Rihanna - Rated R [The Wait Is Ova... November 23rd '09]

http://i34.tinypic.com/wjtcf8.jpg

I can't be the only one who's ridiculously excited for this album.

have we spoken about "Russian Roulette" yet? It's kind of low-key and understated for a lead single but I think it sets the tone for the album/era really well...

BTW the second single is "The Wait Is Ova" produced by Chase & Status (some UK dubstep guys that I'm not familiar with):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCS3kvBZs8A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtSKx7IYBs0

'Russian Roulette' is great and huge and great.

Is it really that hard to spell 'over' correctly?

i think "russian roulette" is hella boring but "the wait is ova" sounds dope, kinda wish they didn't repeat the title so much, seems out of place kinda, but way better than 'russian roulette'

Yeah "Russian Roulette" isn't the most exciting song - especially for a first single - but like I said I think it sets the mood/tone for this era really nicely. This really dark, tense, almost macabre sort of sound and image she's flirting with... there's hints of industrial and gothic influences.... it's really cool! Apparenly "Run This Town" was supposed to be a solo Rihanna track for this album, so when you take that into consideration as well as "Russian Roulette", the snippet of "The Wait is Ova" and her recent promotional photos:

http://i35.tinypic.com/2hova5s.jpg

http://i33.tinypic.com/wbaqv6.jpg

you get an idea of what she's going for this era, and I'm quite excited for it. This year has been so boring to me pop-wise lol

oh and Dream/Tricky only have one song on this album btw

someone on PopJustice compared "Russian Roulette" to Madonna's "Live To Tell"... and the more I think about it the more that comparison makes total sense.

that 1st pic is stunning

it's from her Vogue Italia editorial, shot by Meisel. The whole thing is brilliant.

makes sense.

http://i33.tinypic.com/2q8ugyh.jpg

http://i34.tinypic.com/20kvp6w.jpg

loooooooove the top one

it looks like blackface

a blackface tucan

Rihanna’s new music is so top secret that even Tricky Stewart doesn’t know if he will have the album’s first single. The hitman behind “Umbrella” spoke exclusively with Rap-Up.com again to reveal the monstrous results of his recording sessions with the superstar.

RAP-UP: Rihanna’s fourth album has a release date of November 23.
TRICKY: Yes, yes.

RAP-UP: Last time we spoke, you hadn’t yet recorded with her. What became of your studio sessions?
TRICKY: I can’t talk about what happened, but it’s really good for me *laughs*. We delivered a very, very big record, but I can’t say what the name of it is or anything, just for the simple fact that it’s actually top secret. It’s definitely going to be a single. It’s either going to be the first or the second single. I do know that.

RAP-UP: So you produced the new song and The-Dream wrote it. Is anyone featured on it?
TRICKY: Yes. I can say it’s a rapper. I’m not gonna say who *laughs*.

RAP-UP: Is the track uptempo?
TRICKY: Yes, it’s uptempo. It’s a club banger and it’s edgy.

RAP-UP: Would you say it’s bigger than “Umbrella”?
TRICKY: No, it’s different. It’s a superstar taking a step in a totally different direction. This album is different than her past works.

RAP-UP: How so?
TRICKY: It’s just an artist at work. This is Rihanna coming into her own and going from being a girl that has been singing big, huge hit records, and the artist is awake and alive and moving on this project. She knows exactly what she wants to say, she knows how she wants to feel. It was an amazing experience working with her and just really getting into her headspace of what she wanted to do.

RAP-UP: When will we be able to hear the first single?
TRICKY: Everything’s about to happen really fast, so it’s not gonna be long. It’s gonna be here in the next couple days.

RAP-UP: How many songs did you record with her?
TRICKY: Right now, it’s just the one, but it’s a monster song. And really when it’s all said and done, all we had was “Umbrella” on the last one, so if it’s like that, I’m cool with that. [Editor's note: Tricky and The-Dream also produced "Breakin' Dishes" off Good Girl Gone Bad.]

RAP-UP: Was it different working with her this time versus last time?
TRICKY: Yeah, it’s always different because once everyone gets bigger, it’s even harder just to get everybody in the room. We ended up going over to Paris andworking over there, coming to New York—it’s been a lot of flying around for one song.

RAP-UP: What else can you tell us?
TRICKY: Her album is crazy and she’s really just stepped up her game as an artist—not stepped up, but there’s an artist at work.

RAP-UP: Do you know who else she collaborated with on the project?
TRICKY: I know she wrote some songs with Ne-Yo. Ne-Yo has some great songs on there. She’s even being secretive with the music of the other producers too.

RAP-UP: Is she writing anything herself?
TRICKY: I really don’t know. I think she probably did write on some of these songs. She’s definitely lending her leadership.

RAP-UP: Everyone knows Rihanna for her fearless fashion. Is that going to translate into her music?
TRICKY: Yeah, definitely. I could say that. The attitude of the fashion and the attitude of the music—that’s what she’s into. It’s gonna be a complete vision.

sorry, not tucan, a quetzel

http://www.viaturtravel.net/Portals/0/Quetzal1.jpg

not that i wouldn't smash, but you know

i agree that the image & feel is dope - "the wait is ova" is pretty tantalizing, just wish that "russian roulette" 'set the mood' in a way that wasn't as boring as it is

Editor's note: Tricky and The-Dream also produced "Breakin' Dishes" off Good Girl Gone Bad.

argh, thought Timbaland did that one

nah Timbo only did "Lemme Get That," "Sell Me Candy," and "Rehab"

"sell me candy" is the best song on that cd, "umbrella" aside

hope Rihanna remix Hamster on a piano on this

lol @ "breakin dishes" slipping terius' mind. don't blame him!

i like rihanna's ballads a lot more than her bangers, "russian roulette" has grown to incredible on me

it was Tricky not Terius and I'm pretty sure he meant "Umbrella" was their only big single off the album and the interviewer misunderstood that he meant the whole album when adding that pedantic note

breaking dishes was pretty great, tho

http://i33.tinypic.com/24cioia.jpg

O-M-G.

These photos are amazing...like a Grace Jones you can hang out with.

that clip of "the wait is ova" sounds awful -- is that what dubstep sounds like? ugh

lolll

dudes are drum'n'bass producers who crossed over to dubstep recently, they're pretty awful but very successful. Snoop dogg used a beat of theirs for this shite single earlier in the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iOp-C1hQ8k

grace jones called, etc

""sell me candy" is the best song on that cd, "umbrella" aside"

You're insane.

it's a good album cover, but i'm growing slightly weary of this look as a whole -- feels the slightest bit tried.

that's a quick turnaround, ramz

maybe "wary" is a better word than "weary"

i'm not tired of it yet but i'm apprehensive

i mean, previously all i said was i like the fotos, and i still do -- and i do really like the album cover. but it certainly doesn't feel particularly fresh or new

(and isn't it supposed to??)

It doesn't feel "new" per se, but I like her references and the people she's working with to construct her image (Ellen Von Euwerth - who did the album cover -, Anothony Mandler, etc.). Nightclubbing/Slave To Rhythm-era Grace Jones meets Rhythm Nation-era Janet with her own litte twist on it.

Unwerth**

yeah i'm being picky. it also carries a certain amount of potency when considered in light of recent events. i guess a part of me wished for something a little less formulaic, a little more fresh, for lack of a better word. i keep thinking "sunny dominatrix" woulda been great. but for what this is, it's executed really well

lol at wikipedia

Rihanna then continued recording the album with production duo Chase & Status. After listening one of their track, "Saxon," Rihanna got in contact with Chase & Status and wanted to work with them because she loved the feel of the drums and wanted a similar thing for her album.[35] They had a pair of sessions with Rihanna and worked together for a few weeks in an undisclosed location.[35] Chase & Status worked with her on songs that had a dubstep vibe, although whenever Rihanna didn't like something she would let them know.[3] On one of the tracks, Rihanna had came up with a cool melody and cool idea to give the song the kind of vibe she wanted.[3]

The new single sucks -- sounds like a Beyonce castoff.

ahh exciting shit that interview with tricky

I cannot buy the idea that Rihanna is in any way an active participant in the crafting of her music, videos or style. If she has all this personality and insight I have no idea why she hides it so well.

I don't think she takes a primary hand in songwriting on most of her tracks, and she definitely comes across as kind of blank as a persona, but I tend to believe she's pretty hands on with her image and style, if only because if Def Jam or whoever was dictating that stuff she'd probably just look like a standard R&B chick and not all gothed out.

She has writing credits all over her first two albums, GGGB is the only album she didn't write on btw... and she did co-write "Disturbia" and has co-writing credit on "Russian Roulette" so.... the whole "blank slate" thing may not be so true afterall.

they'd still be marketing her as a pseudo-exotic precocious island girl

yeah she's definitely in control in terms of her image/style, her whole persona is kind of "detached" though, I think that's her schtick or whatever

i think she has an idea of where to go with her image & probably lets professionals take care of it after that - she definitely doesn't seem to have any ideas besides the general launching pad like gaga does

yeah by "blank persona" i definitely meant more detached or unknowable, rather than vapid or being puppeteered by whomever -- i mean i've heard her songs probably as much as any other pop star in the past 3 years and i still don't have the slightest idea what her speaking voice really sounds like or what her sense of humor's like, etc. for better or worse it's kinda cool, like the polar opposite of the all the girls who ostensibly are singers but are mostly just all over TV and blogs talking shit or getting into trouble.

yeah she's definitely in control in terms of her image/style, her whole persona is kind of "detached" though, I think that's her schtick or whatever

Which is why it makes 100% sense that she'd cop Grace Jones moves.

Though actually the vibe/look made me think of the Aaliyah of "We Need A Resolution"/"I Can Be"/"What If" first and foremost.

Rihanna did not have anything to do with writing Disturbia, it wasn't even her song originally; it was written by Chris Brown & co. and he ended up giving it to her.

I'm not going to debate how involved in her career Rihanna is since none of us are in her inner circle and can confirm anything, personally I don't immediately see the benefit in coming off as blank and vapid but maybe the marketing geniuses at her label know better. Once she loses her hookup to amazing producers and writers she's fucked, while someone like Beyonce will be able to coast on their charisma until they start collecting their social security checks.

Beyonce's an android, too, she's just a much more efficient and convincing one

beyonce's megastar status has as much to do with her coasting on the success & fanbase built by destiny's child as it does anything of her own doing

Beyonce is a lot more boring than Rihanna is

obv she's made good music since then & has probably cultivated a larger fanbase because of it but when she shows up at the 2025 grammy's to collaborate with whoever is the contemporary megastar singer it's not going to be because she's been coasting on a charisma that someone like rihanna doesn't have, it's just going to be because she has been so entrenched in the business

like if you switch the whole careers of amerie & beyonce but they keep their personalities & savvy & all that, is amerie the world tour headliner married to jay-z and is beyonce the relative one-hit wonder?

