms of Wicca have come to regard the Goddess as a universal deity, more in line with her description in the "Charge of the Goddess", a key Wiccan text. In this guise she is the "Queen of Heaven", similar to Egyptian goddess Isis; she also encompasses and conceives all life, much like the Greek goddess Gaia. Much like Isis, she is held to be the summation of all other goddesses, who represent her different names and aspects across the different cultures. The Goddess is often portrayed with strong lunar symbolism, drawing on various deities such as Diana, Hecate, and Isis, and is often depicted as the Maiden, Mother, and Crone triad popularized by Robert Graves (see Triple Goddess below). Many depictions of her also draw strongly on Celtic goddesses. Some Wiccans believe there are many goddesses, and in some forms of Wicca, notably Dianic Wicca, the Goddess alone is worshipped.


title: Goddess movement

text: Some, but not all, participants in the Goddess movement self-identify as witches or Wiccans. Other participants of the Goddess movement call themselves goddessians while others identify as the more generic "pagans".


title: Goddess movement

text: Some witches, especially Dianics, attempt to trace the historical origins of their beliefs to Neolithic pre-Christian cultures, seeing Wiccanism as a distillation of a religion found at the beginning of most, if not all, cultures. They regard wise women and midwives as the first witches. Dianic witchcraft first became visible in the 1970s, alongside the writings of Zsuzsanna Budapest. Her feminist interpretation of witchcraft followed a few decades after the founding of Wicca by Gerald Gardner in the 1940s. Today, there are at least 800,000 individuals who consider themselves Wiccan followers or witches in North America.


title: Goddess movement

text: Gardner and Valiente advocated a proto-feminist ideal of priestess authority in service to the Wiccan God and Goddess. Covens in "traditional" Wicca (i.e., those run along the lines described by Gardner and Valiente) had and have pretty much equal leadership both of a priest and of a priestess; but often consider the priestess "prima inter pares" (first among equals) - according to the book "A Witches' Bible", by Stewart and Janet Farrar.


title: Goddess movement

text: Doreen Valiente became known in Britain as the 'Mother of the Craft' and contributed extensively to Wicca's written tradition. She is the author of The Witches' Creed, which lays out the basics of Wiccan religious belief and philosophy; including the polarity of the God and the Goddess as the two great "powers of Nature" and the two "mystical pillars" of the religion. One way to characterize the central male-female divine dyad in Wicca is to say that it's a duotheistic religion with a theology based on the divine gender polarity of male and female.


title: Goddess movement

text: The existence of witchcraft as the remnants of an old pagan religion as late as the early Modern Age was first suggested to a wide readership by Margaret Murray's books, "The Witch Cult in Western Europe", "The God of the Witches" (1933) and "The Divine King in England". Her works have since been largely discredited by other scholars but have left a feminist legacy upon Wiccan culture.


title: Goddess movement

text: Wicca and Neopaganism, and to some extent the Goddess movement, were influenced by 19th-century occultism, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well as the Romantic movement in which both male and female were valued and honored as sacred, in contrast to and perhaps in reaction to mainstream Christian spirituality, especially if veneration of Mary by most Christians is not considered. Such views are described, for example, in the work of Robert Graves, especially "The White Goddess" (the origin of the neopagan 'Triple Goddess' concept) and "Mammon and the Black Goddess".


title: Goddess movement

text: Wicca was also heavily influenced by the ideas of alchemic symbolism, which emphasized the essential complementary polarity of male and female, and that characterized that basic duality or gender polarity as a partnership of the solar (male) and the lunar (female). In Wicca the Moon is the symbol of the Goddess and the Sun is the symbol of the God; and the central liturgical mystery and ritual act is "The Great Rite" or Hieros Gamos, which is a symbolic union of the God and the Goddess, as the primal male and female powers of the cosmos. In alchemy this was known as "the Chymical Wedding" of the Sun and the Moon. In a parallel vein, traditional Wicca also draws heavily upon the Western Hermetic Tradition and its roots in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life; where the twin pillars of masculine and feminine divine forces are joined by a Middle Pillar that encompasses and transcends both male and female. These "twin pillars" as they are shown in tarot decks are analogous to Valiente's depiction of the God and the Goddess as the two "mystical pillars." In this emphasis on the feminine as the equal and complementary polar opposite of the masculine, Wicca echoes not only Kabbalistic sources but also the polarity of yin and yang—feminine and masculine—in Taoism.


title: Goddess movement

text: There are, however, Wiccan groups that do not subscribe to the male-female dualism of the divine. For instance, there is the case of the Budapest Dianics. Although these retained many Wiccan rituals and symbols, they only used female imagery and created a creation myth that eliminated the need for the male. While Wiccans also accept male members, the Dianics called themselves a "wimmin's religion" and, thus, rejected males from their ranks.


title: Goddess movement

text: First broadcast on PBS in 1988 as a documentary interview with Bill Moyers, "The Power of Myth", written by Joseph Campbell, was also released in the same year as a book created under the direction of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. "The Power of Myth" links the image of the Earth or Mother Goddess to symbols of fertility and reproduction. For example, Campbell states that, "There have been systems of religion where the mother is the prime parent, the source... We talk of Mother Earth. And in Egypt you have the Mother Heavens, the Goddess Nut, who is represented as the whole heavenly sphere". Campbell continues by stating that the correlation between fertility and the Goddess found its roots in agriculture:


title: Goddess movement

text: Campbell also argues that the image of the Virgin Mary was derived from the image of Isis and her child Horus: "The antique model for the Madonna, actually, is Isis with Horus at her breast".


title: Goddess movement

text: One of these metaphors is "Eve". Campbell argues that Christianity, originally a denomination of Judaism, embraced part of the Jewish pagan culture and the "rib metaphor" is an example of how distant the Jewish religion was from the prehistoric religion—the worship of the Mother Goddess or the Goddess.


title: Goddess movement

text: Many people involved in the Goddess movement regard the Earth as a living Goddess. For some this may be figurative, for others literal. This literal belief is similar to that proposed by Gaia hypothesis, and the Goddess-name Gaia is sometimes used as a synonym for the Earth. For the Goddess-movement practitioners, Gaia personifies the entire earthly ecosystem and is the means to achieve harmonic symbiosis or the wholeness and balance within the natural worlds and physical environment. Many of those in the Goddess movement become involved in ecofeminism, and are concerned with environmental and ecological issues. Goddess-movement adherents claim the hierarchical scheme giving humans dominion over the Earth (and nature) has led to lack of respect and concern for the Earth, and thus to what scientists identify as environmental crises, such as global warming. Rather than having dominion over the Earth, Goddess-movement theorists see humans living as part of the Earth environment, and also refer to Earth as "Mother". Here, humans are considered on equal level with non-human inhabitants since all must be accorded the same moral and religious consideration, respect, and reverence.


title: Goddess movement

text: Some such as Monica Sjöö cite that this focus on the environment is one of the aspects that distinguishes the goddess movement with the New Age movement. The former is sometimes mistaken as a subcategory of the latter due to the way the goddess movement draw from many resources that are New Age in character, including esoterica, mystery traditions, magic, astrology, divinatory techniques, and shamanism. Both are also concerned with valuing one's self as inherently sacred. The goddess movement, on the other hand, is equally concerned with valuing the environment, including its human and non-human inhabitants. This attitude towards the environment is reflected in the way the movement view the concepts of femaleness, the deity, and politics. In comparison with the traditional theology where God is placed at the top of the hierarchical system, ruling over man and nature, the movement maintains that humanity and divinity must not be distinguished from nature or that earth is the body of the goddess and all beings are interconnected in the web of life.


title: Goddess movement

text: Reclaiming Witchcraft is an organization of feminist modern Witchcraft, aiming to combine the Goddess movement with political activism (in the peace and anti-nuclear movements). "Reclaiming" was founded in 1979, in the context of the "Reclaiming Collective" (1978–1997), by two Neopagan women of Jewish descent, Starhawk (Miriam Simos) and Diane Baker, in order to explore and develop feminist Neopagan emancipatory rituals. The specific period of its founding can be traced back to the civil action during the 1970s called Diablo Canyon protest, which opposed the construction of a nuclear plant.


title: Goddess movement

text: Today, the organization focuses on progressive social, political, environmental, and economic activism. Reclaiming integrates magic rituals and instruction to its political activism. For instance, followers performed the spiral dances during its protest meetings against the World Trade Organization and other agencies of globalization. The Reclaiming also encourages its members to seek knowledge and enlightenment outside of the movement since it does not claim a monopoly of the so-called Wiccan truth.


