There’s no denying that Rihanna is a hardworking, award winning, successful artist. Her new album ‘Talk That Talk’ confirms this fact with it selling over 198,000 copies in the first week. However, having the pressure of consistently bringing out new songs and albums to stay on top may be starting to take its toll. With Loud feeling a bit muddled, I was hoping for a more consistent feel to the album, like in ‘Rated R’. With titles such as ‘We Found Love’, ‘We All Want Love’, ‘Drunk on Love’ I found it clear that a love theme was on the agenda. Not really a surprising subject for Rihanna, with the majority of her last album based around men. Oh, and lets not forget about the topic that Rihanna constantly is trying to sell; Sex. With the success of S&M it was obviously decided that as long as Rihanna sings about sex or how she likes it then there’ll a sure hit on her hands. Sadly I don’t think it’s meant to be in this album, with songs such as ‘Cockiness (Love It)’ and ‘Birthday cake’ failing miserably in both aspects of musical and lyrical entertainment and success. Despite an attempt at consistency through subject matter, there is a definite lack of consistency through writing as we travel through contemporary R&B, European dance trends to Dancehall, then ballads. It feels like it was aiming to be refreshing and fun, with her exploration keeping listeners entertained and surprised throughout the album, but it instead became one of the downfalls of the album. After researching the album and I found that there was a smorgasbord of writers and producers not only for the album but for each song, it then started to become clear why there was a feeling of confusion.
At the beginning of this album we start off with her single ‘You Da One’. A simplistic, but catchy start, the album has the potential to go anywhere. Again, its clear what this album is going to be about. With the basic lyrics being ‘You’re the one that I dream about all da-a-ay, you are the one that I dream about alwa-a-ays, You are da one so I make sure I beha-a-ave, My love is your love your love is mine.’ Its not the most exciting song, but its a typical Rihanna song that opens the album with a pleasant, laid-back feel to and is easily like-able. We’re then taken to a dance track; ‘Where Have You Been’ that then leads in to ‘We Found Love’. With ‘We Found Love’ having come out before the whole album as a single it’s easily recognizable as a song that Calvin Harris was involved in writing and producing. The problem that I find with this song is the placing within the album. It works reasonably well next to ‘You Da One’ as it swells into a more trance-like beat as the song develops, but putting two songs that sound very similar draws attention to that fact. With the rest of the album having quite a big variety of styles it would have been nice to round the album out with ‘We Found Love’ at the end of the album. It seems a bit of a waste having a single at the beginning, fans will be aware of this song already and there’s no need for an enticement for the listener to keep listening as the album’s only just started.
‘Talk that Talk’ is more similar the songs from Rated R. It’s a catchy song but nothing particularly special. We then come to the middle of the album with two shorter songs. ‘Cockiness’ and ‘Birthday Cake’. Lindsay Zoladz review for Pitchfork commented that we’re supposed to be talking about the dirtiness of the songs to distract us from the clunky lines. It’s true, the lyrics seem to be pushing Rihanna’s sexuality so hard they forgot to write a song around it. The song’s heavy and stilted, and quite frankly boring, and we have to listen to two of these. I also find that having this break in the album draws attention to the fact that Rihanna has had no input in the writing or production of the album. Parts remind me of the broken-up album ‘Bionic’ by Christina Aguilera, who incidentally used some of the same writers as Rihanna; Ester Dean and John Hill. This shows through to me without even listening to them side by side-it takes away some of the ‘originality’ of Rihanna’s sound. Mike Diver also notices the second half being similar to the ‘Beyonce-style Paean to perfect monogamy’. The sound of that artist is reflected in the lyrical content and the overall sound. I feel like the writers within the album are more recognizable than Rihanna herself. Perhaps it should be a picture of them on the front cover rather than Rihanna’s face. It makes me feel more cheated of my time and money if I’m listening to an album just for the voice and not expecting anything from the artist’s contribution to the production and songwriting as well. It should also be noted that by going down this path of ‘sexual discovery’, Rihanna’s narrowing down the market. Although she is well known through many age groups, she is cutting off younger listeners by talking about sex in such a crass way thus banning some of her songs off radio and video channels. Personally, I have nothing wrong with an artist expressing their feelings, no matter how sexual as long as it is done in a tasteful and clever way. Much of the lyrical content in this album lacks creativity and becomes comedic from the lack of subtlety.