I don't think either Beyonce or Rihanna are boring/vapid really. "Boring" and "vapid" are way over-applied adjectives w/r/t mainstream female R&B anyway. The number of artists who don't get lumped with this claim (Jasmine Sullivan? Kelis? Keyshia Cole? Alicia Keys?) seems to be less than the number who do.

u guys are making a lot of huuge statements here!

i will definitely say that it seems like beyonce is more of a natural and talented entertainer than rihanna. what's really real, who the fuck knows.

however, i do think it's very odd to say that she is 1) a lot more boring than rihanna or 2) that she's coasting on destiny's child fame. she has been very uniquely impressive with each of her albums since then.

yep that's what i got

i dont really follow
xp j

Alicia Keys is the poster girl for boring!!

and jordan i'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around your amerie metaphor thing....

yeah i read the question as "if you switched their careers, would amerie have beyonce's career and would beyonce have amerie's career?"...yes?

well, i'm not saying that she's coasting wholly on the back of destiny's child - obv kelly rowland has no career to speak of (in the US at least) but it no doubt helped cement her as a megastar

i'm saying, if beyonce breaks in with "one thing" and amerie with "crazy in love" on the back of destiny's child, do they have each other's careers? ie does beyonce have anything inherent that amerie does not?

that's so odd to me that you still even think of her in those terms. i've always seen her as someone who was able to distinguish herself on her own terms with tremendous veracity

In answer to Jordan's question:

I think, probably, yes, Beyonce would have been more successful than Amerie has been (though not as much as Beyonce has been, not nearly). Beyonce conveys character better than Amerie I think. Amerie's greatness is the greatness of amazing vocal arrangements and delivery and production and songs but I don't think any of those really suggest as much about her as Beyonce can seemingly without trying on songs as disparate as "Survivor", "Baby Boy" and "Irreplaceable".

At the same time it's hard to say because I don't think Amerie has ever prospered as a singles artist away from her basic formula - it's hard to say whether and how well she would pull off those early Destiny's Child singles, say.

I find Beyonce boring because she doesn't take ANY risks whatsoever. I mean, I guess it can be said that she got to be where she is by making shrewd moves and playing it as safe as possible but I mean DAMN. At this point, you're BEYONCE - anything you put out will be a huge and have some sort of cultural impact, why not try to move the game forward? Why is it that "flops" like Cassie and Ciara make music that is far more interesting and forward-thinking than Beyonce, who has the best writers and producers and image-people at her disposal? I mean, I like Beyonce don't get me wrong, but she doesn't give me enough.

And yeah Alicia Keys is way boring as well, I'm glad her new single is flopping.

wait surm who are you talking about...isnt that what jordan is saying?

for me beyonce's just way better and has a back catalog that towers over amerie's so it's not even a contest, though i dig amerie

Beyonce has a relentless work ethic, I will give her that. That's really what has put her over the other girls. Amerie... I don't really get that drive from her, she's content in staying in her own niche.

i can't believe i'm entrenched in this conversation right now

i'm only skeptical of beyonce because i don't think she's that great of an artist - it's obv a bit a personal opinion - i lol'd as much as the next guy at rich fourfour's video of her concert dvd but i don't necessarily think her solo work warrants the status that she has attained as a solo entity

i was talking about beyonce... i thought jordan was saying that she was riding on the coattails of the past!

With Amerie's finest performances on her first album (still my favourite by her), say, "Need You Tonight", my constant thought is "congrats Amerie you have judged this performance perfectly, your taste and judgment is impeccable."

Whereas Beyonce, though much less prone to copping "intuitive" raggedyaretha soul moves, tends to sound more intuitive-in-fact.

i'm only skeptical of beyonce because i don't think she's that great of an artist - it's obv a bit a personal opinion - i lol'd as much as the next guy at rich fourfour's video of her concert dvd but i don't necessarily think her solo work warrants the status that she has attained as a solo entity

― a goon boy (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:34 AM (21 seconds ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyonc%C3%A9_Knowles_discography#Singles

yeah I totally agree with you jordan, Beyonce is always coming up short for me. She's the biggest diva of this era by default, kind of. She hasn't actually don't much that's particularly iconic or exciting.

i'm saying that beyonce had a built in fan base when she went solo - they hit it out of the park with "crazy in love" of course, but my basic point is that i'm not sure that beyonce becomes a huge star if not for what destiny's child provided for her (be it fan base or industry connects, w/e)

like, i think beyonce has had a much less interesting & obv different & independent solo career than justin timberlake

looking at justin's post-nsync career, i can see why he became a huge star and jc chasez & nick carter didn't - i'm not exactly sure why beyonce became the huge star and kelly rowland did not, aside from the fact that beyonce was chosen as the megastar once they decided to dissolve DC

now, maybe beyonce grew into a persona as her career progressed, but left to her own devices to become a star (as much as someone signed to a major can be left to their own devices) i'm not so sure that it happens - i wouldn't say the same for justin

Why is it that "flops" like Cassie and Ciara make music that is far more interesting and forward-thinking than Beyonce, who has the best writers and producers and image-people at her disposal?

This is apples and oranges surely. The biggest difference with Beyonce is the sound and the size of her voice. Cassie and Ciara don't really make more interesting and forward-thinking music than Beyonce, they just make a different style of R&B that overall has been a fixture for the last 10+ years but hasn't tended to sustain careers.

Also Cassie and Ciara do have the best writers and producers and image-people at their disposal.

xpost that should say "she hasn't actually done much..."

each artist has different strengths. beyonce seems to be really good at being a megastar!

i really think ur selling her short jordan. i mean, sure, question her talent or whatever - but she wasn't just CHOSEN to be a star for nothing. u can just choose someone like that, and make it work.

*u can't

looking at justin's post-nsync career, i can see why he became a huge star and jc chasez & nick carter didn't - i'm not exactly sure why beyonce became the huge star and kelly rowland did not, aside from the fact that beyonce was chosen as the megastar once they decided to dissolve DC

Kelly's a great singer but she doesn't have the vocal charisma of Beyonce.

Listen to say The Writing's On The Wall - Beyonce's voice just leaps out at you over and above the over three, and it's not just because she's given the lion's share of solo bits.

i think i agree with your basic point which is, if i'm reading you correctly, that there's a lot of factors that go into the making of a star in the r&b world. my position is just that she's got at least a half dozen pretty undeniable hits so it's not really worth debating whether she's got what it takes

many xps

but she wasn't just CHOSEN to be a star for nothing. u can just choose someone like that, and make it work.

― oops i accidentally made it personal (surm), Tuesday, October 27, 2009 11:42 PM (6 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i mean, i agree with this to an extent. i think it's a mixture of both things. i mean, beyonce has some empirical evidence in her favor, against what i'm trying to say, because neither kelly rowland nor solange have anything near the career of beyonce

I agree that Justin's post-boyband career past has been more obviously bound up in Justin-the-person than Beyonce's post-DC career has.

what's the point though...what pop star can you think of that hasn't received a unique leg-up over the competition, publicly or behind the scenes? they all have that in common, that they were in an established girl group/boy band/mentored by superstar/famous mom/fucked a record exec on the reg/etc. assuming that success in the industry is 5% talent and 95% luck i'd imagine that most successful artists have something in their past that they can pin their success on, but it doesn't take anything away from them.

looking at justin's post-nsync career, i can see why he became a huge star and jc chasez & nick carter didn't - i'm not exactly sure why beyonce became the huge star and kelly rowland did not, aside from the fact that beyonce was chosen as the megastar once they decided to dissolve DC

1) beyonce was the star of DC much like JT was of nsync
2) iirc plenty of people were skeptical of JT's move into r&b; it's not like it was universally understood he was the guy for that niche

Cassie and Ciara don't really make more interesting and forward-thinking music than Beyonce,

I disagree with this, but obviously this is all subjective so...

I will say that, my point is that - imo - the music doesn't live up to the hype with Beyonce. Consistently. I think that when you are at the level she is, when you totally dominate the field you're in, when you're the "#1 diva in the game" you should make music that reflects that and I don't get that from her really. Most of her latest album is throwaway material! Can you see yourself blasting "Smash Into You", or most of that I Am... disc in 10 years?

i'm not even a huge beyonce fan, but i've always just thought she seemed like "the real deal." the girl with talent who could do a little of everything, sell herself -- and come out with really good songs. she always SEEMED like the one who wasn't just a package of production. but WHAT IF IT'S ALL A TRICK

nah, and i love fantasy ride but i never need to hear "like a surgeon" again

xpost

OK, 2 things, brain:

she DID say "the #1 diva in the game FOR A MINUTE" -- the "for a minute" part is like the essential part of that lyric!

also, SMASH INTO YOU? takes on a whoooole new and amazing context when it's played at the end of the movie "obsessed," after which she has literally smashed into Ali Larter with a chandelier

I will say that, my point is that - imo - the music doesn't live up to the hype with Beyonce

is what i'm saying. contrary to what kevin is saying, i don't think her hits null the argument, i think that's what the argument is about. is "irreplaceable" an exceptional ne-yo song? no, not really. does beyonce do anything in that song that makes you go "wow, shit, beyonce"? no, i don't think so. but it's still one of the biggest radio hits of the decade.

also, SMASH INTO YOU? takes on a whoooole new and amazing context when it's played at the end of the movie "obsessed," after which she has literally smashed into Ali Larter with a chandelier

― oops i accidentally made it personal (surm), Tuesday, October 27, 2009 11:48 PM (23 seconds ago) Bookmark

:D

see i totally disagree -- irreplaceable is an exceptional, exceptional song, and beyonce performed it spot-on

surmy by "for a minute" she means "for a long ass time"

haha yeah

ok fine. BUT STILL that's the best part of the line :)

i just think that "beyonce makes different music from ciara -- more commercially successful" is very different from "beyonce's music doesn't live up to the hype"

i don't think beyonce's made better music

liike, she doesn't have to have the insider clout of a cassie or ciara to be credible -- i mean, the biggest pop stars have never really been the ones making the best music, have they? i dunno

at least not singles-wise, b'day is probably better than rihanna albums

fantasy ride has double the redeemable songs as sasha fierce tho imo

b'day is probably better than rihanna ciara albums

i mean, the biggest pop stars have never really been the ones making the best music, have they? i dunno

― oops i accidentally made it personal (surm), Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:56 AM (1 minute ago)

Really good point. I'm not sure....

sasha fierce was tainted by some fucked up singles choices but i don't think Fantasy Ride trounces it at all. it has a bunch of killer songs on it

i mean, the biggest pop stars have never really been the ones making the best music, have they? i dunno

― oops i accidentally made it personal (surm), Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:56 AM (1 minute ago)

probably not, at least not since like... madonna & prince? idk

i mean obv being the biggest pop star usually means that you're relinquishing the control of the output of your music to people who care not what is best but to what is going to sell most, so that plays into it

like, how was Madonna viewed in her heyday (Let's say Like a Virgin to Bedtime Stories) in the context of "pop music". Was her music seen as the top of the "pop" crop?

And...I mean, while I Am... doesn't exactly blow me away, B'Day was a pretty sudden and ballsy move with a lot more character and strength than I gave it credit for initially. Weirder than anything Ciara or Cassie have done by half. Granted, B's other two albums are, singles aside, kind of nothing-y, so I'm not sure whose side I'm actually taking here.

Beyonce certainly possesses a certain...charisma? swagger? power?...that other artists we're mentioning don't. While I would like for Cassie or Ciara or Solange to be big stars, Beyonce just sort of...embodies it, no?

I just got the Celebration DVD btw lol

i think a good barometer is like, "single ladies" - does the dance & culture of that song take off the way it did if it's done by another good dancing r&b singer, or is there something there solely to beyonce (inherent star status aside) that made it as big of a deal as it was?

first of all, i don't think just anyone could move like that, honey

What's weird about B-Day? At the time I thought it was a pretty safe album, besides "Ring the Alarm" and the videos for "Deja Vu" and "Ring The Alarm" which I guess were genuinely weird. I definitely considered it a more "pop" album coming off of Dangerously in Love (which is weird when I listen to it now it's not very "pop" at all, especially compared to Sasha Fierce....)

man this "weird" talk is such a red herring, B'Day is a classic album front to back and spawned an incredible run of singles

k3vin i never noticed that there is a heart in ur name

Weird is the wrong word, perhaps. But dissonant, certainly. It's often abrasive, based on a lot of loops. Very brassy and...I don't know.

