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| Latimesblogs |
 Judging by the arc of her still-young career, Rihanna is not what you'd call a "girl's girl." She began her professional ascent when, at 15, she dumped the gal pals in her vocal trio and moved to the U.S. to be closer to her male producer. Her mentor is hip-hop father figure Jay-Z; her main association with another female artist was with his longtime companion, Beyoncé, when rumors (later disproved) of a tryst between the younger singer and the mogul set the two up as rivals. Her image evokes a style of female empowerment that predates and still stands outside of feminism: the lone female warrior who summons strength and endures danger to make progress in a man's world. So it's ironic that, of all young female pop stars, it was Rihanna who became the subject of a classic feminist concern after an assault at the hand of her then-boyfriend, Chris Brown. At first she seemed unwilling (or unable) to embrace the role of advocate that's often assumed by prominent survivors of domestic violence, but apparently her sense of responsibility toward young women is what motivated her to finally leave Brown. "Rated R," the album that will forever be viewed as Rihanna's statement on Brown's attack and her recovery, bears that burden of responsibility, but in a way that has little to do with conventional expressions of female liberation. Unlike Beyonce, who has an all-female band, or Christina Aguilera, who's often collaborated with the songwriter Linda Perry, or even Britney Spears, who's made a big show of being Madonna's inheritor, Rihanna still prefers working with men....full text |
| Leisureblogs |
| “To those of you who think you can take it, we say welcome to the Mad House.” The opening monologue, intoned by a sinister sounding voice, sounds a little ridiculous, the introduction to a low-rent slasher movie. But the trauma Rihanna addresses on her fourth studio album, “Rated R” (Def Jam), is a good deal more jarring than that cheesy prelude. The Barbados native, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty 21 years ago, has graduated from the light dance-pop of “SOS” and “Umbrella” that helped her sell 12 million records to a sound a good deal darker and harder. How could she not? Her romance with R&B singer Chris Brown ended in a violent argument last February that left Rihanna bloodied and bruised. Brown pleaded guilty to felony assault in July and received probation. He’s currently on a brief club tour trying to restore his gravely tainted image, with a stop on Thanksgiving in Chicago at the House of Blues. Rihanna, meanwhile, went to work on her album, and it’s impossible not to hear the anger and hurt in her voice. She poses on the cover like a 21st Century version of the danceclub maverick Grace Jones, a feral, not-to-be-messed-with dominatrix. In the same way, the music has lost much of its ingratiating if innocuous airiness. She has always favored Caribbean accents in her music, but she adds more pronounced rock guitar and the beats and orchestrations reference Goth rock and new wave as much as dance music and electro-pop....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| hat a difference a break makes. One album and one particularly icky bit of real life later, and suddenly Rihanna is no longer, as we reported in our review for Good Girl Gone Bad, "unequivocally a singles artist." In response to circumstances beyond her control, the pop star many had preemptively compared to the likes of Janet Jackson finally pockets her own private Velvet Rope. Both albums radiate an unmistakably, nakedly autobiographical vibe, but in the end, both leave you with more questions than answers. They're cagey, teasing, taciturn confessionals. The elisions within both records exist because that which would fill in those blanks already overshadows anything content that would surround them. The difference is that Janet's album was a stab at self-fulfillment; Rihanna's is coded like an interlude of self-abnegation. Rated R for "real" or Rated R for "reclusive"? Anyone who caught Ri's interview with Diane Sawyer a few weeks back can empathize with or, at the very least, recognize what a fine line the still excruciatingly young star must walk at this precise moment. She firmly told Sawyer, "I am strong…This happened to me." But she also admitted that her reasons for walking away from Chris Brown after refractory dalliances were in deference to the superego of pop culture, not because she fell immediately out of love with Brown. She didn't want the death of some other little girl on her head, simply because her hypothetical forgiveness of Brown's weak act could be construed as an endorsement. And thus, she's put into the position of living outside of her own instincts. "F love," she explained, as close to the verge of tears as she allowed herself to come. Rated R is the dissociative fallout of that decision. In short, Rihanna don't feel much like dancing no more. Leave that sort of soft shoe to the defense. Twelve and a half tracks, and not one is likely to help those looking for a new groove with which to force their bridesmaids and groomsmen to one-two step their way down the aisle. She may not ever call Brown out by name or by act, but her promise that she's "got my middle finger up/I don't really give a fuck" is a calculated blow against his brand of sunny R&B-lite, as devastating in its own way as her telling Sawyer she's "embarrassed" that she could fall in love with someone like him. Like a musical reenactment of Newton's third law of (e)motion, Rated R is 100-percent grit and grind. "The lovers need to clear the road," she warns in the galvanizing "Fire Bomb," which distills Rihanna's state of mind into a single violent image: Her, driving an out-of-control hot rod, already leaking flames and careening toward the front window of the man whose face she can't wait to see as she crashes into it, killing both in a blaze of glory. That this sentiment comes attached to the closest musical approximation of triumph (sounding a little bit like "Umbrella" covered by Roxette) should give you a solid indication of how Rated R plays. Or doesn't....full text |
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