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: Joyful Noise is a 2012 American musical comedy-drama film, starring Queen Latifah, Dolly Parton, Keke Palmer, Jeremy Jordan, and Courtney B. Vance. It was written and directed by Todd Graff, with gospel-infused music by Mervyn Warren. The film was released in U.S. theaters on January 13, 2012. In the film, two strong-minded women are forced to cooperate when budget cuts threaten to shut down a small-town choir. The film received mixed reviews, with praise for its songs and acting but criticism of its script and tone.


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: After the untimely death of a small-town church choir director Bernard Sparrow, (Kris Kristofferson) in Pacashau, Georgia, Vi Rose Hill (Queen Latifah), a practical mother raising two teenagers alone, takes control of the choir using the traditional Gospel style that their Pastor Dale (Courtney B. Vance) approves of. However, the director's widow, G. G. Sparrow (Dolly Parton), the main benefactor to the church, believes she should have been given the position. As in previous years, the choir reaches the regional finals of the national amateur "Joyful Noise" competition, only to be disappointed when a rival choir beats them. Tough times in the town have led to budget problems that threaten to close down the choir, at a time when the town needs the choir's inspiring music more than ever.


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: Vi Rose has a son, Walter (Dexter Darden), who has Asperger syndrome, and a talented, beautiful and independent daughter, Olivia (Keke Palmer), who detests being under her mother's household rules. G. G. has recently begun caring for her rebellious, drifter grandson, Randy (Jeremy Jordan). A romance blossoms between Olivia and Randy, which is strongly opposed by Vi Rose. Olivia also has a rival suitor, Manny (Paul Woolfolk). At Randy's urging, G. G., Olivia and most of the choir come to believe that some more contemporary arrangements (prepared by Randy) would be more successful for the choir. It also turns out that the choir has a chance at the national finals of the competition when the rival choir is found to have cheated by hiring professionals. But the pastor says that the church will not sponsor the choir unless they continue to use their reverent, traditional style.


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: Vi Rose's husband, Marcus (Jesse L. Martin), enlisted in the army after having trouble finding work at home, but his prolonged absence has saddened his family and causes additional tension between Vi Rose and Olivia. Meanwhile, a vivacious member of the choir who choreographs their routines, Earla (Angela Grovey), after a long dry stretch, finds passion first with Mr. Hsu (Francis Jue), whose weak heart gives way by morning, and later with Justin (Roy Huang). The town's tough times forces another choir member, Caleb (Andy Karl), and his family out of business. Vi Rose and G. G. come to blows in a confrontation at a crowded diner where Vi Rose is then fired from her job, Olivia's frustration with her mother boils over, and G. G. threatens Pastor Dale with disendowing the church if the choir is not allowed to compete in the finals with the new arrangements.


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: During the movie Randy befriends Walter and begins to teach him how to play the piano. One day, while at the quarry Randy and Walter are hanging out as Manny arrives. Randy and Manny begin to fight over Olivia ending with Randy giving Manny a bloody nose. When returning home Walter brags to Vi Rose about the fight. Angered by the news, she throws out Randy and tells him to leave her family alone. Randy, however, is able to befriend Manny and convince him to help out the choir with his guitar skills.


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: The choir travels to Los Angeles for the finals, feeling very unsettled. Vi Rose and Olivia have a fight and Vi Rose slaps Olivia. Tough competition presents itself in the form of a choir made up of cute pre-teens, with a charismatic young soloist (Ivan Kelley Jr.). But Vi Rose, G. G., Olivia and Randy pull the choir together and they give a rousing performance, using the new arrangements and choreography, capturing first place. The choir returns to town in triumph. One year later Earla and Justin get married and then Marcus comes back to his family.


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: "Joyful Noise" began filming in February 2011, in locations throughout Georgia, such as Atlanta, Decatur, Newnan, Dallas, Conyers, Peachtree City, and historic Howard's Restaurant in Smyrna. The movie finished filming in early April 2011.


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: The movie has twelve songs inspired by the film under the name "Joyful Noise Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" including "Fix Me, Jesus", "In Love", "Higher Medley" and more. The soundtrack is performed by the stars of the movie. Dolly Parton wrote three of the songs, including "Not Enough", "From Here To The Moon and Back", and "He's Everything."


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 32% based on 129 reviews, with an average rating of 4.70/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Joyful Noise"s musical numbers are solidly entertaining, and it benefits from Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton's sizable chemistry; unfortunately, they aren't enough to make up for the rest of the film." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 44 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" described the film as "an ungainly assembly of parts that don't fit, and the strange thing is that it makes no particular effort to please its target audience, which would seem to be lovers of gospel choirs." Christy Lemire of "The Boston Globe" felt that "if some incarnation of "Glee" were to be developed for the Christian Broadcasting Network, it would probably look a lot like "Joyful Noise." Peter Debruge of "Variety" claims that "despite the sheer volume of music on offer, very little of it feels authentic – or especially inspiring." Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" felt that everyone in the film "is so fundamentally decent and goody-goody that no real tension or unresolvable conflicts ever surface."


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: Some critics found positive things to say about the film. Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine stated that "the critic in me can authoritatively declare that the film is crap. The fan in me sent his shirt to the dry cleaners for tear removal." Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" felt that "the movie's musical numbers are catchy and rollicking and, in their bright sunshiny way, rather soulful." Rex Reed of "The New York Observer" stated, "Don't expect high art, and you will leave Joyful Noise smiling to the beat."


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: The film won the 2012 Inspirational Country Music Awards' Faith, Family, & Country Movie of the Year.


title: Joyful Noise (film)

text: The movie did manage to recoup, grossing $31.2 million against a $25 million production budget. It opened at #4 at the weekend box office, grossing $11.2 million on its opening weekend, and was screened in 2,735 theaters during its run.


title: The Field (film)

text: The Field is a 1990 Irish drama film written and directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean, Brenda Fricker and Tom Berenger. It was adapted from John B. Keane's 1965 play of the same name. The film is set in the early 1930s and was shot almost entirely in the Connemara village of Leenaun.


title: The Field (film)

text: Bull McCabe, an Irish farmer, dumps a dead donkey in a lake. It transpires that McCabe's son, Tadhg, killed the donkey after discovering it had broken into the field the family has rented for generations. The donkey's owner blames Bull McCabe for the death and demands "blood money".


title: The Field (film)

text: McCabe has a deep attachment to the rented field, which his family has cultivated and improved, from barren to now very productive, over a number of generations. The field's owner is a widow who, around the time of the 10th anniversary of the death of her husband, decides to sell the field. She decides to sell the field by public auction rather than to McCabe directly. Unknown to McCabe, Tadhg has been harassing the widow for years, causing her to believe that McCabe is behind the harassment in order to force her into a sale. On hearing there will be an auction McCabe goes to the village pub and announces that nobody would dare bid against him for "his" field.


title: The Field (film)

text: McCabe has constant doubts about Tadhg's ability to safeguard the field. His older son, Seamie, committed suicide when he was 13. McCabe blames himself for the death, as he told Seamie the field could only support one family, and that Tadhg would have to emigrate when he grew up. McCabe and his wife have not spoken in the 18 years since the death.


title: The Field (film)

text: Peter, an American whose ancestors are from the area, arrives in the village. He has plans to build a hydro-electric plant in the area and quarry stone for new roads. Central to his plans is McCabe's field. At the auction Peter repeatedly out-bids McCabe, forcing the price up to 80 pounds, 30 pounds more than what McCabe can afford. Seeing the bidding war the widow stops the auction and insists there would be a new auction, with a reserve price of 100 pounds. Knowing he cannot out bid Peter and seeing his cattle thrown off the field, McCabe goes to the rectory to confront Peter, and the parish priest who has been supporting him. McCabe now discovers Tadhg's actions, expelling him from the meeting, and goes on to explain his deep attachment to the field. This includes the death of his mother while saving hay.