'Ring the Alarm' and 'Freakum Dress' are the only two that jump out, but it's all idiosyncratic in one way or another. 'Upgrade U' is all dreary and sludgy and wonderful with B hollering all over top of it - that it lent itself so easily to Wayne's stoned ramblings says something, I think. 'Suga Mama' and 'Kitty Kat' as well.

It's like...the tracks don't necessarily announce themselves as weird, but they are their own cohesive self-contained universe. Most "weirdness" in R&B and pop gets picked up and copied quickly and frequently. B'Day just sounds like Beyonce, particularly peeved at Jay or her father or both, holed herself up in a Louisiana studio for a week and mulled over it with some producers.

Like, I don't recall a lot of copycats jumping out of the woodwork, besides Irreplaceable --> Stargate blowing the fuck up.

from up top:

there's hints of industrial and gothic influences

reminds me that rihanna cut my favorite gothy (goth&b?) ballad of the decade.

"Irreplaceable" is one of the finest songs of the decade, anyone that doesn't recognise needs to go back to pop remedial school for a minute.

I simply don't see how Cassie in particular is "forward thinking" - great a lot of the time, sure, but OMG bleepy sounds aren't justification for "yr children's children will be blasting this in 100 years" Radiohead-crit-think - y'know Beyonce got there first with "Perfect Man" way back in 2000 anyways.

thankyou for having this conversation while i was asleep :(

i shall have some coffee and return to this thread

ok!

rihanna's persona is v rooted in the fashion world - obviously in her attire but also that old-skool supermodel maxim of "never speak" - à la kate moss until recently. speaking destroys a certain mystique. it's kinda remarkable, given a) her stature b) what's deemed necessary to succeed in the industry in 2009, that as al says we don't really know what she's like on an everyday basis or even what her speaking voice is like. as with the supermodels, it's partly to disguise parts of her personality, but it's a good disguise.

beyoncé's success - she's always been the golden girl, hasn't she? someone like alicia keys is more quintessentially "talented" but beyoncé embodies, quite consciously, a "superstar". everyone knew she was going to be as famous as she's become wayyy before she actually did it. i guess she has a knack for populism which your ameries and cassies don't, and this comes at the expense of overt "risk-taking" or subtlety...on record she can sometimes be a bit jarringly obvious and yeah her "keep out of my private life" thing might make her "boring" to some, but really IRL beyoncé strikes me as completely mental in a way that the others don't, what with that single-minded drive, commitment to perfection, planning one's career out on spreadsheets &c.

a different way to look at beyoncé being "less of an artist" than [insert favoured artist here] is that she's not JUST an artist.

Beyonce conveys character better than Amerie I think

not sure i agree - but i'd say that amerie consciously limits herself to conveying her own character, whereas beyoncé is more willing to try on different masks?

the biggest pop stars have never really been the ones making the best music, have they? i dunno

yeah this is true and much easier to come to terms with in retrospect! i can easily imagine that there were disco or freestyle artists in the 80s who played the cassie/lumidee/nina sky role to madonna and janet.

I simply don't see how Cassie in particular is "forward thinking"

not forward-thinking necessarily, but the 07/08 leaks were clearly different-thinking at least, a very particular aesthetic done exceptionally well. there weren't even that many bleeps! it certainly wasn't hyperfuturistic Cool Sounds (TM) à la turn-of-century timbo. bringing "radiohead crit think" into this is completely unfair and unwarranted.

also, SMASH INTO YOU? takes on a whoooole new and amazing context when it's played at the end of the movie "obsessed," after which she has literally smashed into Ali Larter with a chandelier

:D

i actually have a lot of respect for beyonce after sasha fierce - diving headlong into adult contemporary like that wasn't the obvious pandering no-brainer it's being painted out to be here, and personally i resisted it til she waterboarded me into it. furthermore, a huge part of that is down to how great and almost maniacally theatrical a performer she is throughout the album: granted i might not be the one pressing play on it but in 10 years i guarantee i'll be enjoying "remember those walls i built well baby theyre tumbling ~ DOWWWNN ~" way more than i will be reminiscing about a promo ad campaign that preceded some rub pseudo-edgy dubstep cobblers.

dictating from a position of almost infallible power is obviously a key consideration wrt beyonce's career; no other artist would have held their nerve with 'single ladies' right through to glory in the same way. if say ciara, who i think about most when it comes to these discussions, had done the same with 'high price' then it could as easily have been her getting rihanna's janet jackson props and so on now - as an aside fantasy ride is not a remarkable album but this thwarted underlying narrative seems to keep me coming back to it. poor cici.

not forward-thinking necessarily, but the 07/08 leaks were clearly different-thinking at least, a very particular aesthetic done exceptionally well. there weren't even that many bleeps! it certainly wasn't hyperfuturistic Cool Sounds (TM) à la turn-of-century timbo. bringing "radiohead crit think" into this is completely unfair and unwarranted

See , I agree with this, I just don't think it makes sense to rate modern R&B artists on how innovative or futuristic they are - pretty much all of them use these signifiers as a strategy when it suits them, and then other strategies when it doesn't - obv my radiohead crit think was a jab at the "who we'll be listening to in 10 years" rhetoric which always strikes me as a pointless mug's game.

Also agree with r|t|c to some extent - it's very easy to dismiss tunes like "Broken Hearted Girl" but I don't know many artists who could make them as compelling as Beyonce does.

(kinda) as i intimated on the funky thread most futuristic signifiers at this point are as generic and nostalgically conceited as anything else theyre compared to anyway. juxtaposition's the thing.

lol, po-mo much rtc?

The only R&B album I loved as much as Ciara's Ciara: The Evolution in the 2006-2007 period was Beyonce's B'Day, but they're so different! Ciara's so cool and determinedly anonymous; the New Age platitudes to which she succumbs on The Evolution work because she's so approachable. Coming out of superstar Beyonce's lips they'd sound like commands from a neo-Nazi rally.

xp saying that though i wouldnt be averse to rihanna just letting danja go ham on a whole record, at full tilt his overdriven abrasiveness is the enjoyable exception to the rule. did we all catch this offcut btw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMvDRvcI2ZY

i guess she has a knack for populism which your ameries and cassies don't

-lex pretend, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 10:48 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

agreed

how do you define "knack for populism"? If you mean "she's been more popular," sure. But Rich Harrison produced Amerie.

i guess i define it as a talent for giving the public what they want

Nah – who knows what chicanery goes on between her manager, Amerie herself, and the record company. You don't hire Rich Harrison as an avant-garde gesture.

if Amerie has scored no US hit since "1 Thing," it's not because she's suddenly less populist – her record company isn't promoting her albums, or even deigning to give them a domestic release.

so the only reason Amerie has been less successful than Beyonce is because of her record company?

Not the only reason. The idiosyncrasies of the record buying public (to which I belong) are a factor too. We simply don't know exactly why some songs aren't hits. In Amerie's case, though, it's not because she doesn't suit populist sentiments.

well, that's exactly it - beyoncé's just more attuned to the idiosyncrasies of the record-buying public, and is better at walking the line between leading them, creating the zeitgeist, and following what they want

^^

thankyou for having this conversation while i was asleep :(

― lex pretend, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:27 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

mine would be a sincere smiley instead of a sarcastic frowney though

looking at justin's post-nsync career, i can see why he became a huge star and jc chasez & nick carter didn't - i'm not exactly sure why beyonce became the huge star and kelly rowland did not, aside from the fact that beyonce was chosen as the megastar once they decided to dissolve DC

now, maybe beyonce grew into a persona as her career progressed, but left to her own devices to become a star (as much as someone signed to a major can be left to their own devices) i'm not so sure that it happens - i wouldn't say the same for justin

― a goon boy (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:40 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm not the biggest Beyonce fan by any means and you're right that in a lot of ways her catalog doesn't really measure up given her stature, but this is some hardheaded crazy talk to be honest -- she was ALWAYS the obvious star in DC, there was NEVER any chance Kelly would be as big as her, whether in the group or solo. letting B be the standout in a group and then go out on her own probably was a big boon to her career, narrative-wise, given that i'm not sure she would've made as big an impression as a teenage solo act w/o the whole DC image and harmonies and everything.

she definitely does feel like the #1 diva by default a lot of times, though -- looking over my favorite R&B singles of the decade, no one female artist really dominates w/ a whole lot of songs, certainly not Ciara or Amerie or '00s Mary or Keyshia, and Beyonce pops up about as often as any of them, sometimes more, and obviously part of that is her being huge the whole decade and having way more chances to make hits I like along with plenty of hits I hated or was bored by. for whatever reason male artists don't seem to have peaks and valleys in the same way, Usher may have been less a constance presence but was more consistent, and R. was the kind of prolific auteur where if you like his stuff at all, there's gonna be a lot of it to like.

"Wait Your Turn": http://poplinebr.virgula.uol.com.br/ouca-wait-your-turn-segundo-single-do-novo-material-de-rihanna/

Man alive! So good.

really?

Really. She's positioning herself as this untouchable superhero reborn right now, "swing away if you're feeling braa-ave", and it's seeping into every nook and cranny of her music. Casually switching back to her bar-bay-dos accent in the midst of it. It becomes naturally, organically huge and massive and all those common pop criticism cliches. Swagger, I think you call it,

We simply don't know exactly why some songs aren't hits.

Duncan Watts to thread!! http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnidealab.t.html

Key for Beyonce, to me, is finally being forced to grapple with what the hell is going on in Dreamgirls, a movie I hadn't seen until about two years ago and hadn't liked until recently -- casting Beyonce as Deena/pseudo-Diana-Ross was interesting, because she really gets the short end of the stick in the movie: she's phony, weak, thin. Her "breakout" single added for the movie is total nothing. She comes across as weak, manipulated, kind of pitiful.

And yet she was also aligning herself with the Diana Ross, the force that could be an icon on an episode of American Idol, say, and whose actual career Dreamgirls doesn't even begin to actually (or accurately) fuck with. So Beyonce is a second-tier personality -- more Deena than Diana -- who nonetheless is allowed her superstar cred but with a sort of implicit understanding that she's weaker or maybe less iconic than a "real" diva. Except there ARE no other modern-day divas, so (as someone said upthread) she still gets genuine diva status by default.

So her star image is complicated in a way that she isn't, I guess. I've never clicked with most of her music, yet I kind of recognize her being on top of the game without questioning it, and it's as much a sign of the game being smaller and easier to conquer (in how iconic/savvy/whatever you actually have to appear to be to conquer it, hello Lady GaGa) or harder to conquer (i.e. it's much hard for someone to rise to the top of a crippled industry than at least find a major niche in a relatively healthy one -- major stars' albums these days are routinely -- literally or effectively, thru lack of promotion -- just plain not released). Beyonce is the biggest star of the past five years, sure, but the story of the past five years is in part the story of the music industry's ceiling in freefall.

Ummmm, anyway. tl;dr whatever but Rihanna's the important star of the past five years. I have absolutely no fucking clue how she keeps staying on top, but it's almost assumed at this point. I have no sense of her as a singer, as a performer, as a person, and yet she's undeniably one of the hugest/most significant stars of the latter half of the decade. Something tells me this would be totally impossible in a different era -- where Beyonce feels like the lower-rent version and/or ghost of the era that preceded her, Rihanna is the future!

I.e., Beyonce is the the real biggest midget in the game?

