Rihanna -- We Found Love (feat. Calvin Harris) and subsequent 2011 album

The lead single for Rihanna's next record has dropped. We Found Love manages to sound poppy yet meditative, and simple yet masterful. Rihanna's voice cleans up nice on the track, which serves as a pristine response to LOUD: somewhat less loud than Only Girl, but with all the energy and focus. The album is due out late November.

I can't wait for this song to blow up.

http://comicon.com/pulse/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/224.jpg http://www.hotnewsonglyrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Calvin-Harris-Feel-So-Close-Lyrics.jpg

Haven't heard this yet, so I might end up thinking it's awesome, and I have liked Ri in the past, but 2011 sure has made me sick of her.

Yeah I love it. Have no idea who Calvin Harris is so I don't have a kneejerk "eew cooties" reaction to his presence here. Definitely prefer this to "Only Girl" as far as RiRi lead singles go.

this fits her voice much better

idk who calvin harris is either really, this whole us pop trend of "producers get featuring credits now BUT ONLY IF THEY'RE EUROPEAN" is just still annoying me

it's better than "Only Girl" but that's not saying much, at the end of the day i'd be happy to forget all 6 of Loud's singles

i thought one of calvin's singles was really good, though as far as i'm aware his discography is generally a steaming turd.

i forgot how this new song goes already. but then again i didn't like "only girl" at first either. i think what eventually won me over about "only girl" was how the flowers started vibrating in the music video during the whooshy part of the first chorus. HOPEFULLY this song's video will have something as wonderful as that.

lol it's true that the producers getting ft. credit thing is kind of annoying, i guess they're just trying to build something resembling name recognition so they can sell some of the producers' own "lead singles" later (like the afrojack song with eva simons which is slowly climbing the charts right now). i hope this song's existence does not mean that calvin harris will try to "break" america

I disliked "Only Girl" at first but grew to love it, which makes me wary of judging this straightaway. Have no in-principle objection to Calvin Harris (at least not since his first album)- but I'm glad he doesn't sing on this.

i think i'd quite like the big chorus in a different context but calvin harris is just such an awful producer - he and his rinky-dink plinky-plonk toy keyboard both need to be burned at the stake, it's unlistenable.

rihanna's choice of producer is on such a downward slope but i can't imagine who could be worse than harris

official youtube here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F6YqOFsBnM

If Calvin Harris had never sang on any of his own records I would have such a better reaction to hearing his name.

This sounds exactly what I thought it would sound like, I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not.

Yeah it's his voice that really gets to me too. It doesn't matter what he does I will always hear him singing "I get all the girls I get all the girls" or his annoying face in the Dizzee Rascal Dance With Me video. Okay it's his voice and face that I hate.

I really like We Found Love, probably more than anything on Loud at the moment.

http://comicon.com/pulse/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/224.jpghttp://www.hotnewsonglyrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Calvin-Harris-Feel-So-Close-Lyrics.jpg

― some dude, Saturday, 24 September 2011 03:39 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

He just oozes that affectation and sliminess in his vocal performances. "Feel So Close" makes me think the girl he's chatting to is blissed out on drugs while he's just slightly tipsy and saying the right things to get her into bed.

can't help but feel like maybe this reading of his vocal performance goes psychologically 'too far'

yeah her voice sounds great on this but the production is.....tedious

can r&b stop being so shitty-european? especially when it could be awesome-germans-european?

can people stop listening to rihanna and expecting r&b?

i like the production on this. euro-rihanna is a nice pairing.

please dont stop the music>>>>>>>>this

totally

well sure

the only thing idg is why there arent vocals after the build up, just waiting for her to sing, feels interminable. but ya she sounds amazing & makes the song

i will always rep for pls don't stop the music, but i appreciate how this does not hit me over the head with a melody

j0rdan whats the one calvin harris jam that is a jam?

i'm not alone

can't wait for the remixes of this track tho, good vocal as mentioned above

wow it sounds even more boring the 2nd time around

the only thing idg is why there arent vocals after the build up, just waiting for her to sing, feels interminable. but ya she sounds amazing & makes the song

― flopson, Saturday, September 24, 2011 11:38 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, it really feels like it should slam into the verse there.

song is effortlessly stunning

imo best thing about a new album cycle is that presumably she'll have a new look and ditch the stupid-looking red hair

the red hair is the only thing i really liked about the loud aesthetic

the only thing idg is why there arent vocals after the build up, just waiting for her to sing, feels interminable. but ya she sounds amazing & makes the song

― flopson, Saturday, September 24, 2011 11:38 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, it really feels like it should slam into the verse there.