title: The Field (film)

text: Peter refuses to back down from his plans. In a desperate last attempt McCabe and Tadhg confront Peter at a waterfall he has just purchased, the night before the second auction. When Tadhg fails to defeat Peter in a fight, McCabe himself intervenes and beats both men in a rage. Peter is killed, and upon realising this, McCabe has a mental break. He confuses Peter with his dead son Seamie. Tadhg flees to the Irish Traveller woman he has fallen for. He tells her he has killed Peter, and they make plans to run off together. McCabe's acolyte Bird O'Donnell bids on behalf of McCabe and secures the field for 101 pounds at the second auction, unopposed.


title: The Field (film)

text: A Traveller boy spots the dead donkey floating in the lake and a crane is brought in to recover it. It inadvertently recovers the corpse of Peter. At the same time Tadhg comes home to tell his father he is leaving with the Traveller's daughter and says he never wanted the field. The Parish priest arrives to confront McCabe about the discovery of Peter. Having lost his son and with the corpse discovered, McCabe goes insane and herds his cattle to the cliffs. Bird informs Tadhg that his father has gone mad. Tadhg rushes to stop his father but gets driven over the cliff by the herd of cattle and killed. Further maddened with grief, McCabe attempts to drive the waves back from his dead son, while Tadhg's mother and the Traveller's daughter sob on the clifftop.


title: The Field (film)

text: The screenplay went through several revisions from the early drafts; some of which were precipitated by changes to the cast. For example with the role going to Sean McGinley, the role of the town priest was expanded, and the character of William Dee, an English resident in the town, was replaced by a sympathetic Irish American man named Peter, who was portrayed by Tom Berenger.


title: The Field (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "The Field is a grim allegory of hard life on the land -- a symbolic play, transplanted uneasily to the greater realism of the film medium, where what we might accept on the stage now looks contrived and artificial."


title: The Field (film)

text: Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" wrote: "The Field is a movie that all too often reveals its origins as a play." Rita Kempley of "The Washington Post" wrote: "Sheridan seems out in left field here, undone by the sheer hokum of the material."


title: The Field (film)

text: In 1996, An Post, the Irish Post Office, issued a set of postage stamps to commemorate the centenary of Irish cinema; the 32p stamp featured an image from "The Field" of actors Harris, Bean, and Hurt standing against the backdrop of Killary Harbour.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company. The company was one of the original 12 members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896. The American Tobacco Company dominated the industry by acquiring the Lucky Strike Company and over 200 other rival firms. Antitrust action begun in 1907 broke the company into several major companies in 1911.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: The American Tobacco Company restructured itself in 1969, forming a holding company called American Brands, Inc., which operated American Tobacco as a subsidiary. American Brands acquired a variety of non-tobacco businesses during the 1970s and 1980s and sold its tobacco operations to Brown & Williamson in 1994. American Brands subsequently renamed itself "Fortune Brands".


title: American Tobacco Company

text: James Buchanan Duke's entrance into the cigarette industry came about in 1879 when he elected to enter a new business rather than face competition in the shredded pouched smoking tobacco business against the Bull Durham brand, also from Durham, North Carolina.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: In 1881, two years after W. Duke, Sons & Company entered into the cigarette business, James Bonsack invented a cigarette-rolling machine. It produced over 200 cigarettes per minute, the equivalent of what a skilled hand roller could produce in one hour, and reduced the cost of rolling cigarettes by 50%. It cut each cigarette with precision, creating uniformity in the cigarettes it rolled. Public stigma was attached to this machine-rolled uniformity, and Allen & Ginter rejected the machine almost immediately.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: Duke set a deal with the Bonsack Machine Company in 1884. Duke agreed to produce all cigarettes with his two rented Bonsack machines and in return, Bonsack reduced Duke’s royalties from $0.30 per thousand to $0.20 per thousand. Duke also hired one of Bonsack’s mechanics, resulting in fewer breakdowns of his machines than his competitors’. This secret contract resulted in a competitive advantage over Duke's competitors; he was able to lower his prices further than others could.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: In the 1880s, while Duke was beginning to machine-roll all his cigarettes, he saw that growth rates in the cigarette industry were declining. His solution was to combine companies and found “one of the first great holding companies in American history.” Duke spent $800,000 on advertising in 1889 and lowered his prices, accepting net profits of less than $400,000, forcing his major competitors to lower their prices and, in 1890, join his consortium by the name of the American Tobacco Company. The five constituent companies of American Tobacco: W. Duke & Sons, Allen & Ginter, W.S. Kimball & Company, Kinney Tobacco, and Goodwin & Company – produced 90% of the cigarettes made in 1890, the first year the American Tobacco Company was listed on the NYSE. Within two decades of its founding, the American Tobacco company absorbed about 250 companies and produced 80% of the cigarettes, plug tobacco, smoking tobacco, and snuff produced in the United States. With Duke's market control, American Tobacco grew its equity from $25,000,000 to $316,000,000.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: American Tobacco Company quickly became known as the “Tobacco Trust” upon its founding. Duke controlled the cigarette market, and his trust caught the attention of legislators in the United States, a country with historical aversion to monopolies.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: American Tobacco Company focused solely on making and selling cigarettes, leaving growing of tobacco and retail distribution to independent entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, Duke aimed to eliminate inefficiencies and middlemen through vertical consolidation. The American Tobacco Company began to expand to Great Britain, China, and Japan. The company also maintained an interest in producing other tobacco products in case fads shifted; Duke wanted to be sure that he would be prepared with a multitude of tobacco styles. The Tobacco Trust's international expansion in conjunction with its consolidation of all types of tobacco “ultimately made the Trust so vulnerable to regulation and judicial dissolution”.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890, and in 1907, the American Tobacco Company was indicted in violation of it. In 1908, when the Department of Justice filed suit against the company, 65 companies and 29 individuals were named in the suit. The Supreme Court ordered the company to dissolve in 1911 on the same day that it ordered the Standard Oil Trust to dissolve. The ruling in "United States v. American Tobacco Co." stated that the combination of the tobacco companies “in and of itself, as well as each and all of the elements composing it whether corporate or individual, whether considered collectively or separately [was] in restraint of trade and an attempt to monopolize, and a monopolization within the first and second sections of the Anti-Trust Act.”