"swing away if you're feeling braa-ave"? oh dear. I guess Rihanna should be applauded for taking a rather unfortunate situation and exploiting the hell out of it for her own benefit. She had to "respond" somehow and her choices were "poor me, I'm such a victim" and "I'm back bitches" and the latter was a much savvier choice. Now I'm afraid that her next album is going to be about "positioning herself as this untouchable superhero reborn," whatever the hell that means, and not enough unapologetically pop music.

I didn't read that piece of lyric as a response to that at all. It's just a way of expressing self-confidence. Ffs, if that's the road we're going to go down then every song on 'Good Girl Gone Bad' could be read as such and claimed that she was 'exploiting' the situation, had it been released now. Far-fetched to say the least. And what's not "pop" about this? It's deliriously catchy, but with even more of, what feels to me like, 'Rihanna' the character.

I think you're being terribly naive if you don't think that this whole album/publicity campaign is calculated attempt to capitalize on the situation. Honestly, if you think that they are completely ignoring it and are proceeding as if nothing has happened in Rihanna's life in the past year then you have a less regard for her as an "artist" than even I do.

aw man the football metaphor in "wait your turn" is CLUMSY

if you think that they are completely ignoring it and are proceeding as if nothing has happened in Rihanna's life in the past year then you have a less regard for her as an "artist" than even I do.

I saw the analogy in 'Russian Roulette', but if you are going to accuse her of of exploitation for every line that could be biographical it's bound to ruin the music for yourself.

not "accusing" her of exploiting things, just mentioning it. I think when something good or bad happens in your life, you own it and should be able to use it however you please. a cigar is sometimes a cigar but lines like "swing away if you're feeling brave" and songs about dangerous games aren't coincidences. There have been plenty of interviews with her producers where they talk about consciously going to a darker place so I'm not sure why you need to be convinced.

wow on one listen "wait your turn" is just...leaden, flat, awful :/

i'm like, i kinda like it, but i'm also kinda EHHHH

i just stopped it mid-song tho which i feel is not a good sign

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjfxoG8lttg

will.i.am is sampling 'good life'

feeling this i guess, although will.i.am jack moves always require me to go thru some internal debate about whether i care that hes ripping off iconic songs that ppl generally dont know

there is no song called Bubble Pop on the released tracklist. If this got cut from the final tracklist I will take that as a good sign.

new joint ft jeezy called "hard"

http://www.limelinx.com/files/6ec23f5b3aff9e32fe421c9d7d0c078a

haven't listened yet bcuz i don't have headphones w me

that is sort of amazing. THAT RIHANNA RAIN JUST WON'T LET UP

no pain is forever: yup, you know this

all black on
blacked-out shades
blacked-out maaaaaaaybach

jeezy is great on it too

now what is the bassline reminding me of - on tip of tongue, it's sth really obvious

i'm in the all-white party wearing all black
with my new black watch, call it the heart attack
cardiac arrest? cardiac on wrists
yeah they said they hard? they ain't hard as this

see my louis chucks, louis flag, louis frames
louis belt, what that make me louis mane?

^_^

i dig this track tho yeah

see my louis chucks, louis flag, louis frames
louis belt, what that make me louis mane?

^ yeah this is great

this shit = written by dreamer, case you couldn't tell from the "eh-eh-eh"s everywhere

really digging this! thought jeezy was only gonna be on for the ad-libs ( 808s "amazing" style), but def a solid guest verse there at the end

yeah i think it's pretty obv from the piano that it's christopher & terius

aw man i wish i didnt know that so i could have a chance to love it on my own, now it's a done deal

rly tho only listened once, liked it ok

after all of Tricky's "monster song" talk about that one, it's pretty ho hum

yeah i was thinking the same thing

I HAVE A Q

when was the last time a producer said he had a legendary/monster/amazing/groundbreaking song/beat before anyone head it and it actually turned out to be just that?

― a goon boy (J0rdan S.), Monday, November 2, 2009 7:57 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is pretty sweet, espectially the "yup-you know this." not sure if i approve of the "so hard," as something rihanna would be saying, and melodywise just not a strong hook. the "where them girls talking trash" part should take up way more of the song.

isn't there some story about dream calling Bed as a number one even without chris brown

k3v make up yr mind dude

"liked it ok" and "expecting a bit more w/ the 'umbrella' comparisons" don't seem that opposed, bro

aw man i wish i didnt know that so i could have a chance to love it on my own, now it's a done deal

― k3vin k., Monday, November 2, 2009 7:30 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

um, i never said i loved it? it's pretty clear from that post that i was expecting it to grow on me...after learning it was a dream joint i jokingly said it was inevitable

but please keep this going

http://illiweb.com/fa/i/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif

http://miami.rivals.com/images/smilies/indifferent.gif

http://lotsofpeopleposting.teensboards.com/users/1314/10/86/29/smiles/695921.gif

http://lotsofpeopleposting.teensboards.com/users/1314/10/86/29/smiles/581130.png

aloh

"Hard" is crazy... makes up for "Wait Your Turn," which is a bit of a mess for me - I like all of the individual parts of the song but it doesn't really work that well as a whole for me. Also, glad that "Te Amo" made the final tracklist, wonderful song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYVL1tjN3PE

1. Mad House
2. Wait Your Turn
3. Hard featuring Jeezy
4. Stupid In Love
5. ROCKSTAR 101 featuring Slash
6. Russian Roulette
7. Fire Bomb
8. Rude Boy
9. Photographs featuring will.i.am
10. G4L
11. Te Amo
12. Cold Case Love
13. The Last Song

("Fire Bomb" is my most anticipated going off of the names)

Photographs featuring will.i.am

i hope this is about rihanna perusing a collection of photographs of will.i.am rather than a track called "photographs" guest starring will.i.am

we should be so lucky

"fire bomb" is my most anticipated based on the fact that something big has to follow that gunshot

i am LOLLING at the popjustice forum's fit of the vapours that it isn't cheesy europop and oh noez it's "gangsta" and "ghetto" and "urban". worst people ever.

so does that mean it has a 'blues based swing'?

Russian Roulette > Run This Town, off brand Beyonce or not.

God, I'm sick of Run This Town's hook.

the "where them girls talking trash" part should take up way more of the song.

this is true

shit font/logo, nice stylised photos and styling but a bit tired in how its trying to be so moody and 'dark', and those gun shot sounds are shit on russian roulette - sounds like something from some sort of 00s teen movie starring someone from dawsons creek. but im anticipating this heavily.

what is the bassline reminding me of

'Can You Feel It'?

00s teen movie starring someone from dawsons creek

First thing this made me think was "Batman Begins" but I guess you meant more like Halle Berry "Catwoman". Which is fine, I'd say, Russian Roulette really grew on me.

I'M SUCH A FUCKING LAADY

"te amo" is great. nice to know there's such a solid song so near the end of the album.

sounds kind of ridiculous and bad to me... but MAYBE IT'LL GROW. not diggin the way she says "Te amo"

"wait is over" video is fantastic. sadly the song is still a mess

happily i can't stop caning "hard"

Yes, Hard is greatttt

Some credits:

"Wait Your Turn" - Writers: The Dream - Producers: Stargate, Chase & Status
"Hard" (ft. Young Jeezy) - Writers: The Dream - Producers: The Dream, Tricky Stewart
"Rockstar 101" (ft. Slash) - Writers: The Dream - Producers: The Dream, Tricky Stewart
"Russian Roulette" - Writers: Ne-Yo, Rihanna - Producers: Ne-Yo, Chuck Harmony
"Rude Boy" - Writers: Ester Dean, Rihanna
"Te Amo" - Writers: James Fauntleroy, Rihanna - Producers: The Y's (James Fauntleroy, Justin Timberlake, Rob Knox)

boy am i lookin forward to rockstar 101

ft. slash

dud = songs with rockstar in the title by hip-hop/R&B artists

Man. Is everyone still cold on Wait Your Turn? It didn't hit me that hard at first, but it's got such a SWAGGER to it. That swung electro riff, and the chorus is properly epic and inspirational in a totally vague way. And...I dunno. "I pitch with a grenade / Swing away if you're feeling brave." !!! Also, it's nice to hear the Barbadan accent make a reappearance in songs and not just interviews.

It's a proper first single/announcement.

I agree totally, but it's not the first single. It's just a buzz track / video. The single release is RR -> Hard.

I know it's not the first single. Um...I meant perhaps I wish it was? It has a certain something that neither RR nor Hard have to them. Hard is fun and a good second single perhaps, and RR is...well....interesting. But Wait Your Turn feeeeeels like a lead single.

i'm really liking this song too. mariah's been doing some Barbadan recently too, and i'm lovin it.

i just saw a clip of the diane sawyer interview. girl is kind of mesmerizing. also had no idea she had this accent she does. kind of adorable.

yeah it's funny, we were talking upthread about how nobody's really familiar with her speaking voice and now hearing it in that interview her accent really is so charming it's kind of a wonder she hasn't done more public speaking over the years -- the lilt to it almost reminds me of a scottish accent more than anything else

bajan accent <3

wondering maybe if the label's minimised her public speaking so far b/c her accent might have been too "foreign"?

also, i think everything she's said in the i/v clips has been awesome and on point. nuanced, honest and bringing up stuff that doesn't normally get talked about.

yea i haven't watched the footage about the actual incident yet

:/

oh i meant in the other one particularly, the one where she talks about the embarrassment &c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yddyqJJhIA4

damn...

yo!

fuck that's good

man if they wanted to do a 'different' first song to release from the album that reeeeeally woulda set the tone better than "Russian Roulette"

um...wow. the arrangement here is really nicely structured, and they let rihanna's voice breathe more than some of her earlier ballads have. even when it goes for the end-of-song melodrama moment it pulls a fast one on us and throw in heavy scattered beatbox drums rather than syrupy strings.

timberlake did this apparently. havent listened yet but you guys have me excited

yeah i looked it up halfway through the song and was like "justin did this!?"

it's definitely his attempt at a "cry me a river" basically?

well yeah it started to sound 'typical' of his stuff a little once i saw that he did it, but it's still kind of out of the comfort zone most of his timbo-less outside productions have been in

no i agree, it's much more well thought out & tbh less hackish than basically any of of his outside productions

another amazing timberlake song! <3 <3 <3

this song is amazing

soooo hyped for her showcase on monday

Just leaked. Shall I liveblog listening to it? Perhaps I shall.

you mean.......the wait is ova?

Madhouse: Vincent Price-y sort of intro? Footsteps and an organ. "Ladies and Gentleman, to those among you are easily frightened, we suggest you turn away now. To those of you who think you can take it, we say, Welcome to the MadHouse."

Rihanna harmonizes with herself creepily before telling you to come on in, as a loop of Poor Man's Price repeats the phrase 'Madhouse'. There's a dubstep sort of wobble underneath it all, and this is basically just a minute long intro to Wait Your Turn which we've all heard and is still really fucking awesome. Stumbling electro bounce and boozy swagger and Rihanna's lower range.

It is! It is!

xp How novel and cleva, Rev!

That was like...a pun worthy of nu-Idolator.

Sorry, I overstepped there. That was rude of me.

Um...is there an electric guitar screaming underneath the bridge of Wait Your Turn or am I crazy?

i roffled @ rev

btw wake me up when you get to the terius/christopher/SLASH joint

I outdo myself sometimes

Hard: Blacktop maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybach. "while you're getting your cry on, I'm getting my fly on" Still a highlight. Jeezy's "used to run my whole block like Obama did" "what that make me - Louis Mane?" "cardiac arrest/cartier on wrist" amount to a good guest verse. There's a lot more of the Bajan accent on this album...not sure if it was purposely avoided at the behest of the label before, but for whatever reason Rihanna sounds like herself a lot more on record now.