― The Reverend, Saturday, 24 September 2011 20:52 (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya this has kinda become the sole point of intrigue for me with this song; it doesnt quite suggest a void but maybe a sort of disquieting plainness, idk. like you're left thinking more about the hopeless place than the finding love, and then whether that's a thing to embrace rather than overcome

will probably have a decent life as a lonely xmas jam i imagine

this has kinda become the sole point of intrigue for me with this song

I know, right?

the build up is so lazy btw. maybe it's just the youtube but the calvin harris portion of this sounds so skeletal and underproduced.

i don't mind how plain and pronounced the lead-in is. makes you wait for it.

the whole thing is plain

i find it unfettered as opposed to plain

ilm has been wrong about rihanna for the past year

hey, I liked "only girl", "what's my name", and "man down"

yeah... he did.

what is it that's not fettered?

i dunno if ilm has enough consensus about rihanna over the past year to be right or wrong per se

agreed.

xp, to my ears, the tune and the vocals, and the sound in general.

i love surm's grandmotherly belief in her disappointing progeny

haha yeah that's totally what his "oh lindsay still looks fine" posts are like

thx guys. to be fair, i am not nearly as passionate about what lindsay is doing these days as i am about rihanna.

yeah... he did.

― surm, Monday, September 26, 2011 6:03 PM Bookmark

still do, even

surm you seem to just be coming back to the song's essential simplicity and clarity, so let me rephrase the question. in the opening post you say the song is meditative. what do you think it's meditative about?

i think it is meditative about a difficult time, and reflective about finally finding something hopeful and natural to balance the darkness with light.

a meditative song wouldn't just say "we found love," it would muse "now that we found love what are we gonna do with it?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNEgUPKxk7A

I consider Haddaway's "What Is Love" to be quite meditative in this sense as well. It's structured a bit like a legal claim:

1. What is love?

2. (Further and in the alternative) baby don't hurt me

PARTICULARS
a) Don't hurt me no more.

The singer recognises that it might be ambitious to expect his audience to answer his opening question, so he offers a more straightforward injunction which he assumes (I think correctly) any reasonable person would consider it appropriate to comply with. This kind of staged, strategic compartmentalisation of positions indicates a thoughtful and flexible approach to what can be a thorny problem.

the repetition also contributes to this effect.

Tim, love you dude, but that post made my head spin.

For the sake of pop music everywhere I hope this bombs. The idea of Calvin Harris becoming the go-to producer for massive American pop acts (as opposed to faintly desperate British ones) is too horrible to contemplate.

I find this line of argument compelling.

http://i.imgur.com/mOiYi.gif

MDC otm

Sounds like a happy hardcore record on 33.

http://www.metro.co.uk/music/876712-smoking-rihanna-falls-foul-of-farmer-while-filming-video-in-northern-ireland

This video controversy for the song made the local tv news this morning.

I wonder if her smoking is affecting her voice?

they should make that pic the single cover

http://paimages.s3.amazonaws.com/categories/entertainment/480x385/11713608.jpg

if it wasnt already this i mean

word

that skirt looks like its made of upside down fat man jeans

it totally is

ha, u rite

#16 on the hot 100

nice to see rihanna finally having some chart success

i would "like" that comment if i could

yes. http://www.whosay.com/rihanna/videos/81494

a video about rihanna smoking. and trippin. with a hot andro dude.

song's in the top 10.

gosh, it's already Rihanna's 15th most successful single to date! very exciting!

http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/bwo0091l.jpg

I was surprised by how intense the video is! Makes the hopelessness of the place seem the point of the song, rather than the finding of love. Ah I see r|t|c in fact predicted this upthread.

Isn't Britney doing a video like this too? Is UK housing estate chic suddenly a big thing this year?

Think I like this song now. It does need a big vocal climax though.