title: American Tobacco Company

text: Dissolution proved complicated. The American Tobacco Company had combined many prior companies and processes. One department would manage a certain process for the entire organization, producing brands previously owned by other companies. “Plants had been assigned specific products without regard for previous ownership.” Over the course of eight months, a plan for the dissolution, meant to assure competition among the new companies, was negotiated.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: The trust needed to dissolve in such a way that no manufacturer had a monopoly on any type of tobacco product. Investors, holding millions of dollars of securities, also needed to be considered. A large question was how to distribute trademarks and brands between the resulting companies.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: The American Tobacco Company's assets were split off into: American Tobacco Company, the existing R. J. Reynolds, Liggett & Myers, and Lorillard. The monopoly became an oligopoly. The main result of the dissolution of American Tobacco Trust and the creation of these companies was an increase in advertising and promotion in the industry as a form of competition.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: Liggett & Myers kept control of these plants: Liggett and Myers, St. Louis; Spaulding and Merrick, Chicago; Allen and Ginter, Richmond; smoking tobacco factory in Chicago; Nall and Williams, Louisville; John Bollman Company, San Francisco; Pinkerton Company, Toledo; W. R. Irby, New Orleans; two cigar factories in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and the Duke-Durham branch of the American Tobacco Company.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: P. Lorillard retained the Lorillard properties in addition to S. Anargyos; the Luhrman and Wilburn Tobacco Company; plants in Philadelphia, Wilmington, Brooklyn, Baltimore, and Danville; and the Federal Cigar Company.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: At the same time as the antitrust action in 1911, the company's share in British American Tobacco (BAT) was sold. In 1994, BAT acquired its former parent, American Tobacco Company (though reorganized after antitrust proceedings). This brought the Lucky Strike and Pall Mall brands into BAT's portfolio as part of BAT's American arm, Brown & Williamson. B&W later merged with R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 2004.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: American Tobacco left Durham in the late 1980s. Brown & Williamson took over the Reidsville, North Carolina operation in 1995 and closed it, costing 1000 people their jobs, but Commonwealth Brands took it over in a deal completed in October 1996, when the plant had 311 employees, and kept 100 of them. ITG Brands announced November 1, 2018 that the plant would close in 2020.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: In 2004, the previously abandoned American Tobacco Campus (ATC) in Durham was reopened as a complex of offices, shops, and restaurants. Developed by Capitol Broadcasting and reopened as the American Tobacco Historic District, phase 1 consisted of the Fowler, Crowe, Strickland, Reed, and Washington Buildings, and included the construction of two new parking garages and a waterfall feature through the center of the campus designed by Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart of Atlanta, Georgia and constructed by W. P. Law, Inc. based in Lexington, South Carolina. Phase 2, consisting of the remaining buildings and expansion of the water feature at the north end of the site, was under construction as of late 2006. Many office spaces in the ATC are now used by Duke University. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000 as the American Tobacco Company Manufacturing Plant. The nearby Watts and Yuille Warehouses were listed in 1984 and the Smith Warehouse in 1985.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: The American Tobacco Trail, named for the company, is a multi-use rail-trail that begins just south of the Durham complex and runs towards Chatham and Wake Counties. It follows the route of the railroad (Norfolk Southern Railway (former) Durham Branch) that once served the factories, but was later abandoned when these facilities were shut down.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: Between 1875 and the 1940s, cigarette companies often included collectible trading cards with their packages of cigarettes. Cigarette card sets document popular culture from the turn of the century, often depicting the period's actresses, costumes, and sports, as well as offering insights into mainstream humor and cultural norms.


title: American Tobacco Company

text: American Tobacco commercialised its cards through several brands, such as "Recruit", "Mecca", "Fatima", "Ramly", "Turkey Red". "Old Judge". "Old Mill", among others