Will do, Jordan. One track away, and um...Stupid in Love is another one of those ballads that proves how much stronger her voice is these days, but doesn't necessarily result in my interest.

"trying to make this work / but you act like a jerk"

says it all, i think.

listening to this!

on "wait your turn" she really emphasises her accent, and it really made me think of london's JA mcs toasting over dubstep beats, got a real circle-is-complete feel.

WAKE UP JORDAN. SLASH TIME. slash's guitar trilling is the core of the entire song it seems? basically used as a big synths. Rihanna doesn't give a fuck and says so. warbles in minor keys and parties like a rock star.

white jacket in the crazy house, wants you to frisk her, and is only missing a black guitar.

except the bridge, when she announces that she's rocking out tonight is the least rock of the entire thing.

but yeah, it's not a rock song by any means - slash is really used for texture and rhythm more than anythign else. it's still a very good song, though.

sweet

russian roulette is still russian roulette for better or for worse.

and the gunshot does nothing. it leads into silence and then a hard guitar line backed by strings.

like...atmospherics worthy of celine dion and power guitar and then um....a piano power ballad?

this is messsed up and maybe awesome and maybe awful? it depends on how the song-writing holds up.

it about driving away with a leaking gas tank and fire blazing behind her.

finished! 1st impression: this is a very good, very coherent album with a couple of very odd, senseless missteps which stop it from being great.

it's definitely the right album for her to have done though.

haha. you finished before me! i listened to something twice, I think. coherent is a good word for it. what do you view as the missteps, lex?

rude boy is catchy but a sort of out-of-place sex jam in the middle of an album that has been very....not about sex up until now. is you big enough? take it take it. etc.

the missteps aren't even particular songs (maybe "rude boy"), it's just moments which...shouldn't be there. am thinking of will.i.am's guest spot and the line about how she loves it when you pull her hair on "rude boy" which just seems inappropriate.

also the "russian roulette" video is out there and it's about the most literal pop video i've ever seen. at one point they paint her heart on her chest for that line. pretty compelling though.

also hott love interest

the explicit version of "wait your turn" has made me warm to it - "i'm such a fucking lady" => remy ma ref!

man "cold case love" is just starting to sink in, might not even have time to lsiten to this ish til tuesday

i lied. ok i want to know who the hell thought that will.i.am verse was a good idea so i can send them anthrax

im getting a heaven or las vegas vibe on the chorus of 'firebomb'

very nice

cocteau twins - heaven or las vegas, that is

"fire bomb" is wonderfully 80s MOR. reminds me of something really specific that i can't quite put my finger on.

her vocals are better than ever throughout - really nuanced without losing any steeliness

i was mostly on board with her "darker" direction anyway, but i could understand scepticism - but i'm finding this album's grim commitment to it really compelling. this shit grinds hard.

also uh is "te amo" about fending off another girl's lesbian advances??

:( this really dragged for me, i'm hoping it's a grower. by nature, it's almost got to be. 'cold case love' gets better every time tho

yeah the album is definitely committed to dragging along slowly - i really approve, i love that there are no cheesy europop moments, i love that people realised that any uptempo party tracks would just sound horribly out of place.

doing a self-consciously dark, monomaniacal album isn't exciting in itself, and you could see it as a fairly obvious grab at artistic cred (i await rtc's judgment along precisely these lines), but she's done it almost as well as it can be done imo.

yeah I don't begrudge her for this choice - like you say a really uptempo banger-filled record might not be a good look in light of ~what's happened. i just don't know how much i'm going to want to listen to it

lex are you drawing parallels to kelly's previous album? i know you felt similarly about that one

my december is definitely an apt comparison. as with that, i'm already seeing people whinge about rated r being "hookless" which is arrant nonsense. both albums have massive hooks.

just figured out what 'cold case love' reminds me of - 'winner' by karina pasian. now i get that in my head every time I listen to the former

on second listen highlights are: wait your turn, hard, rockstar 101, firebomb, cold case love.

rest is good, esp. te amo, but these five are head and shoulders above.

"rock star 101" is so goofy, not really in a good way

I don't think it goes far enough. I was hoping for some kind of cross between Marianne Faithfull's Broken English, Grace Jones' early '80s albums and Tricky's Pre-Millennium Tension, but this ain't it. Too many piano-and-strings ballads, and too much unconvincing badass posing.

the great thing about cold case love is that right at the end where you would expect it to go into the big STRINGS MELODRAMA part, it instead ups the melodrama and just amps up the drums and complicates the beat pattern.

it's an effective subversion of expectations for the power ballad type thing.

Wow. I am particularly inarticulate this evening.

when i type "rated r" into the search box in my itunes, the song that ends up immediately preceding this album is "incarcerated scarfaces" which kinda flows through thematicall tbh

it would "make sense" except chris brown is incarcerated and rihanna is the scarface *stands up and looks for a hi five*

i would love "the wait is ova" if not for this utterly retarded football metaphor

"fumbled, don't ya fumble, that's a flag on the play, you threw your challenge flag, but the play is unchallengeable because the referee blew the whistle, you will not be charged a time out... the wait is ova, the wait is ova..."

or "wait your turn", whatever this song is called

doing a self-consciously dark, monomaniacal album isn't exciting in itself, and you could see it as a fairly obvious grab at artistic cred

I called it!

I don't think it goes far enough. I was hoping for some kind of cross between Marianne Faithfull's Broken English, Grace Jones' early '80s albums and Tricky's Pre-Millennium Tension, but this ain't it.

This, however, was never gonna happen in a million years.

i actually don't think "hard" is underwritten at all

"stupid in love" is superb

Really? Stupid in Love is one of a few tracks that didn't really do much for me. It's better than Photographs to be sure and possibly The Last Song, but I'd even put Russian Roulette ahead of it. What specifically about the track appeals to you, j0rdan?

i think it's a really well written ballad, esp as positioned in between "hard" & "rock star 101" - i mean, when her & ne-yo/stargate inch closer to "unfaithful" i'm usually a fan

I fell asleep for a while - exhausted - so i didn't post my thoughts on the last half, but G4L is wonderfully weird

Te Amo is great. She's turning down these advances from a girl who is in love with her because she "doesn't roll that way" but the song's still vaguely romantic and wistful. It's a really interesting treatment because it's not quite an "ew! lesbians!" but nor is it "Katy Perry experimentation time!". Rihanna is sort of...empathetic and upset and feels bad that she's hurting this girl's feelings.

Lex said something about how Rihanna's got this intense platonic attraction and the other girl's got unrequited love for her and the result is just...a very emotionally complex song, that is somehow still probably the lightest track on the whole album. Not sure how it ended up on a Rihanna album, but I'm glad it did.

liked it more on the second listen. feeling "wait your turn," "firebomb," and of course "cold case love" are good to great. "rockstar 101" and "photographs" are really bad, the latter mostly due to will.i.am's truly singularly awful verse. really a thing to behold, that.

have no use for G4L, bsically just laughed at it

vis-a-vis "unconvincing badass posing" - just not something i'm interested in rihanna doing, at all

i actually don't think "hard" is underwritten at all

― house of flying jaggers (J0rdan S.), Friday, November 13, 2009 11:04 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

did anyone even say it is? because if anything it's overwritten in that obnoxious Terius way...by the time she's going "where the bloggas at" I just wanna be like that's enough, that's fine, you coulda stopped back there, chill.

yeah i think when the link was initially posted people were saying that the hook was underwritten (lex compared it to "on some bullshit" - i initially agreed w the notion but now i dont)

did anyone even say it is? because if anything it's overwritten in that obnoxious Terius way...by the time she's going "where the bloggas at" I just wanna be like that's enough, that's fine, you coulda stopped back there, chill. *angrily signs off blog*

― Kenny G. Saxgarden (some dude), Friday, November 13, 2009 11:38 PM (5 minutes ago)

actually it was more *stands up and looks for a hi five*

was ester dean a songwriter before this song with chris brown?

i mean, i assume she was, but did has she written anything notable?

i think her whole bullshit 'mystery girl' campaign is all about calling her a songwriting and saying "check the credits" to insinuate she wrote hits but there's nothing to suggest she was even a ghostwriter (and in which case what use does a ghostwriter have in mainstream R&B these days? even the people that reportedly write their own stuff also mostly do stuff by other writers).

calling her a songwritER

this will.i.am verse is decidedly kanye imo

um, sonically speaking, "te amor" = "miss independent" - it's almost uncanny imo

(ne-yo obv)

the last 4 years of will.i.am's life have been decidedly kanye imo

ok apparently these are the mostly shitty songs we're supposed to be impressed that Ester Dean wrote:

Mya – Ridin’
Teyana Taylor – Google Me
Girlicious – Like Me
Girlicious – My Boo
Girlicious – It’s Mine
Pussycat Dolls – Whatcha Think About That
Pussycat Dolls – Jai Ho
Pussycat Dolls – Bad Girl (Confessions of a Shopaholic soundtrack)
Trey Songz – Takes Time (Confessions of a Shopaholic soundtrack)
Keyshia Cole – Make Me Over
Ciara – Never Ever
Keri Hilson feat. Akon – Change Me
Keri Hilson – Make Love
Esmee Denters – Outta Here
Mary J. Blige – Stronger (More than a Game soundtrack)
Mary J. Blige – The One (AT&T campaign)
Flo-Rida feat. Nelly Furtado – Jump (G-Force soundtrack)
Paradiso Girls – Patron Tequila
TI feat. Mary J. Blige – Remember Me

"make love" is pretty good...

that pussycat dolls version of "jai ho" is the shining beacon of her discography

and "never ever"!

how many Cathartic Guitar Solos can one r&b album have?

yeah i noticed that too, back to back on the last 2 songs was kinda overkill

the knowledge that Ester Dean wrote an Esmee Denters song is just extra insurance on the guarantee that I will never remember which is which

i will cop to thinking that shiplo's "where the bloggas at?" mention was a joke and not a thing actually said in the song u_u - i'm gonna pretend like she says "where the gagas at?"

"rude boy" is the one of the two or three dopest songs on here

altho during the bridge i always expect her to break into "i like those stylist clothes you wear"

*digs will.i.am verse*

so yeah "te amo" is about lesbianism right? dope

i'm gonna just say that i think that this album is amazing - thematically on point & all the songs are just really good in their own right - shocked at how much i like this

does Jeezy say "My swag is draconian"?

"Hard" is pretty amazing

so yeah "te amo" is about lesbianism right? dope

sort of. it's about awkwardly turning down advances from lesbians who hit on you.

what i WAHN WAHN WAHN is what you WAHN WAHN WAHN

hang on though, she doesn't say "where them bloggas at", right? it's "where them haters at, why them fly girls at, where them lighters at" - at least this is what i'll continue telling myself.

xps to tim - my point was that labelling it as just a "grab for artistic cred" would be missing the point! it feels a lot more of a natural move than that - if there's anything on rated r which is really novel from rihanna, it's the cursing and badass posing (which i <3 and don't find unconvincing at all), not the darkly gothic balladry, for which she has a ton of previous. what's striking is that the entire album is like that, unrelentingly so. i think appropriate comparisons would be my december, as discussed earlier, and also madonna's erotica - you could focus on those being grabs at some sort of dark, edgy cred as well, but that'd be rather reductive.

it also comes off like a really convincing response to what's going on in her personal life. the leaks and demos going round a while ago suggest that until the grammys, her follow-up to GGGB was going in a v different direction, with chris brown collabs and such, and i get the impression that in the past half year all of that was totally scrapped and rated r built from the ground instead.

it's also interesting that, persona-wise, she veers between surprisingly nuanced hurt and vulnerability, and constantly reinforcing this badass, strong, don't-fuck-with-me image. that rings pretty true - a lot of the posing brings what she said on the 20/20 interview to mind, cutting diane sawyer off with "i am strong".

i'm astonished at how much hearing in context has turned me round on "wait your turn". i kind of love it now. SUCH A FUCKING LADY.