One thing the video does quite well is to give some thematic purpose to the cheapness of Harris' synths, like: even the euphoria is borrowed, precarious, a facsimile of euphoria.

That's generous

totally agree about the video meshing with the synths more than it does with the finding love theme, tim

That is a really super British video.

Yeah, so her man in that video looks like Chris Brown.

http://cdn.idolator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rihanna-Talk-That-Talk-album-cover-regular.jpg

http://cdn.idolator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rihanna-Talk-That-Talk-Deluxe-album-cover.jpg

asdlkjasd;lfja;sldfkjl

the video is just rihanna-does-skins, complete with shitty music

One thing the video does quite well is to give some thematic purpose to the cheapness of Harris' synths, like: even the euphoria is borrowed, precarious, a facsimile of euphoria.

lol nice try but no

how is rihanna-doing-skins NOT akin to those synths?

Surm, lex's world of pop Is one of absolutes. The evil of Harris is beyond redemption.

I don't know why but I think "Talk That Talk" is a brilliant name for a Rihanna album in 2011.

tim...calvin harris is a dreadful producer. his style and his sound hasn't changed so why on earth would my opinion of him change?

i agree talk that talk is a great album title though, and she's been recording with terius so i have hope that this song will be calvin harris's only presence on it

I wasn't really saying you were wrong Lex.

One thing the video does quite well is to give some thematic purpose to the cheapness of Harris' synths, like: even the euphoria is borrowed, precarious, a facsimile of euphoria.

― Tim F, Friday, 21 October 2011 22:59 (Yesterday) Bookmark

quality stuff imo

was it just me that found the quick frame of a big mouth billy bass after the first "hopeless place" so hilarious

rather found it hard to work myself up to the necessary level of intensity after that

(let me just take that hopeless plaice joek away from you before you think of posting it.)

really enjoying hearing this song on the radio. while i think it's pretty miraculous that the calvin harris produced single has some salvageable tastefulness & wouldn't nec look forward to an entire album produced by him & his ilk, i am kind of bored of terius/rihanna and i think a maybe tinny, shiny ravey album with dark/deep themes would be cool on a kelis - flesh tone tip

we already had "only girl" and "s&m"

every time i hear afrojack's "take over control" on the radio i think 'this should have been the new rihanna single' the same way people used to do w/ "whip my hair"

xp of those 2 i only like "only girl," but i probably like it at least twice as much as "s&m" & maybe 5/4 as much as "we found love"

rihanna/stargate >>>>>>>>> rihanna/terius anyway

i mean obv they've done some of her dancey stuff but also some of her best r&b

Doesn't seem to matter as much who produces her as what she/they are going for. Rated R packs an odd mix of producers but works as an album (and got some of the old barbados swagger out of her without going back to those producers or retracing her steps, plus just being more interesting overall. I'm thinking the new one will be more all over the place dancey stuff since that's what makes her the world's biggest.) Keeping this tempo up she will surely release another one next summer, and I hope it's full of island music

The ribbon vomit reminds me of Julie Taymor's "Titus"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpUViv00u5Y

she will surely release another one next summer, and I hope it's full of island music

I don't know, the last three in a row have all come out in November, that seems to be her pace at this point. One a year, just in time for the holiday sales bump.

Her most successful album came out during summer fwiw

Am i the only one who keeps on hearing the intro on the radio, and absentmindedly expects/hopes/wishes teh rest of the tune to "Stereo" by Spooky to come tumbling in...?

Going out on a limb and saying yes.

bah.

i'm pretty into this song but yeah it does feel like a third of a song repeated three times

the video is weird and not even in the way that it's trying to be Weird

the repetition works for me. doesn't demand too much attention.

it certainly doesn't

my bro's gf styled this video (everyone except Rihanna herself). I guess it's pretty Skins-y, I'm too old/fashion-ignorant to know really. Your man does look like Chris Brown, I will say that.

xp the sound definitely grabs my attention, but the song structure does not feel laborious

overall, it seems like the divide btw the romance of this melody and the harshness of the synths and video mimics the blurred line btw lust and love in general as antidotes for despair

rihanna says they found love, but she also says that she has to let it go, reflecting this sort of ambiguity.