title: American Tobacco Company

text: In the golden age of radio, as well as early television, American Tobacco was known for advertisements featuring a fast-talking tobacco auctioneer named L. A. "Speed" Riggs. His rapid-fire and song-like patter would always end with the exclamation, "Sold, American!" Another famous tobacco auctioneer, F. E. Boone, was often heard in tandem with Riggs.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The Professional Bull Riders, Inc. (PBR) is an international professional bull riding organization based in Pueblo, Colorado, United States. In the U.S., PBR events have been televised on CBS and CBS Sports Network since 2012. In 2013, the PBR and CBS signed a contract that extended CBS Sport's partnership with PBR, making them the primary sports broadcaster for PBR. In 2018, the PBR launched "RidePass"; its own subscription-based video on demand service that live-streams PBR events, as well as PBR-produced events for other western sport organizations. On July 20, 2021, "RidePass" switched from a subscription-based streaming service to a free, ad-supported streaming channel on Pluto TV. More than 500 cowboys from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and other countries hold PBR memberships.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The organization began in mid-April 1992 through the efforts of 21 professional bull riders who gathered in a hotel room in Scottsdale, Arizona. They all rode in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), the top rodeo organization in the world which had been around for many years, as well as Bull Riders Only (BRO), an all-bull riding organization that had been in existence for just one year. Each rider contributed $1,000 to forming the Professional Bull Riders (PBR). This group was seeking to break away from the rules set by the PRCA and BRO, and form their own bull riding competitions, which included them as well as other top bull riders. "We wanted to create a better product for the fans, so that when they tuned in they were seeing the best of the best every time," said PBR co-founder and nine-time world champion rodeo cowboy Ty Murray, who later served as the president. In 2007, investment firm Spire Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in PBR and turned those founders’ $1,000 into millions. In April 2015, Endeavor (formerly WME | IMG), a global leader in several industries, bought the PBR.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The PBR put on a small series of events in 1993 and had its first championship season in 1994 with the Bud Light Cup Series (BLC). The organization has since grown to include five tours in the United States which stage over 100 events every year. Prize money for contestants had exploded from over $330,000 in 1994 to over $11 million in 2008.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The original CEO of the PBR was Sam Applebaum. Randy Bernard became CEO of the PBR in 1995, a position he held until he resigned in 2010 to become the CEO of INDYCAR. When Bernard took over the position of CEO in 1995, it was just after the conclusion of the first World Finals at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. At that time, the PBR's bank account held $8,000. It was $140,000 in debt. Bernard, a bold and wise businessman, quickly went to work. At the end of his first year, he turned things around. The World Finals paid out $1 million, and increased to $1.5 million in 1999.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 1996, the PBR made bull riding protective vests, which were introduced three years earlier, mandatory for all contestants at their events. The same was done for bull riders in all other organizations.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: After a few years of intense rivalry between BRO and PBR to see which professional bull riding organization would come out on top, the former organization officially went out of business in the spring of 1998.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2001, one month after that year’s World Finals, the PBR held the Bud Light World Challenge in Austin, Texas, which featured the top riders from the 2001 year-end world standings, as well as some international invitees.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: 2002 was the last year in which PBR bullfighters wore traditional make-up and baggy outfits. Beginning with the 2003 season, they now wore sport jerseys and shorts that featured corporate sponsor logos.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Also in 2003, the elite Bud Light Cup Series changed title sponsors and became the Built Ford Tough Series (BFTS). In the past, PBR world champions received a year-end money bonus, but starting this year, they received a $1 million bonus. Chris Shivers was the first world champion to claim that bonus.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2005, the PBR opened offices in Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Australia to produce tours in said countries starting the next year.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2006, just shortly after that year’s World Finals, the PBR held two events in Hawaii. The first was a regular lower-level event in Wailuku, followed by an event in Honolulu which featured the top 15 riders from the 2006 year-end world standings, as well as five riders that were voted online by fans to compete at the event.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The PBR was originally headquartered in Irvine, California before moving to downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1995. By 2007, the organization had enough of its cramped office in Colorado Springs, so they moved their world headquarters to a new 4-story building just outside Pueblo, Colorado.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2008, the PBR launched the Bull Team Challenge; a series of events in which stock contractors bucked a certain number of bulls at select Built Ford Tough Series events to try to earn money and points for their respective teams. At the beginning of the year, 22 bull teams chipped in $50,000 a piece for their opportunity to win their share of the $1.1 million total competition purse. Out of the 33 Built Ford Tough Series stops held that year, 17 were Bull Team Challenge events, including the PBR World Finals. Each stop had between five and eight bull teams that included five bulls, plus two alternates per team. Each team could only compete in five events. At each Bull Team Challenge stop, the first place team won $20,000, while second place won $10,000. The top bull teams then competed at the PBR World Finals for a $500,000 purse, with $250,000 going to the champion team. The PBR discontinued the Bull Team Challenge after just one year. However, the concept was picked up by another bull riding organization, Championship Bull Riding (CBR) in 2010, and the CBR Bull Team Challenge hosted several bull teams competing at regular events, as well as the CBR World Finals. The bull teams racked up points and money and from 2010 to 2018, a year-end CBR Bull Team Challenge champion was crowned. After CBR went out of business in the summer of 2018, the CBR Bull Team Challenge was renamed the Million Dollar Bull Team Challenge (MDBTC) and returned to its roots by rejoining the PBR. MDBTC events now primarily take place at lower-level PBR events.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In the summer of 2008, the PBR Team Shootout was held. This was a series of five events in which the top 20 riders in the PBR world standings each selected a rider of their choice, and as a team competed against each other for the Team Shootout championship. Each team rode in two of the first four events, held respectively in Del Mar, California; Paso Robles, California; Molalla, Oregon; and Guthrie, Oklahoma. Then, the top 10 teams rode at the finals event in Pueblo, Colorado.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: 2009 was the first year in which most of the contestants on the PBR’s televised elite series rode with helmets instead of cowboy hats.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2010, just shortly before the start of that year’s World Finals, the PBR held an event in New York City’s Times Square which featured the top 10 riders competing for the chance to receive additional points towards the world standings.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: On February 23, 2011, the PBR announced that Jim Haworth had become its new CEO. Then on June 29, 2015, the PBR announced that Haworth was promoted to Chairman, while COO Sean Gleason had become the new CEO.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2013, the PBR made it mandatory that all contestants at their events who were born on or after October 15, 1994 ride with a full bull riding helmet. Those born before that date were grandfathered in and permitted to ride with a protective face mask underneath their cowboy hat or simply with their cowboy hat if so desired.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2014, just shortly before that year’s World Finals, the PBR held an event at a beach in Huntington Beach, California which featured the top 15 riders attempting to gain additional points towards the world standings.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2018, the elite series changed title sponsors once again and the Unleash the Beast Series (UTB) tour name replaced the Built Ford Tough Series (BFTS) tour name. It was also now referred to as the Premier Series. That same year, the PBR celebrated its 25th championship season and awarded another $11 million in prize money, which included the bonus to the World Champion Bull Rider of $1 million and the $20,000 gold belt buckle.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In mid-March 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, several events were either canceled or rescheduled to later dates. In the spring, the PBR held three UTB events at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and all were closed to the public to avoid the spread of the virus. In the summer, the organization held the Monster Energy Team Challenge, a series of events in which several teams of four riders competed against each other, and each team was represented by a corporate sponsor. The regular events were held at the South Point Hotel Arena & Equestrian Center in Las Vegas, while the series finale was held at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. While the regular events were closed to the public, the championship event allowed fans to attend, but in limited numbers and they had to socially distance themselves. For the rest of the year, PBR events consisted of limited and socially distanced crowds, including the World Finals.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Since 2020, the PBR has held Cowboys for a Cause; an event that features sponsored teams of three bull riders competing against each other in a winner-take-all format while donating money to charitable causes. During its first two years, the event took place on the launch deck of the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi, Texas and was held in conjunction with the Air Force Reserve to support military causes in Texas. The 2020 event took place in the autumn, after the conclusion of that year’s PBR World Finals, while the one in 2021 took place on Labor Day Weekend. The 2022 edition took place at King Ranch in Kingsville, Texas, also during Labor Day Weekend and donations from that event went towards conservation and sustainability efforts across Texas. A donation to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association was also included and the money was to be distributed to multiple local and rural fire departments that helped landowners fight wildfires across Texas earlier in the year.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Las Vegas, Nevada was home to the PBR World Finals for over 25 years. The PBR hosted its inaugural World Finals in 1994 at the city’s MGM Grand Garden Arena. They remained at the arena through 1998. In 1999, the PBR moved their World Finals to the Thomas & Mack Center. The PBR was stretching its current arena's limits and really needed a bigger arena. They wanted to stay in Las Vegas, so the Thomas & Mack Center was the place to go. The PBR World Finals was held at the Thomas & Mack Center in from 1999 until 2015. The 2015 World Finals was the 17th and last time the event was hosted at the venue. In 2016, the PBR moved their World Finals event to the T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip. In 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and Nevada state restrictions on large events, the PBR World Finals were moved to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas with a limited and socially distanced crowd for every day of competition. The event returned to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for the final time in 2021. The PBR World Finals relocated to Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas in 2022.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: From 2007 to 2010, the PBR hosted a team competition format called the PBR World Cup, where 25 bull riders (altogether representing the five countries where PBR events are sanctioned) competed to win the title of best bull riding country in the world. Since 2017, another event, the PBR Global Cup, again offers bull riders a chance to compete in a five country competition. This new event is a different format from the PBR World Cup; it is not a continuation of the old event. It is staged annually across the five PBR countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and United States. National team riders are matched against the best of each. The home country is granted a competitive advantage. It is a series that visits each nation each year and continues until one nation holds all five pieces of the Global Cup—including the native soil of each territory. Thus, only one country can claim The Toughest Nation on Dirt.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: On November 5, 2021, a new series of competitions was announced: the PBR Team Series. The series debuted in 2022 and will run from the summer to autumn of every year. The teams and their respective owners were announced on January 6, 2022, while the Team Series schedule was later announced on March 4 of that year. In said series, there are eight teams representing different regions of the United States which go head-to-head against each other in events in each of the teams’ respective hometowns, as well as a few “neutral site” events. The team with the highest total combined points among its riders after the conclusion of each event is the champion. The season culminates with a championship event which is held at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The year-end champion team wins a $700,000 bonus and a trophy shaped like a giant belt buckle. Each individual member of the champion team also wins a $150,000 bonus and a regular-sized championship gold buckle.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The trophy cup that the PBR’s annual individual world champion receives in addition to the gold buckle and money bonus was originally called the Bud Light Cup from 1994 to 2002. However, when Bud Light was no longer the elite series’ title sponsor by 2003, it was renamed simply as the PBR Cup, then as the PBR Championship Trophy in 2019. In 2022, the trophy cup was officially renamed the Jerome Robinson Cup, in honor of legendary bull rider and longtime PBR arena director Jerome Robinson, who passed away early in the year.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In September 2022, it was announced that the PBR Hall of Fame would open in Spring 2023 at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma within the museum’s American Rodeo Gallery and would expand to be completed by 2024 or 2025.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: More than 500 cowboys from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and other countries hold PBR memberships, and compete in PBR-sanctioned events in the five mentioned countries. At the end of each season, the PBR world champion receives a $1 million bonus, trophy cup, and championship gold belt buckle.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The PBR has become one of the most globally successful television sports programs. The PBR Premier Series in the United States is televised on CBS, CBS Sports Network, and other networks around the globe. PBR television broadcasts now reach half a billion households in 130 territories around the world. A new digital network named RidePass that started in February 2018 as a subscription-based streaming service before switching to a free, ad-supported streaming channel on Pluto TV in July 2021 adds hundreds of hours of PBR bull riding and other western sports to anytime availability in the United States. PBR’s international tours in Canada, Brazil, and Australia are televised in their respective countries. Since November 2022, American PBR events are streamed outside the U.S. on the "PBR Live" channel on the streaming service Recast.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Total viewership, including event attendees and the television audience, grew 52 percent between 2002 and 2004. In 2004, 16.4 million fans watched or attended a PBR event. By 2008, over 100 million watched the PBR on television, and over 1.7 million attended a live event. In 1995, roughly 310,000 fans attended an event. Now, around 3 million fans attend a live event.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: A qualified ride is worth up to 100 points. That is, 50 points for the rider and 50 points for the bull when he successfully rides the bull for 8 seconds. An event has four judges, all former bull riders themselves. Each judge may award up to 25 points. Two judges score the rider, and two judges score the bull. All of the judges' scores are tallied together. That figure is divided by two for the official score. One-half of the possible score is based on the bull's performance. The two judges score the bull on how rank (difficult to ride) he is. Two judges score the rider on how proficient he is. The rider has to stay on top of the bull for 8 seconds. The rider has to ride with one free hand. He is disqualified if he touches himself or the bull with his free arm. Any ride that is scored 90 points or higher is deemed exceptional. The highest score in the PBR is 98.75 points. Each Premier Series event always has four judges. At the end of each event, the top 12 riders compete in the Championship Round; the rider with the highest point total from the entire event becomes the champion.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The PBR started their inaugural championship season in 1994 with one tour. Today, it offers five tours in the United States. Eligibility of contestants at each level is based on previous performance.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The Premier Series is where the best riders and bulls compete, and it culminates at the PBR World Finals at the end of the regular season. Due to sponsorship changes, the Premier Series has had different titles throughout its history. It was known as the Bud Light Cup Series (BLC) from 1994 to 2002, the Built Ford Tough Series (BFTS) from 2003 to 2017, and since 2018 has been known as the Unleash the Beast Series (UTB).