"rude boy" is this close to getting programmed out though, it feels inappropriate and out of place.

OTM. not programmed out for me, although maybe just turned into a stand-alone single on the iPod. I don't want to delete it as it's a darn good tune...it's fun in a creepy seductive way, but it doesn't really belong. one of these things is not like the others, etc.

6 inch walker
big shit talker
never played the victim
i'd rather be the stalker

lol @ the "In the Air Tonight" drum fill on "Cold Case Love"

Yeah lex I never thought it was gonna be just a cred move. And Rihanna is the kind of artist for whom that kind of thing has potential to be great (nb. I've only heard a couple of these so far).

"rude boy" is def out of place but it's also one of the best songs

"fire bomb" stinks

the rest of the song is questionable, but i love the last minute of "photography." when the beat comes in and it just glides across the "all i've got is nothing without you," such good way to end a song.

ok i'm almost certain the line in question is "bloggers" :(

i dig the will.i.am song so much - his verse reminds me so much of kanye's on "put on" - beat drops out and in comes out of place super emo warbling, will even goes decidedly kanye and raps about jeans. and i pretty much love the verse too.

for being thematically and/or sonically outliers, "rude boy" and "photographs" are damn good - and then "te amo" with it's "miss independent" biting - that's a three song stretch that should be the weak spot of the album but it's actually awesome imo

dude that will.I.am verse is so fucking obnoxious, did you really just insinuate that he emoted at all?

emo as in being sad - i think it flows really well & then the beat switches up for the bridge - dope little stretch there

this album is really fucking solid

I fux with the will.i.am verse

]the knowledge that Ester Dean wrote an Esmee Denters song is just extra insurance on the guarantee that I will never remember which is which

― Kenny G. Saxgarden (some dude), Friday, November 13, 2009 9:51 PM Bookmark

hadn't even realized they were diff ppl until I read that

didn't you gucci mane stans notice ester dean's incredible spot on "white girl" ages ago? she hasn't turned out to be much good otherwise but it'd be pretty hard to mistake her for esmee denters - obnoxious yelling vs vanilla safety.

fwiw, akaik I haven't heard either of them

yeah clearly we're referring to the fact that their names have 90% of the same letters arranged in a similar order

"white girl" is retitled "I used to lover her," one of the best tracks gucci dropped this year

lmao @ title mix up!!! i mean "I think i luv her." I used to lover her is a song about how new hip hop sucks released by common the same year as illmatic

i'll have to buy the deluxe edition for that one

_MAXWELL_

NEW YORK! concrete JUNGLE where dreams R made OF! Movie List: Precious & The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus! RIHANNA's 'RR' song is killen! 5 minutes ago from web

oh shit apparently young jeezy is in town, if he comes out at the showcase tonight i might just totally lose it

haven't been this hyped for a show in fucking ages actually

BRILLIANT
RESILIENT
FANMAIL FROM 27 MILLION

'hard' is great but where is that hornline from?

"can you feel it"

"make sure you frisk my panties and bra" is kinda €_€

lex you're otm about how a lot of these songs make sense in context, Russian roulette worked much better as a setpiece

omg at 'rude boy' :^O

russian roulette is still a drag for me. this is a decent album but not something i'll be listening all the way through very often i don't think

ok so can anyone explain the size 10 lyric in "stupid in love"? it's such a striking opening line but i have no idea what it's referring to.

also, the "fire bomb" narrative: whoa. that is pretty next-level.

i'm not sure it refers to anything another than ne-yo's hallmark clunky-but-well-meaning observational grasp of what makes lady ire tick and also the fact that a more plausible (for rihanna) insulting dress size number wouldn't really fit into the metre.

thought 'fire bomb' was kinda garbled personally but i guess it's just me.

russian roulette is offputting because I keep on expecting her to end the chorus with 'roulette' to complete the rhyme

I think the size 10 lyric refers to Rihanna finding another woman's clothing (underwear?) in her boyfriend's car or apartment. It's the only thing that makes sense to me.

haha yeah that does make way more sense actually - soz ne-yo. that would mean the guy in question wouldve been having an affair with a girl more than twice the size of rihanna?? or do they have numbers on knickers now, i dunno.

majorly pissed I'm not at this Rihanna thing tonight especially if Jeezy shows up :(

JEEZY SHOWED UP <3 <3 <3 <3

so did jay-z but i was so majorly conflicted by the way my first experience of, like, this former hero/legend figure being to fucking "run this town" which improves not one jot live

great show anyway - too little from the new album but that's the nature of the internet-streamed nokia showcase i guess. get the feeling that the proper rated r tour will be pretty special.

noooooooooooooooooooooooo Beyonce + Jay-Z are in town tonight too and I'm in bed watching crappy tv fml

melissa's size 10 theory is that it's a slightly odd way of saying "perfect 10" which makes more sense than anything else we've thought of. erika and i did mull over the "found some other chick's size 10 clothes" theory but you'd think this plot point would be expanded on later in the song if so.

when jeezy came out it was a true litmus test of the UK audience - half the people going "uhhh" and the other half going OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG and punching the air - melissa and i sang every word of "hard" SUCH A GREAT SONG

i would totally see a rihanna rated r tour - pretty much love the album

also jeezy

I've been in too good of moods to listen to this album.

i was exhausted the first time i heard this and have since never really sat down to listen to it properly, but my goodness 'Fire Bomb' is really dark, isn't it? If I'm not mistaken, she's driving her car w/ leaking gas tank etc. to her ex-boyfriend's house, with the intention of crashing through his windows and blowing them both up?

I thought this was absolutely fucking dreadful on the first listen. It actively ruined my journey into work. Lumbering, portentious, really badly produced, one or two tracks aside.

'Hard' is pretty good but as soon as Jeezy came in I realised I'd rather be listening to The Recession. Also it doesn't help that Rihanna is, like, a really bad singer and only a few people have successfully written or produced for her voice. Putting it so upfront and dead centre in the mix was a really bad move.

Apart from Pon De Replay and a few others it's always felt like people were giving Rihanna songs they could have given to Britney or anyone else. This feels like the first time anyone's put together an entire album with Rihanna in mind and it feels like everyone got so focussed on creating a monumental pop moment that they forgot to write any decent songs. I almost gave up midway through the Slash track.

It feels like everyone made a mistake by plumping for 'claustrophobic nightmare' over 'defiant "fuck you"'.

"rude boy" is this close to getting programmed out though, it feels inappropriate and out of place.

Lol, that's the one I liked the most. It had me wishing they hadn't taken eight tracks to get to a half-decent beat.

the album sounded a little tiresome on first listen but instead of being a "grower" it really OPENS UP and reveals that each ingredient does get a chance to breathe. really is a wonderful album, almost perfect for where rihanna is now, and the only misstep in my book is the will.i.am bit. the slash track is really, really great for me..repetitiveness at its best. slash doesn't contribute anything of notice, which is a positive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrGkBiQiZwk&feature=player_embedded

idk matt i think "fuck you" would've been a really easy and obvious route to go for, and would likely have been diluted by the fact that it's already such a common perspective in r&b. the swagger tracks here are fuck yous, anyway, but a really specific and distinct kind.

her voice can have a harsh edge to it but she can sing - i hesitate to bring out the grace jones comparison given how hard she's fishing for it, but they both have a similar grain in their voice. it works really well with the claustrophobic feel and arrangements, and the recurring use of repetition - makes it feel pretty uncompromising at times.

"Also it doesn't help that Rihanna is, like, a really bad singer"

LOL

I think I meant sonically rather than lyrically - I'd much rather they'd have gone for something triumphant rather than claustrophobic. I think the album they actually released sounds like the obvious route.

rihanna and GJ dont have simililar voices at all IMO - that only seems like a similiarity now cos of rihannas newly 'risque' image.

yeah i think it'd been a running issue for me so far listening to this record trying to second-guess if i would have the same reaction as matt had i/we not all had our meta-narrative eye in. and yet while i don't find myself particularly rushing to deny any of those criticisms, nor am i unhappy to keep putting this album on; in fact i'm not sure it is an off-putting "claustrophobic nightmare" so much as it is quite um, juvenile, with all the attendant good and bad half-baked ott gothy energy (but still energy all the same) that brings. (like, wrt the question writer/producer shepherding i've no trouble believing 100% that rihanna's coping mechanism actually is locking herself in her catwalk armour bedroom with some boshing drum n bass and singing vengeful mavado choruses.)

which all probably sounds quite dispassionate of me; falling down the "you go girl/ooh in your face breezy!" rabbit hole is more unsatisfactory still, however.

all in all, 'fire bomb' is emerging as the pick of the bunch anyway - still not sure i quite get it as such but the combination of cliffhanger danger and giddily inchoate crazed resolution is enduring in a way little else on the album is i think.

(like, wrt the question writer/producer shepherding i've no trouble believing 100% that rihanna's coping mechanism actually is locking herself in her catwalk armour bedroom with some boshing drum n bass and singing vengeful mavado choruses.)

This would be kind of awesome actually! Actually I think a slightly juvenile attempt at claustrophobia is what bothers me about it. It's such a lazy path to go down, especially given that this is the point in Rihanna's career where she should be ascending to Biggest Pop Star In The World status and instead they've allowed the Chris Brown incident to become the pivotal moment of her career and thus given her a load of schlocky goth-crunk by numbers* to wax pissed-off over.

*I was going to say 'Mikey J knockoffs' but thought that might be overegging the dismissive pudding, even though G4L is totally grimey.

you don't think she's made a claustrophic, pissed-off album because she's...feeling claustrophobic and pissed-off?

i like that she hasn't made any obvious Biggest Pop Star In The World moves - snore, seriously. that shit comes so much more naturally to golden girl beyoncé. that way lies GGGB retreads and redone being wheeled out. DNW. but it's not a withdrawal from pop, exactly - indeed this sort of cold, dark album is virtually a rite of passage for huge pop stars (madonna - erotica, janet - velvet rope, kanye - 808s).

"fire bomb" is probably my pick too; for a song with a narrative so unarguable, it's surprisingly ambivalent.

happily that seems to be the one song rihanna wrote herself, according to wiki anyway. (it doesn't know who produced it though.)

incidentally rated r reminded me of the recession too (crossed with the cheryl cole album... kinda) but weirdly the trigger wasn't the jeezy appearance but that stupid "we danced underneath the candelabra" line in 'te amo' reminding me of jeezy's terrific "you see me standing here / like a chandelier" lyric in 'holiday'. (cos chandeliers DO hang there simmering and silently resentful of what's below them!)

of course the really irritating thing about it all is you do actually get hanging candelabras i think , but i still picture rihanna and her lesbian friend under a table like tiny cartoon mice anyways.

when i first heard that line i was like "candelabra? are you sure?" but apparently:

Accordingly, the term "candelabra" has entered common use as a collective designation for small-based incandescent light bulbs used in chandeliers and other lighting fixtures designed to provide decoration as well as illumination.

not sure how much i trust those wikipedia credits yet; but if rihanna did write "fire bomb" herself, i'm definitely impressed. the scenario, the imagery, the tension between stupid teenage self-destructive thelma&louise romance and crazed take-you-down hate-filled revenge.