11th #1

1 You Da One
2 Where Have You Been
3 We Found Love
4 Talk That Talk
5 Cockiness (Love It)
6 Birthday Cake
7 We All Want Love
8 Drunk On Love
9 Roc Me Out
10 Watch n' Learn
11 Farewell

Deluxe:

12 Red Lipstick
13 Do Ya Thang
14 Fool In Love

there's a dr. luke/calvin harris production lol
one of the songs samples the xx
rihanna's favourite/the one she says is her favourite so you buy the deluxe is "fool in love"
"red lipstick" uses the 'saxon' beat

hmmmmm

how has not a single other song from this album leaked out yet

She probably hasn't recorded them yet

heh

she wingin it

Heard this song so much on the radio at work the last 2-3 weeks. It sends me to a hopeless place.

"red lipstick" uses the 'saxon' beat

yes!

although having said that outdoing nicki's "saxon" will be tough

lmao

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150357617681676.341459.10092511675&type=3

Does anyone else think she sounds awful on "We Found Love," especially when she goes for those high notes?

xp i know i looked thru that album the other night, too good

There are high notes in "We Found Love"?

Ok there aren't really "high notes," but the highEST notes.

she switches to head voice on the high notes, and i think it sounds great

i am going to hear "some songs" from this tomorrow! i hope one of them is "cockiness". i wonder if that song could possibly feature a double entendre of some sort

I don't have any problems with the way she sounds on "We Found Love", I was just bemused by the idea of Rihanna singing high notes.

she switches to head voice on the high notes, and i think it sounds great

― surm, Wednesday, November 9, 2011 11:36 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

Ugh, I hate her "head voice." But I might be in the majority.

minority*

you were right the first time

i have heard this album now: http://alexmacpherson.tumblr.com/post/12602539547/i-went-to-hear-rihannas-new-album-today

Can't wait for this to leak.

word

reading some of the reviews online

it might explode my brain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_310998&src_vid=kGuZj3b1QVc&feature=iv&v=PFXIH1mb1Fc&fmt=18

i was enjoying this until the chorus pierced my ears

^ oh yeah p.s. it's the 2nd single "you are the one" (/"you da one" for some reason)

great verses

just heard "you da one" on the radio, thought it was pretty great!

i can't really take her voice when it's used like that

like what?

that lilting sorta thing idk

that's like the ONLY way i like to hear her sing

feelin this

feel like I'm also approaching rihanna overexposure even though I haven't even heard anything off of her last album or last two albums except for the singles and I don't even own a radio

haha "except the singles" like that's not half the songs

i really do feel like taking a bit of time off would help her make better albums

i mean even THIS one, just a bit of care and effort would have made it pretty great instead of just ok, most of the non-calvin harris tracks have the basis of excellent songs in them

i think people kinda overstate how much music she makes. lots of people make WAY more than 15 songs a year, but unlike rihanna their songs aren't all released on big event albums with nearly half of them becoming chart hits.

i mean she probably has more creative input than a lot of people give her credit for, but still most of the man hours going into these records is probably on the songwriting/production side, and all the touring she does probably expends more of her voice and energy than the recording.

the whole album leaked and it's good but not great. there. nice to have that sorted out. see you all for album #7 next summer when i'll be here to say the exact same thing.

This is a good song but doesn't really sound like a hit?

it doesn't sound immediate to me but something tells me it will find its way under my skin over time like some of the singles from loud did. (i must be out of it because i didn't think any of the #1 singles from loud sounded like they'd be hits at first.)

sounded pretty immediate to me -- first time i've ever done the "oh i've never heard this before, gonna sit in the car and hear the whole thing after i park" reaction to a new rihanna song anyway

<3

somebody was tellin' me where have you been is a jam

hmmmm . . . i like it

This seems to be somewhat lacking in tunes on first listen

I thought "we found love" was pretty horrible but "you da one" is good pop and the first rihanna song I like on first listen for a while (ended loving "only girl in the world" but at first really disliked it).

yea feelin it for def

"Cockiness (Love It)" is fantastic. The sample sounds familiar...