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The PBR World Finals were held in Las Vegas, Nevada for over a quarter century. They were held at the city’s MGM Grand Garden Arena from 1994 to 1998, the Thomas & Mack Center from 1999 to 2015, and T-Mobile Arena from 2016 to 2019. In 2020, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the World Finals were relocated to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The World Finals returned to Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena for the final time in 2021.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In the past, the Premier Series schedule lasted the regular calendar year, with the concluding PBR World Finals taking place in the autumn. However, by 2022, the Premier Series schedule was shortened, running from winter to spring. Also, the PBR World Finals now take place at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 1995, the PBR launched the Touring Pro Division; a minor league tour that allowed riders to compete at lower-level events to work their way up to the elite series. In 2000, the Touring Pro Division was renamed as the Challenger Tour. In subsequent years, the PBR would launch other lower-level tours: the Enterprise Tour and the Discovery Tour. Money won on these two tours counted towards the Challenger Tour standings. On January 1, 2010, the PBR announced the discontinuation of the Enterprise and Discovery tours and the Challenger Tour was changed back to its original title of the Touring Pro Division.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The Touring Pro Division schedule used to last throughout the regular calendar year. However, as of 2022, like the Premier Series, now runs from winter through spring.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: From 1995 to 2012, the year-end champion of this tour was the rider who won the most money throughout the season. From 2013 to 2021, it was the rider who won the most points throughout the season. Throughout its history, the finals event for this tour was held respectively in different locations such as Guthrie, Oklahoma; Denver, Colorado; Columbus, Ohio; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Atlanta, Georgia. 2009 was the last year that this tour had a season-ending finals event.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Since 2014, The Velocity Tour features young and up-coming talent competing against the established talent of the sport, bringing events to cities across the United States that are not included in the Premier Series. Every winner of a Velocity Tour regular-season event is seeded at one Premier Series event during the season, and if that rider wins enough points at the Premier Series event, he has the chance to earn a full-time spot in said tour.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The Velocity Tour Finals take place a few days before the start of the PBR World Finals. During its first year in 2014, there was no Velocity Tour finals event, and the year-end champion was the rider who won the most points throughout the season after the completion of the last event of the year. However, there has been a Velocity Tour Finals since 2015. The first Velocity Tour Finals in said year was held at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky. From 2016 to 2019, the Velocity Tour Finals took place at the South Point Hotel Arena & Equestrian Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2020, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the finals were moved to the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The 2021 Velocity Tour Finals returned to the South Point Hotel Arena & Equestrian Center in Las Vegas for the final time. In 2022, the Velocity Tour Finals moved to the American Bank Center Arena in Corpus Christi, Texas to be held in conjunction with the World Champions Rodeo Alliance (WCRA) sanctioned Rodeo Corpus Christi, and like the Unleash the Beast Series and Touring Pro Division, the Velocity Tour now takes place from winter to spring after having previously taken place throughout the regular calendar year and concluding in the autumn.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Debuting in 2022, the PBR Team Series features eight teams of bull riders competing against each other. In its inaugural season, there were two pre-season events. They were then followed by ten regular season events, including eight of them taking place in each respective team’s hometowns, as well as two “neutral site” events. The season culminates with a championship event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The PBR Team Series runs from the summer to autumn of every year.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Also new in 2022, the Challenger Series runs from the summer through autumn and works as a way for riders to compete at PBR events in the United States as stand-alones during the Team Series season. Riders that are members of a Team Series squad can compete at Challenger Series events when there is not a Team Series event scheduled on the same weekend. This tour also works as a series of scouting events for Team Series managements looking to add riders as alternates to their teams in cases of riders on the protected rosters getting injured or in cases of riders getting traded to different teams.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The Challenger Series Championship takes place at the South Point Arena & Equestrian Center in Las Vegas, Nevada; one day before the start of the PBR Team Series Championship at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Since 2006, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and Mexico have each had their own PBR tours and finals events that crown year-end champions for each respective country. In 2014, a PBR-sanctioned event was held in New Zealand.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Note: Previously, points won by riders at all levels of PBR competition, American and international, counted towards the world standings for the PBR world championship. However, beginning in 2023, only points won on the U.S. Premier Series will count towards the world championship race. Points won on the U.S. lower-level tours and international circuits leading up to and including the Velocity Tour Finals will be jumbled together into what is now known as the Velocity Global standings, which will count towards the Velocity Tour championship race.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: 1993-2002: The Nashville Network (TNN) began televising a small number of PBR-sanctioned events in 1993. The following year, the PBR had its first official season that included a year-end world finals event with TNN remaining the organization's official channel. TNN changed its name from The Nashville Network to The National Network late in the 2000 season. After the 2001 season, a special PBR event, the Bud Light World Challenge (which would be a precursor to the PBR’s World Cup, and eventually Global Cup) was televised on NBC. The last regular season event of 2002 was televised on CBS. TNN remained the PBR elite series’ primary channel through the 2002 PBR World Finals.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: 2003-2012: The PBR was now primarily televised on the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) with select events being televised on NBC. From 2003 to 2006, select events were also televised on Telemundo. OLN televised the 2004 PBR Challenger Tour Finals. In the middle of the 2006 season, OLN changed its name to Versus and it remained the PBR's primary channel through the 2011 season. The championship round of the last regular season event of 2007 was televised on Fox. Versus televised the 2007 and 2008 Challenger Series Finals. In the summer of 2008, the PBR Team Shootout, a series of five events in which duo teams of riders competed against each other was televised, with the four regular events being televised on ESPN2, while the championship event was televised on ESPN. In 2012, CBS Sports Network became the PBR's primary channel, while CBS broadcast network televised the 15/15 Bucking Battles; a new competition that featured the top 15 PBR riders at the time of competition against 15 of the top PBR bulls in a select regular-season elite series event that gave the riders an opportunity to earn additional points. That same year, Versus became NBC Sports Network and select PBR events were also televised on said channel.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: 2013-present: CBS Sports Network televises the regular-season Premier Series events and the World Finals, while CBS broadcast network televises the 15/15 Bucking Battles. In 2018, the PBR launched "RidePass"; its own subscription-based video-on-demand service that live-streams PBR events, as well as PBR-produced events for other western sport organizations. From 2018 to 2020, PBR events were also live-streamed on the subscription-based video-on-demand service, FloRodeo, owned by FloSports. In the summer of 2021, "RidePass" went from a subscription-based streaming service to a free, ad-supported streaming channel on Pluto TV. PBR content on Pluto TV is available through the "PBR RidePass" linear channel, as well as on demand. Since 2022, PBR events have also been streamed on Paramount+. Also, beginning that year, the PBR Team Series has been televised on CBS Sports Network, CBS broadcast network, and streamed on Pluto TV and Paramount+. Some events of the PBR Challenger Series are also streamed on Pluto TV.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Note: The PBR’s international tours in Canada, Brazil, and Australia are televised in their respective countries. Since November 2022, U.S. PBR events are streamed abroad on the "PBR Live" channel on the streaming service Recast.