Fire Bomb (J. Fauntleroy II, B. Kennedy, R. Fenty)
Produced by B. Kennedy for Team BK

THIS fucking booklet, btw.

haha written by the candelabra culprit!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kennedy_(producer)

ew gross

Instruments Piano, Keytar

it's a good idea that if you're a female who is gonna have jeezy rap on your song that the beat be basically a jeezy beat -_-

I'M SUCH A FUCKIN LADY

xp otm

I'm liking this. "Fire Bomb" is amazing. 80s Stadium Rock as Homicidal Revenge Fantasy is such a fantastically perverse strategy.

Can't really imagine having a problem with "Rude Boy" also.

more of a suicide bomber jihad thing than mere homicide - even better!

i don't have a prob w/"rude boy" really, more of a prob with it being on rated r

see the thing is part of me hears a kinda happy ending love story in 'fire bomb'... bit like a thelma & louise where geena forgets to tell the other one know what she finna do. like they'll always be together once the car blows! jihadery just seems tawdry.

oh absolutely, it's totally romantic! i mean, there's something dumbly romantic about jihad too i guess. "the only move for me and you is to go out blazing..."

the tension between stupid teenage self-destructive thelma&louise romance and crazed take-you-down hate-filled revenge.

― lex pretend, Tuesday, November 17, 2009 2:11 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's kinda not hate-filled at all though, is the rapidly-fading-from-memory-slash-caring distinction i think i was trying to make; it just seems crueller the way you put it.

aaaaanyhow i definitely think there's some sequencing issues with this - 'stupid in love' is an ok song but a huge drag placed where it is, and then followed by 'rockstar 101' anyway afterwards - everything suffers as a result. likewise 'rude boy' gets all the trite awkwardness accusations (that 'te amo' should imo really be receiving) when it would be a perfectly fine bit of filler were it properly used to keep a general upward curve going at some point in the album.

you don't think a mad house/wait your turn/hard/rockstar 101 opening sequence would be a bit much? i quite like the disorientating oscillation between the wounded balladry and sneering grinds in that section. also "stupid in love" sets out the context in a relatively obvious way which would seem trite further from the start.

"russian roulette" feels oddly buried in the middle there.

i haven't listened to this album enough, but my initial impression is that the "wounded balladry" approach, while beautiful, is a little lofty -- there doesn't seem to be quite enough (talent) there to justify the approach.

liiike it sounds like a little girl playing in a diva's dressing room

idk; i kind of agree that i'm rarely wowed by the virtuosity of the songwriting ("you act like a jerk" etc) but i think this makes her more...relatable? more traumatised, more convincing in the awkward process of rebuilding her self-image.

i essentially like "g4l" - LOVE the intro/outro - but in betweeen it could well do with losing a couple of minutes.

xxp no sure, i'd probably chuck 'rockstar' somewhere further behind as well. ai haven't worked out exactly how it would play out (this would probably take me years having never finished a mixtape for anyone in my life)(no actually i did once and STILL REGRET IT!!) but i am convinced there are better solutions. bear with me!

and yeah like i said, that oscillation is indeed one (slightly oblique) way of reading/enjoying/wait-there's-a-difference?-ing it.

Only just been listening to this record, but think that Rude Boy is a definite highlight.

By allowing herself to express the whole range of what an abused woman goes through, Rihanna has given those young fans for whom she feels responsible the greatest gift art can give: a portrait of lived experience that doesn't step back from what's hardest to admit.

-- Ann Powers

standing & applauding this review.

also i have 100% come round to what i WANNN WANNN WANNN is whatcha WANNN WANNN WANNN

that song is dope - hope they make it a single

"hard" might be song of the year for me.

The song has its faults: the unfortunate "where them bloggers at" moment; Jeezy's inability to resist one of his increasingly sour-grapes shots at perpetual foe Gucci Mane.

as much as i love gucci that's my favourite part of that whole verse. gets a smile out of me every time.

yeah same

100% come round to what i WANNN WANNN WANNN

Took me a sec to realize that this is basically the one track on here that resonates with the Rihanna quote that she "woke up as Britney Spears" -- "Rude Boy" is the closest thing to a straight-up Blackout track on there, not nec. how it sounds but the attitude. Misleading come-on that's really about intimidation/setting her own terms.

that song is dope - hope they make it a single

― will.i.ban (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, November 24, 2009 3:08 PM (6 hours ago)

otm. somebody had better get their ears chopped as punishment off if it doesn't.

Bought this today.

i like hard

that song is dope - hope they make it a single

― will.i.ban (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, November 24, 2009 3:08 PM (6 hours ago)

otm. somebody had better get their ears chopped as punishment off if it doesn't.

― samosa gibreel, Tuesday, November 24, 2009 9:33 PM (1 hour ago)

yeah they'd be nuts to not try to hop on that bandwagon, tbh. i still think it's pretty awful, but hey

I like how the will.i.am part comes out nowhere and I'm always like 'wait...what the fuck is going on?' when I hear it. it's going to be disappointing when I figure it out

i love that verse unconditionally

I heard it as "where my black girls at?" but I'm not sure I want to listen to the record again to find out. It didn't even occur to me it might be "where my bloggers at".

i heard it as "where my fly girls at" but listening back it's obviously "where them girls talkin' trash/where them blog girls at/where them lighters at" which i'm down with.

Only 3 songs to talk about here: Photographs, Rude Boy and Cold Case Love. The rest are very much samey and boring stuff, in the future everyone will remember this album as a post-Chris Brown therapy record, nothing more.

excellent stuff from melissa bradshaw on rihanna, live and on record: http://decksandthecity.thepop.com/2009/11/25/episode-9-bitch-im-with-you/

This is all very accomplished and whatever, but I think I prefer the fun and even the more dour moments of Good Girl Gone Bad.

As much as I'm not exactly a fan of modern R&B, it must be said that Rihanna is a huge step in the right direction compared to the early 00s and Nelly....

G4L...all day, every day.

why do you say that, geir?

Now Nelly was even hated by most reviewers and had an incredibly annoying voice. But I guess it's just as much about how Rihanna's stuff has a bit of that 80s synthpop/electro thing about it.

Generally, I like mainstream pop/dance/R&B from the second half of the 00s considerably much better than I did with the same style from the first half.

And, well, I mean, I really like the recent stuff by Britney. And even more so in the case of Lady Gaga and La Roux. In fact, some of mainstream pop may be the best since, exactly, the mid 80s.

u really don't wanna get suggest banned again, do you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnjEPMYr6Pw

uh, kevin, u asked him for his opinion and he expressed it. no suggest bans needed thx.

anyway, lolbullying Geir is kind of tired by now, no?

or perhaps u were just commenting on that he was being oddly positive? if so, sorry for misunderstanding. i'm just kind of sick of people being shitty. 'nite!

I tried listening to this again and I couldn't get past the first five tracks - the first couple are enjoyable but nothing particularly special but then it gets to Stupid In Love, which has one of the most lazily underwritten choruses I've ever heard, while Rockstar 101 is just a flat-out terrible song.

Well, I grew up with 80s music, and mainstream pop today sounds a lot like the 80s. Sure, ideally, I would prefer today's R&B to swap those 808 beats with extremely heavy bass drums and just claps as "snares" with a straighter, less syncopated, disco beat like the more pure electro acts do. But it still sounds better. R&B is also more melody-oriented today than it was in the early 00s, and I sure like acts like Rihanna and Black Eyed Peas way better than I did crap like Nelly. Even Beyonce, who I used to really despite back in the Destiny's Child day, has come up with some more listenable stuff lately.

^^^oops -- started reading that post before i realized it was geir & wasted precious seconds

or perhaps u were just commenting on that he was being oddly positive? if so, sorry for misunderstanding. i'm just kind of sick of people being shitty. 'nite!

― oops i accidentally made it personal (surm), Monday, November 30, 2009 4:33 AM (3 hours ago)

yeah

And I think I tried to explain. After all, hating stuff that sounds exactly like the 80s stuff I love would seem strange.

A lot of today's mainstream pop sounds more or less like 80s synthpop, except the quota of male vs. female lead vocals is roughly the opposite from what it was back then.

Good review on Pitchfork, but why is it 6,1?! That's a 4,0 review, and a 4,0 album.

guns in the air, guns in the air
can't hurt us again when they come around here
we got our guns, got our guns
we got our guns, got our guns
we got our guns in the motherfucking air
oh, i'm down 4 life!

idk why a navy is better than an army though

haha wau, i was just listening to that track and went thru the exact same thought processes! indeed, the navy thing is one of the great unsolved rap mysteries of our time.

really do quite enjoy 'g4l' despite myself, i suppose it is oblquely bone thugsy kinda.

i liked it a lot more once i got the vengeful girl gangs fantasy narrative - the reasons for the posing

i'm sure this has already been talked about, but the Rude Boy lyrics are funny. "can you get it up, is you big enough"

especially in light of RiRi's sexually explicit comments in the media, along the lines of "size matters" and "if you don't send nekkid cell phone pics to your boyfriend, i feel bad for him"

.... <3 ?

Good review on Pitchfork, but why is it 6,1?! That's a 4,0 review, and a 4,0 album.

Are you kidding? It was horrible writing, regardless of what the rating was. Really really awful.

A sampling of cringeworthy quotes from the review:

There was an exact moment when Rihanna stopped being a milquetoast pop automaton and started to establish a persona unto herself.

Good to know. In the meantime, let's all listen to REAL music like Wavves.

The ballads also suffer due to the fact that they require singing-- which still isn't Rihanna's forte

Indie rock, Pitchfork's bread and butter, is all about singers who can't sing. Why hold Rihanna, who's better than most any indie vocalist except for Antony, to a higher standard?

Canned rock flourishes turn "Rockstar 101" [ft. Slash], "Russian Roulette", and "The Last Song" into instantly-dated missteps from a bygone era when a Slash feature was cool.

The Slash cameo might as well be an afterthought, given that's he's not prominently featured or recognizable on the track. And who cares if it's a "cool" feature?

Talking about Rated R in a promo interview, Rihanna said, "Anybody can make a hit, but I wanted a real album." Such is the flawed logic of a newly legal drinker who has known only skyrocketing commercial success.

No words for this bomb of a closing statement. Really???

Then again, her tenacity in the face of the unimaginable public humiliation this year is beyond brave.

Was Rihanna really the one humiliated? I'd say Chris Brown is in the humiliating position, while Rihanna has been seen as a strong, courageous woman who weathered an awful storm.

Such is the flawed logic of a newly legal drinker who has known only skyrocketing commercial success.

REALLY???????????

lol ya those excerpts are pretty infuriating

the problem with the review is that he tries to go for way too many one-liners, when i think overall it's not bad at all

the "newly legal drinker" comment is a bit...condescending but i don't think what he's saying with it is completely off-base

all you need to do is shave off russian roulette and a couple other songs and this album is really, really good.

lol i clicked on to pfork to see who wrote it, and then clicked off w/o reading it. i've read so much terrific writing about rated r (did i link the ann powers one? AMAZING) and had so many excellent exchanges of views w/people about it that...yeah ryan dombal ain't gonna be bringing anything i need to this plate.

saw jordan tweet about how he said rihanna started establishing her real persona or whatever with "take a bow", and then go on to criticise the ballads o_0

the "newly legal drinker" thing is just weird (i mean...what? what does that have to do with anything?) but the "humiliation" thing is fucking out of order. he thinks domestic abuse victims are the humiliated ones, huh?

wait, why is it out of order to say she was humiliated??

i mean it be simplistic and inaccurate but...