We then move onto the second half of the album, beginning with ‘We All Want Love’. It sits awkwardly in between ‘Birthday Cake’ and ‘Drunk on Love’. To me it doesn’t fit in with any other part of the album at all. It feels as if its taken sections from artist like ‘Coldplay’, with its drums and guitar combo. It just doesn’t feel like a ‘Rihanna’ song. Despite her not being involved in songs that she’s written before, they still seem to have maintained her sound and image but this song just doesn’t work. As we steadily crawl through the second half of the album it starts to feel particularly lazy. When listening to 'Drunk on Love' I found it interesting that the backing itself hasn't even been created from scratch and has just been regurgitated with some new synth sounds and a change of key from a song by 'The XX' off their debut album. What's even more interesting is that she isn't the first to use their material with Birdy covering one of their songs in her album 'Shelter'. So is this just an attempt to have another hit? Perhaps this is the reason for all the different writers involved, if one song doesn’t make it then another one might just be that bit more successful as its predecessors within the popular music scene have been. ‘Roc Me Out’ is a reminder of ‘Rated R’s’ style. The song is another easy listening song. The one thing that frustrates me is that some reviews already released seem to swarm around this song because of Rihanna’s ‘confession’ of ‘just wanting to be loved’. Adrian Thrills reviews title for The Mail makes it one of the most important factors; ‘It seems even pop’s most provocative princess is a romantic at heart...Rihanna reveals she just wants love’. What I honestly can’t understand is the surprise that critics seem to express when they talk about Rihanna’s ‘confession’. With the whole album being circled around a ‘love’ theme, you would think that that would be fairly obvious. I suppose it’s her way (or the writers way) of reminding her audience that she’s just like them, and maintain a connection with her fans. Finally we have the two easily forgettable ending songs with the sexually awkward ‘Watch and Learn’ and boring ‘Farewell’.
There are a fair few problems that I have with this album. If not awkward overall, its generally boring. To start I find that the lyrics are lacking in creativity. Not one to expect anything too complex from an album that is aiming to be in the charts (as it will want to be accessible to everybody), but I think if a majority of an album has the repetition of one syllable in then there's a definite lack of ideas and creativity. Of course with different songwriters for each individual song, they could have thought it was a clever hook until the whole thing came together and they realized that every song had the same technique used. The confusion that is clearly shown by the mash up of songs draws attention to the different writers used within the album. The double entendres and suggestive puns also become tiresome after about the first two songs. It may have been more refreshing and interesting if the writers and Rihanna had tried to think of a new way to express her sexuality. It’s almost like Rihanna and her team looked at how an album ‘should’ be structured;
-Big opening
-Middle section with a development
-And a romantic, ballad ending.
Sadly it ended up being;
-4 songs of reasonable tracks, but placed in the wrong place within the album
-A robotic sounding Rihanna with failed exploration with heavy sounding melodies
-And finally random picks of ballads and songs reminiscent of old albums, most of which feel as if Rihanna is barely present in the overall song.
The only thing that was consistent throughout the album is the topic of love, which becomes a tiresome subject after the first 20 minutes of listening.
The beginning of the album isn’t terrible, it may be mostly unsurprising and repetitive but they are standard ‘Rihanna’ tracks with a contemporary R&B feel with her signature vocals, and the introduction of dance tracks isn’t unwelcome. Rihanna’s voice fits in quite well with the sounds that Calvin Harris has created.
It seems that other critics have similar views about the lyrical content and inconsistency within the album. The one difference that I’ve found continuously is that they seem to be able to excuse the problems within this project because of the artist. It’s no longer an album but part of Rihanna’s ‘life story’ and her publicity and fame. To them a bad album is excusable because of her voice, consequence, or past experiences. This is something that I cannot fathom. The album is of poor quality, it shouldn’t be the end of the artist but it should be acknowledged. However, there are some points where myself and other critics may have to agree to disagree. I find that ‘Rated R’ has been the most consistent album that Rihanna has presented so far. The overall sound was intended to create a new image for her, so the timbre was clear cut and the lyrics were personal. However, it seems that many critics such as John Mitchell look back at ‘Rated R’ as almost too brooding and emotional. Being released after Chris Brown abused Rihanna it is clear what most of the lyrics are about, but at least they’re real. I find it hard to believe in an album that says a lot without saying anything at all. This started to develop in ‘Loud’, with it feeling more like a collection of singles rather than a cohesive album. It feels as though as we move further away from ‘Rated R’, when Rihanna truly reinvented herself, we’re moving further away from her as an artist. She may be ‘giving away’ confessions and truths towards her sexuality and romanticism, but there isn’t the rawness that was present in ‘Rated R’. But perhaps I’m being too romantic about the whole issue. It could be that at the time the issue with Chris Brown was still fresh for everybody, so she decided to cash in and sell the story to her audiences. Now after the ordeal there has to be something new to sell and that just happens to be her sexuality.
If I were to be honest it feels a bit like Rihanna couldn't really be bothered to take the extra time and try and make an album (or at least a few songs) herself. With other people writing the whole album for her it feels a bit like a karaoke session down at the pub. Understandably the artist is particularly busy with all the touring that she does, but I would have preferred to wait for her to be free and capable of being more involved in the project with her name on it.
John Mitchell
Mike Driver
Lindsay Zoladz
Peter Tabakis
Adrian Thrills