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The PBR web site tracks many statistics regarding the performances of bull riders and bulls during the season and throughout its history. There is the 90-Points Club, which has been tracking rides that have been scored over 90 points since 1998. Then there is the high marked bull ride statistic, which has been tracked for many seasons. Each season it tracks the highest bull scores throughout and until the Finals have concluded. And then there is the all time money earners statistic, which tallies the bull riders in order of who has earned the most money in their careers. Additionally, the success rate for an 8-second ride was 46 percent in 1995, had dropped to 26 percent by 2012, then climbed roughly 3 percent to about 29 percent for 2017 and 2018. This lower modern rate has been attributed to the selective breeding of bulls.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2002, the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company developed the original 90 Point Club. Each contestant who scored 90 or more at a Bud Light Cup Series event shared in bonus money of $90,000. The money was distributed after the World Finals event. It was divided equally by all the qualified rides. The competitor with the most 90 point rides received an additional bonus of $10,000. That competitor also became the 90 Point Club Champion. In 2003, it was added that for each 90 point ride that a bull makes, the stock contractor received $1,000. For that $1,000, half came from the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company and the other half came from B&W Hitches.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The first statistic kept is the most 90 points rides since 1998. Chris Shivers has held first place for a very long time with 94 rides. J.B. Mauney holds second place with 75 rides. Justin McBride is at third place at 74 rides. Jose Vitor Leme holds fourth place with 60 rides, and Guilherme Marchi is at fifth place with 51. Shivers, McBride and Marchi are all retired, and since 2021, Mauney no longer rides in the PBR, so all their numbers will stay the same. New for 2018 was the most 90 point rides for the year and the contractor 90 point rides for the year. Lastly, are the historic 90 points rides trailing all the way back to 1998. They are ordered by the highest to lowest ride score. The rides list the rider, the bull, the contractor, the location, and the ride score.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: These statistics keep track of the current season's elite tour event's high marked bulls. B.O.T. stands for buck off time. Each event has a high-marked bull. The top 100 bulls scores are also tracked here.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The perfect score in bull riding is 100 points. For several years, the highest score in the PBR was 96.5 points, which was achieved four times. The mark was originally set by Bubba Dunn, who rode Promise Land (owned by Terry Williams) at the 1999 Bud Light Cup event in Tampa, Florida. The record was later tied in 2000 by Chris Shivers, who rode Jim Jam (owned by Logan & Williams) also at the Bud Light Cup event in Tampa. Shivers would repeat the score in 2001 when he rode Dillinger (owned by Herrington Cattle Company) in Las Vegas, Nevada at the PBR World Finals. The most recent 96.5 point ride was in 2004, when Michael Gaffney rode Little Yellow Jacket (owned by Berger Bucking Bulls) at the Built Ford Tough Series event in Nampa, Idaho.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2021, new records for third highest, second highest, and highest scored rides in PBR history were all set on the same bull, Woopaa (owned by Barker Bucking Bulls and Hookin’ W Ranch). The new record for highest scored ride was originally set in the summer, when Jose Vitor Leme rode Woopaa for 97.75 points at the Unleash the Beast event in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A new record for second-highest score in PBR history was later set in the autumn when Dalton Kasel rode Woopaa for 96.75 points at the Unleash the Beast event in San Antonio, Texas. The record for highest scored ride in PBR history was later broken at the World Finals when Jose Vitor Leme rode Woopaa for 98.75 points.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Even though riders receive no score if they buck off their bulls before the required eight seconds, bulls receive scores for every outing, with the perfect bull score being 50 points. The highest bull score in PBR history, 49 points, was achieved twice, with the first time being in 2000 when Hercules (owned by Flying U/Rosser Rodeo) bucked off Gilbert Carrillo at the Bud Light Cup event in Portland, Oregon, and again when Hammer (owned by Tony Sharp and Zaunbrecher) bucked off Cory Rasch at the 2003 Built Ford Tough Series event in Uncasville, Connecticut.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: The all time moneys show off the PBR's claim that they have changed bull riding into a real sport that does more than just pay the riders' fees. PBR bull riders make a true living, and many are millionaires several times over. Two-time world champion J.B. Mauney has earned the most money of any rider at over $7.4 million. He is followed by three-time world champion Silvano Alves at over $6.5 million, and in third place is two-time world champion Jose Vitor Leme with over $5.5 million.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Starting with the 2000 season, this challenge sponsored by the Mossy Oak camouflage brand was a bonus ride that was featured during first night of each two-day BLC/BFTS event. The Shoot Out matched up the event's first-round winner against a prearranged bucking bull. The rider had to make a qualified ride to win the Mossy Oak Shootout bonus. In the event that he failed, $5,000 would be added to the bounty, and the new amount would be offered at the next two-day event's Mossy Oak Shoot Out. The bonus capped out at $100,000, and when a rider made the whistle and collected his bonus, the bounty was then reset to $5,000 at the next event. If the rider made a qualified ride, he was given a score, but those points did not count towards the world standings.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Justin McBride was the first rider to successfully conquer his bull and receive the Mossy Oak Shootout bonus by riding Freckles for $15,000 in Greensboro, North Carolina in 2000. Later that same year, McBride successfully rode Rampage for $30,000 in Houston, Texas. Other notable winners of the Shoot Out included Chris Shivers who won $5,000 on Dillinger (Fort Worth, Texas; 2000), Ross Coleman who racked in $100,000 on Tuff-E-Nuff (Columbus, Ohio; 2001), Jim Sharp who banked $85,000 on Dillinger (Fort Worth, Texas; 2002), Owen Washburn who collected $90,000 on Hammer (Bossier City, Louisiana; 2003), Wiley Petersen who netted $20,000 on Ace of Hearts (Billings, Montana; 2003), Ednei Caminhas who earned $65,000 on Red Alert (Tacoma, Washington; 2004), and Guilherme Marchi who captured $90,000 on Scene of the Crash (Greensboro, North Carolina; 2006). This challenge was discontinued after 2006.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In this challenge sponsored by Ford Trucks which started in 2001, the average leader going into a BLC/BFTS Championship Round got a chance to win $5,000. If this leading rider won the event, he also won the "Ford Truck Moment of Truth" bonus money. If the average leader did not win, however, the prize money increased by $5,000. This repeated until a bull rider was successful. After a rider won the money, the whole pool started over again.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Circa 2003, there was a contest where Wrangler Jeans used to reward the rider with the highest marked ride at the majority of BFTS events. If there was a tie, both riders were awarded.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: This challenge gave the top 45 bull riders an opportunity to compete for a $1 million bonus. One elite bull rider won a Ford Super Duty truck and one won a $1 million bonus through the achievement of performance milestones. The bull riders competed at seven pre-determined BFTS events. Winners of these events became eligible for incentives. A bull rider who won two or more events became eligible for to win the $1 million bonus and had to win the 2005 PBR BFTS Finals event. The bull rider that finished the highest in the event aggregate won the Super Duty Truck. Adriano Moraes drove away with the 2005 Ford Super Duty Truck.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: From 2007 to 2010, the rider who won the previous round at a regular season BFTS event was offered the chance to win $5,000 courtesy of Enterprise Rent-A-Car if he successfully rode a randomly selected bull in the next round. If the rider failed to make a qualified ride, the $5,000 went to the bull’s stock contractor.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: Circa 2010, the High Mark Bull Bonus sponsored by Salem National Lease was paid to the stock contractor of the bull. The bonus was designated to the bull who received the high bull score at each BFTS event. The bonus amount was a weekly amount of $1,250. The PBR World Finals were excluded.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: In 2010, this challenge sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation was added. It was a season long challenge. All BFTS events and the World Finals were included. Cody Lambert selected three bulls from every long round. If the bull bucked the rider off, the stock contractor received one point. If the rider achieved a successful ride, the rider received a point. The winners of the Challenge, the top three riders and stock contractors with the most points received an RMEF outdoor adventure of their choice, which happened at the end of the season.