*may be

not really applicable to rihanna given her public presence since the incident, but yeah not wholly inaccurate of how many victims feel

because it feeds into a victim-shaming narrative that's kinda offensive? domestic abuse victims have no reason to feel embarrassed - even if they do, and even if that's understandable - and it shouldn't define their process of recovery! idk it just casually and obnoxiously reinforces the perception that a victim of domestic abuse is somehow shamed by it. if you're gonna go there you have to go there with a lot more nuance.

actually you know what pfork, as ever, just doesn't deserve our time, not even for lazy easy zings.

ann powers

By allowing herself to express the whole range of what an abused woman goes through, Rihanna has given those young fans for whom she feels responsible the greatest gift art can give: a portrait of lived experience that doesn't step back from what's hardest to admit.

melissa bradshaw

Rated R isn’t just confession because of the gospel complaint (‘Cold Case Love’ is superb, though) and the ballad about being stupid in love, and the one about memories, but because it exposes the irrationality of trauma and the kinds of fantasy that follow it.

^^excellent, excellent writing. more like this less like dombal please. any others that people have seen? there's been good stuff on "russian roulette" and "wait your turn" on the singles jukebox too.

i interpreted the humiliation bit from pitchfork as a comment on the humiliation of having to go through everything in the context of the media, which i think i've heard rihanna talk about, so it didn't seem terribly offensive to me, if simplistic. but i do understand what you mean in that this line of thinking attaches shame to victims of abuse.

as for the ann powers bit, i like it but i don't find it particularly insightful as an observation or anything.

and btw the slash stuff on this album is great

because it feeds into a victim-shaming narrative that's kinda offensive? domestic abuse victims have no reason to feel embarrassed - even if they do, and even if that's understandable - and it shouldn't define their process of recovery! idk it just casually and obnoxiously reinforces the perception that a victim of domestic abuse is somehow shamed by it.

Exactly.

Lex, those are both excellent pieces. Slash works great in his cameo, also, and I'm the last person you'll find repping for anything else that man has ever worked on.

The "army, better yet a navy" line comes from the BG song "Cash Money is a Army". I recognised the reference instantly...that song was all over the place in my high school days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fCTCeIt3MM

good call

well the army/navy thing is "takeover" innit (assume the bg track came after? also assume rihanna's referencing jay-z rather than them), but i didn't get it then and 8 years later i still don't get it!

oh wait i just looked it up and apparently bg did come first

damn girl http://www.dlisted.com/files/imagecache/photo-preview/files/galleries/spl143449_005.jpg

sorry so big.

"the wait is ova" come on at a bar last night, and it sounded good. but i don't really like the "that's just the way the game is played" part -- like, who is that? some random check who's like, "i'll just tell rihanna how the game is played" ? i don't get it!

*chick

WTF?

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/showbiz/article631618.ece?slideshowPopup=true&articleId=631618&initialArticleId=631618&nSlide=1

hmmm

lol @the helmet !

very cute!

after some time with this, i think i can safely say that i would rather hear this sort of epic drama done with a prettier voice, and less polished production. it sounds a little too industry, or something

and it's like, if this is supposed to be her big outlet -- her confrontation of the issues, as ann powers suggests -- then either the industry failed at making it sound more nuanced, or rihanna's just kind of ordinary. yes, it's dark, but it's not quite dark enough for me. a gunshot at the end of a song doesn't quite cut it.

haven't felt the urge to return to this ever since the initial couple of listens. when I do listen to single songs from the album they feel lifeless outside of the context. whoever says this will be forgotten ten years from now upthread is otm I think

"This will be forgotten ten years from now" = worst possible criticism of any record ever, and I don't even like Rated R.

sorry for not being a professional critic :/

it's totally a professional critic comment --> one of the reasons it's so annoying.

if this is supposed to be her big outlet -- her confrontation of the issues, as ann powers suggests -- then either the industry failed at making it sound more nuanced, or rihanna's just kind of ordinary. yes, it's dark, but it's not quite dark enough for me. a gunshot at the end of a song doesn't quite cut it.

Yeah I'd agree with this. I think it's partly because there's so much dark, rumbling and terrific *sounding* music coming from these shores at the moment that the Rihanna album just sounds a bit flat in comparison. I'm well aware most of the target audience won't be making this comparison, but still the production methods at work don't seem to do 'dark' very well, especially with Rihanna on top and not an MC spitting blood and fire.

"hard" video

http://videos.onsmash.com/v/ItaDjEi76XpZk6y5

jaw on floor

plus also lol:

http://i50.tinypic.com/50m6x2.jpg

eheh. great over the top video !
she's made much thinner than on the pictures of the shooting of the video.

lolange:

@solangeknowles #ripmypinkwartankidea #ripmymickeyears lol.
12 minutes ago from web

the pink tank got me too since I used to be in a band named... pink panzers !

Can't stop listening to "Cold Case Love". I actually really like all of the ballads on the album.

i can't stand looking at young jeezy. the glorious image produced in my mind when i hear his voice is so wildly divergent from the real thing it actually changes the way he sounds. not that he's ugly or anything, just so round and babyfaced.

i like hard a lot

i can't stand looking at young jeezy. the glorious image produced in my mind when i hear his voice is so wildly divergent from the real thing it actually changes the way he sounds. not that he's ugly or anything, just so round and babyfaced.

― taoiseachizown (samosa gibreel), Sunday, December 27, 2009 3:59 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

are you a big fan of rick ross?

i am. rick ross looks great, though! if anything, his music is enhanced by visual accompaniment. jeezy sounds so lion-like, all gruff and roar but irl he's just a puddin'y old softhead. rick ross sounds like a fat guy and looks like an AWESOME FAT GUY.

http://tunesup.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/ti-ft-rihanna-and-rick-ross-live-your-life-rmx1.jpg

success

"Hard" is a smart choice of single imo

http://i45.tinypic.com/14xphf9.gif

every single thing about that song and video is some feeble tryhard shit imo

jeezy is a lot of things but he is not round he is triangular

one of the best singles of the decade, imo

umbrella.

jeezy is a lot of things but he is not round he is triangular

― max, Saturday, January 2, 2010 7:01 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

conical

just popping in here as the board's resident goth to say that some of y'all are some jaded mofo's re: "Russian Roulette"

i forgot goths liked boring hookless songs

bauhaus had jams, son

i was reading this thread while listening to 20jfg and the gif above was in perfect time with discipline

just popping in here as the board's resident goth to say that some of y'all are some jaded mofo's re: "Russian Roulette"

Echoing this. It's the centerpiece of the album, absolutely essential.

rhianna should do a song over a loop of the "she's in parties" bassline IMO

Can it please be called "She's in Panties"???

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Rihanna_-_Rude_Boy_Cover.jpg

one of my favorite songs on the album

yeah has been kind of the slow burner for me; i think i thought it was a lil cartoony at first but it's really strong, one of the three best

Agreed, it is fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plt4RLJgKZU

"rude boy" is def one of my fav singles of the year

Likewise!

thirdeded

Nice arrangement on the AOL Session up there.

also love "rude boy". I'm surprised it took this long for it to be released as a single.

REGGAE REMIXES ILU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1tA0guJ7hw

this must have been posted somewhere because it's ilx catnip but it can stand to be posted again

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/N-dX4C3ZnYY&hl=en_GB&fs=1&";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/N-dX4C3ZnYY&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

ugh sorry guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-dX4C3ZnYY

okay "Rude Boy" in addition to "Hard" and "Russian Roulette" is really making me consider picking up this album

You really should.

and the "rude boy" remixes keep on coming - this one by loose cannons with lady chann is amazing, so heavy - love the way they sloooow rihanna's vox down http://www.sendspace.com/file/uafa48

I like how the will.i.am part comes out nowhere and I'm always like 'wait...what the fuck is going on?' when I hear it. it's going to be disappointing when I figure it out

― i and iiiijjjj (The Reverend), Wednesday, November 25, 2009 3:14 AM (4 months ago) Bookmark

burst out laughing on the bus today when this verse came on

more specifically at the moment when he says "calvin KLEIN," and like, suddenly on klein he's got like five will.i.am multitracked.

Link: http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/17/rihanna%E2%80%99s-next-album-will-%E2%80%98thrill%E2%80%99-you/?hpt=T2

Rihanna’s next album will ‘Thrill’ you

Talk about high standards.

For Rihanna’s next album, Def Jam A&R exec Bu Thiam is expecting the Barbadian pop star to pull off a record of legendary proportions.

“I’m trying to push her to where every song will be a hit from 1 to 12. I’m talking about NO album fillers,” Thiam said in a blog post on Vibe.com. “Our bar for this album is Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller.’”

Hmm…ok. And how exactly will she pull that off? With help from the likes of Ne-Yo, The Dream, Stargate, Ester Dean, Mel & Mus and Rock City, Thiam said.

“It’s already giving me the feel of a timeless album, and right now is her time,” he added.

Do you think Rihanna can pull Thiam's dream off?

ugh! @ those producers. not exactly giving me the chills.

fucking rock city

lol is te amo really the next single

who are Mel & Mus?

"rude boy" is def one of my fav singles of the year

― suge knight btw (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, February 24, 2010 10:34 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^

"te amo" is really dope imo

kind of middling to my ears but i can see myself loving it down the line

definitely pretty catchy

cracks me up that Rihanna's serious dark personal artistic statement album and her THE NEXT THRILLER record have pretty much identical production lineups.

"we're really going to break the mold and do something different with this album...The-Dream and Ne-Yo are going to write it."

Rated R was perfectly in line with what I wanted from Ri...I'm glad sales were decent... she can do whatever she feels like with her next album, it's all gravy at this point.

Cosign!

So...

http://rihannanow.com/sites/rihannanow.com/themes/slenderfungus/images/promo_rihanna_cover.jpg

OMG

the red hair really isn't working for her irl but that's a sick cover

i def 'get' only girl in the world now

dudes only girl is cert banger

I heard it for the first time today and I don't get it yet.

i def 'get' only girl in the world now

― waka flocka flame judi dench (J0rdan S.), Saturday, October 2, 2010 7:53 PM Bookmark

her voice has never sounded as big as it does on only girl

her voice sounds like a merciless foghorn again, after she showed some capability of inflection and expression on "Rude Boy"

"cold case love" is the only song on this worth coming back for

Oh man are you kidding, I think pretty much all but 2-3 songs on this are golden.

wait i liked "fire bomb" too. the rest aren't garbage or anything (ok a few are, sup will i am) but who cares

switch "cold case love" for "rude boy" and that is exactly my opinion on that album

just listened again and that song is still the shit. timberlake wrote that!

come back 2 us justin

foreal

Photography Book!

http://www.rap-up.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/rihanna-book-2.jpg

The bridge of "Only Girl in the World" sounds exactly like "Shut Up and Drive".

snl this weekend

http://www.mediafire.com/?2d7th4rf4f0juqz

Love The Way You Lie Drum and Bass remix. Haven't heard the original but this makes me want to.

while we wait eternally for her to bother dropping R8, rated r remains an incredible wintry monolith of an album. holds up so well

I have no reason to anticipate R8 based on the singles, but "Fire Bomb" remains my very favourite of all her songs.

Her best album, yes.

while we wait eternally for her to bother dropping R8, rated r remains an incredible wintry monolith of an album. holds up so well

― lex pretend, Sunday, November 29, 2015 1:58 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Anti drops on Friday

"cold case love" still soooo good

do we know that it will drop on friday? or are we just guessing again?