That's the only track that really perked my ears. Bangladesh production, no samples cited in the booklet.

the "youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" kind of sounds like a sample of Nina Simone's "Since I Fell For You"

anywho, based off of one listen "Watch N Learn" is the only song I really love.

you da one comin into its own

damn

"Do Ya Thang" is pretty pleasant for a Terius throwaway

"cockiness" and "do ya thang" are def the two OMFG 10/10 tracks

can somebody email me pls thx

like, just to talk?

lol no

u kno i'm not good with finding stuff online

altho i would love to talk to you anytime jordan

cockiness is kind of awkward and annoying imo

"watch n learn" is the definite 10/10 standout here

I also like "where have you been" and "you da one"

ya watch and learn is tops for sure

i was into cockiness

"watch n learn" isn't annoying but she's done so many better songs like it in the past

"cockiness" and "do ya thing" are the only keepers for me, maybe "roc me out" has enough physical force that i might cave if it's ever a single? "drunk on love" is a massive missed opportunity, i actually love what they've done to the xx beat but i can't take foghorn fenty being so relentless over it - her vocals are often the weak link on this album.

i like this album a lot, and when it's good, it's really good. but i liked LOUD better. and there are 3 songs on this that i think are pretty much crap.

1) We All Want Love. please.

2) Roc Me Out. just sounds v derivative of her older stuff, and i'm sorry but i just don't know anybody who says things like "roc me out" or "roc me in" or "rock u" it's a weird title trend that i just am not feeling.

3) Farewell. is this supposed to be the new California King Bed? not as good.

this album is all about "Cockiness"

been hearing a lot of songs from this on the radio, "Birthday Cake" and "Talk That Talk" are dope and "Cockiness" is total garbage

these racist tweets from last week are so not a good look. this girl just keeps making me sigh these days

http://allhiphop.com/2012/03/09/non-hip-hop-rumors-were-rihannas-recent-rice-cake-tweets-racist/

not gon lie, i like this album a lot and all, but i definitely not have not felt the pull to listen to as i did the last one

i've grown to really love this song... easily my fav single of hers since the 'good girl gone bad' stuff

altho i'm sure now that i've typed that out loud imma obsess. also i listened to where have u been the other night and it sounded gr8

and yea i haven't even heard the full cake - the album snippit was off the hook

note to bloggers, if you have to ask if something is racist, its probably racist

given the "rice cake" line in the "Birthday Cake" remix it really wouldn't've occurred to me that it was anything other than a reference to the song tbh

then again according to that link "rice cake" is a well known racial epithet, so maybe i should've been hearing the lyric as something other than a stupid rihanna attempt at a clever line?

are rice cakes even sweet?

no idea -- i imagined maybe they were a caribbean thing but i guess they aren't at all

they aren't sweet no. It's like eating polystyrene

The cheddar ones are pretty great tbh.

finally hearing cake remix. like this v much.

i heard the birthday cake remix on the radio. i had to shut it off.

wahhht

I heard the tail end of it and it reminded me that I despise Chris Brown

yeah he's not the best

everything Rihanna does makes me intensely embarrassed FOR her somehow, her dancing, her videos, her singing, her choice of producers

nah she's totally cool

haven't seen the where have u been video yet but the song has def grown on me quite a bit

oh is that a single now? that has always been my secret fave off the album

except for the time when 'you da one' was revealing itself as an awesome xmas song

haha the tribal group dancing bit in this video is endearingly shit

thoroughly reminiscent of rakim 'guess who's back'

the tribal dance part is terrible and also she looks like a white lady in it. she's not a very good dancer.

shame cause the rest of the visuals are pretty cool. the bird's nest!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDgGz2nBTMw

otm

uh nevermind

OK i surrender

^^ love in a hopeless trace

wait what is that gif first posted above some dude? WHAT DOES IT MEAN

i am listening to cake

cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake

you mean the first response at the top of the thread? it's a picture of Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes peeing on a picture of Calvin Harris

what were you feeling when you posted it

annoyance at the song partly, but mostly annoyance at producers only getting featured billing on US pop hits if they're Euro dance guys, which this song kinda was the beginning of becoming a common phenomenon

very chagrined to re-read this thread where i'm taunting surm about "We Found Love" being only Rihanna's 15th most successful song on the charts now that it's her biggest

http://www.billboard.com/articles/list/513463/rihannas-20-biggest-billboard-hits?page=0%2C1

:P love ya