title: Professional Bull Riders

text: lists the Ring of Honor, Brand of Honor, Sharon Shoulders Award, Jim Shoulders Lifetime Achievement Award, and Ty Murray Top Hand Award. The Ring of Honor for bull riders is equivalent to a hall of fame induction.


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: "Only Girl (In the World)" is a song by Barbadian singer Rihanna from her fifth album, "Loud" (2010). Serving as the album's lead single, it was released on September 10, 2010. Crystal Johnson wrote the song in collaboration with producers Stargate and Sandy Vee. Rihanna contacted Stargate before "Loud" production and asked them to create lively, uptempo music. "Only Girl (In the World)" was the first song composed for the album, and the singer decided to include it on the track list before she recorded her vocals. Backed by strong bass and synthesizer, it is a dance-pop and Eurodance song that has an electronic composition. Its lyrics describe Rihanna demanding physical attention from her lover.


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: Critical response to "Only Girl (In the World)" was positive; a number of critics praised its composition and Rihanna's decision to move away from the dark themes of her previous album, "Rated R" (2009). The song reached number one on the United States' "Billboard" Hot 100 chart two weeks after "Loud" second single, "What's My Name?", peaked at number one. It was the first time in the chart's history that an album's lead single reached number one after its second single. In the United Kingdom the song spent two weeks at number one and is the 19th-bestselling single of all time by a female artist, with over a million copies sold. The song peaked at number one in Australia, Austria, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland, and reached the top five in France, Germany and Switzerland.


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: Rihanna performed "Only Girl (In the World)" on "Saturday Night Live" in the United States, "The X Factor" in the United Kingdom and a shortened version at the 31st Brit Awards. Anthony Mandler directed the song's music video, in which Rihanna is alone in an open natural landscape. The video suggests that she is the only female in the world, echoing the song's title and lyrics, and critics praised its bright, colorful theme. "Only Girl (In the World)" won the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Recording at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2011.


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: "Only Girl (In the World)" was written by Crystal Johnson with the song's producers, Stargate and Sandy Vee. Rihanna had previously worked with Stargate on the singles "Hate That I Love You", "Don't Stop the Music" and "Rude Boy". In February 2011, Stargate said that Rihanna approached the Norwegian production duo before she began recording the then-untitled project, saying that she wanted to have fun and produce happy, uptempo songs. According to Tor Erik Hermansen of Stargate, "Only Girl (In the World)" was the first song created for "Loud" and Rihanna decided to include it on the album before recording her vocals. In a webchat with fans, Rihanna said that she wanted to take the next step as an artist: "I didn't want to go backward and remake "Good Girl Gone Bad". I wanted the next step in the evolution of Rihanna, and it's perfect for us. You guys are always defending me, so now you've got some great songs to justify it." The singer described "Only Girl (In the World)" as having a "bigger sound" than "Rude Boy".


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: The song was recorded during Rihanna's Last Girl on Earth tour. Its instrumental was recorded by Mikkel Storleer Eriksen of Stargate and Miles Walker at Roc the Mic Studios in New York City and Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, and by Vee at the Bunker in Paris. Kuk Harrell produced Rihanna's vocals, recording them with Josh Gudwin and Marcos Tovar. Inaam Haq, Dane Liska and Brad Shea recorded additional vocals. The song was mixed by Phil Tan at the Ninja Beat Club in Atlanta and by Vee at The Bunker, with engineering by Damien Lewis. Eriksen, Vee and Hermansen provided the instrumentation, and Johnson sang background vocals.


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: "Only Girl (In the World)" is a Eurodance and dance-pop song. It is in the key of F minor (B minor in the chorus), and written in common time with a moderate tempo of 126 beats per minute. Its instrumentation includes synthesizers, a "heavy whipping bass" and a "strobing" electro beat. Brad Wete of "Entertainment Weekly" described the song as a "stronger, sexier" version of her 2007 single, "Don't Stop the Music".


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: Rihanna's voice spans one-and-a-half octaves in "Only Girl (In the World)", from F to C, and her vocal has a "silky", "seductive" tone. In the song's lyrics Rihanna yearns for her lover's attention, which makes her feel like the only girl in the world. The singer "pours her heart out" in the chorus: "Want you to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world/ Like I'm the only one that you'll ever love/ Like I'm the only one who knows your heart/ Only girl in the world." According to Digital Spy writer Nick Levine, the chorus "thumps like a rabbit having an epileptic fit." Rihanna sings suggestively, "Baby, I'll tell you all my secrets that I'm keepin'/ You can come inside/ And when you enter, you ain't leavin'/ Be my prisoner for the night." Fraser McAlpine of the BBC compared the song's message to that of the German fairy tale "Rapunzel"; Rihanna is not willing to throw her hair out of the castle for just any man to come and satisfy her, "particularly not someone who isn't prepared to make the climb up to her scarily high window."


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: The song received a generally positive response from music critics. Gerrick D. Kennedy of the "Los Angeles Times" called the track a "surefire hit" and something of a "comeback". MTV News writer James Dinh praised the uptempo song, comparing it to the "stark" lead single "Russian Roulette" from Rihanna's previous "Rated R". Monica Herrera wrote for "Billboard" that "Only Girl (In the World)" "aims squarely for dance-floor domination." Nick Levine of Digital Spy gave the song four stars out of five, calling it a "crowd-pleaser" but not overly original.


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: According to Levine and Jim Farber of the "New York Daily News", "Only Girl (In the World)" was Rihanna's most pop-sounding song since "Don't Stop the Music". Analyzing the song, the BBC's Fraser McAlpine questioned why "Only Girl (In the World)" leaves a "positive impression" on the listener despite its arrogant, domineering tone. Critical at first ("Listen to the pneumatic hiss at the heart of this song. Try and endure the pumping thrust without getting winded. There is simply too much pressure being stuffed into our ears, with too much brutal force"), he concluded that Rihanna sings the song with great passion and gave it four stars out of five. James Dolan gave the song two-and-a-half stars out of five in "Rolling Stone", writing that "the trance beat won't keep you in the club unless someone else is paying for the drinks."


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: In the United States, "Only Girl (In the World)" debuted at number 75 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 on September 25, 2010, jumping to number three the following week, before peaking at number one (Rihanna's ninth) on November 25. "Loud" second single, "What's My Name?" (featuring Drake), topped the Hot 100 two weeks before; it was the first time in chart history that an album's first single reached number one after its second. "Only Girl (In the World)" was Rihanna's fourth number-one song of 2010, and she was the first female and the first artist since Usher (in 2004) with four number-one singles in a calendar year. The singer also had the most number-one singles (nine) since 2000. "Only Girl (In the World)" appeared on the "Billboard" Hot 100 year-end chart in 2010 and 2011 at numbers 47 and 40, respectively.


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: The song debuted on the Digital Songs chart at number one with sales of 249,000, Rihanna's eighth number-one single and her sixth to debut atop the chart (the most in both categories by any artist since the chart's 2005 introduction). The singer set a Mainstream Top 40 (Pop Songs) radio-airplay chart record when "Only Girl (In the World)" rose from number two to number one on November 25, 2010, her seventh number-one. The song was number 46 and number 33, respectively, on the 2011 "Billboard" Digital Songs and Pop Songs year-end charts. "Only Girl (In the World)" was Rihanna's twelfth number-one on the Dance Club Songs songs chart and number 46 on the 2010 "Billboard" year-end chart. The song has been certified six times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and has sold 3.6 million copies in the US as of June 2015. In Canada, "Only Girl (In the World)" debuted at number 65 on September 25, 2010, and rose to number one for a week the following week. On November 6 the song returned to number one for three consecutive weeks, remaining on the chart for a total of 35 weeks.


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: In the United Kingdom "Only Girl (In the World)" debuted at number two on the UK Singles Chart on October 31, 2010, with 126,000 copies sold. Cheryl Cole debuted at number one with "Promise This", selling 157,000 copies, and Cole and Rihanna had the highest and second-highest debut sales figures of the year. The song rose to number one the next week for two consecutive weeks. It was Rihanna's fourth UK number-one single, following "Umbrella" (2007), "Take a Bow" (2008) and "Run This Town" (2009). By December 2011 "Only Girl (In the World)" was the 108th song to sell more than a million copies in the United Kingdom, the fifteenth by a female artist, Rihanna's first as primary artist and second overall; the 107th million-seller was Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie" six weeks before, on which Rihanna was featured.


title: Only Girl (In the World)

text: Rihanna was the second non-United Kingdom, non-North American million-selling artist; the first was Danish singer Whigfield with her 1994 song, "Saturday Night". Although at the time the only other female two-song million-seller was Canadian singer Celine Dion, two of Rihanna's subsequent singles—"We Found Love" (2011) and "Diamonds" (2012)—have also sold more than a million copies each. "Only Girl (In the World)" is the nineteenth-bestselling single by a female artist and the 99th overall of all time in the United Kingdom. The song was the fourth- and 68th-bestselling single, respectively, of 2010 and 2011. Certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for shipments exceeding 600,000 copies, it has sold 1,080,000 copies. "Only Girl (In the World)" peaked at number one on the UK Single Downloads Chart and the Scottish Singles Chart.