Loud – Rihanna (review)

14 Nov 2010 1 Comment

by recoveringlondon in 2010, dance, music, pop, Rihanna

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me.” Thus begins the fifth studio album by one of the 21st century’s biggest artists. The bold and brassy, fast and hard opener S&M holds no prisoners, letting you know that Rihanna is comfortable with her sexuality and she doesn’t care what you think . In the album’s first three minutes she takes the role of dominatrix quite seriously, declaring her adoration for all things kinky and animalistic, and one can’t help wondering if it’s really the image she always wanted to portray of herself as a young girl.

What’s My Name featuring up and coming rapper Drake is a nice reminder of the previous album’s Rude Boy, with sweet, languishing melodies and Rihanna’s Barbadian drawl adding up to something quite intoxicating.

Cheers (Drink To That) catches the attention immediately with dripping rock guitars and a world-weary sensibility. Rihanna advising us not to let the bastards get us down in her increasingly strong Carribbean cadence is effective at making one reflect on how far she has come, musically, in the last five years. The Avril Lavigne sample adds a nice touch.

Fading is the closest thing to balladry on the album. Like a low-key version of her seminal Take A Bow, it plods along nicely with American pianos and Riri’s half self-affirming, half bitchy lyrics. All good so far.

Lead single Only Girl (In The World) is brilliant, mostly because it’s the only song you’ll know instantly if you’re getting the album now. The Disturbia-esque, minimalist dance production from Stargate supports the slightly weak but aggressive vocals well. The electronically-enhanced middle 8, undoubtedly influenced by Lady Gaga’s early work, is perhaps the best half minute of Rihanna’s music career so far.

After the out and out dance pop of the lead single, California King Bed comes at possibly the wrong time with its slow, emotional country sensibilities. I wanted something more than a Taylor Swift song here, and I didn’t entirely get it.

Man Down has a lot going for it: the authentic reggae-laden beats and bass are surprisingly welcome after the bore-fest of the previous number. The story that Rihanna tells in the words, about the time she shot a man dead in Central Station, is dividing my opinion. I like the daring-ness, the fact that she is confident enough to do it – but I don’t know if I like where she is going. Surely the reggae/hip-hop world has enough of a reputation for glamourizing violence; did Rihanna really need to add to it?

I was really disappointed to discover that Raining Men featuring Nicky Minaj is not a cover of the 80′s camp classic. Reminiscent of the twisty-turny sexiness of Good Girl Gone Bad’s Lemme Get That, this one is just on the right side of the blunt impenetrability of some recent sex-obsessed hip hop offerings.

Complicated is almost drowned by Rihanna’s shouty tale of a difficult relationship. When the up-tempo electro beat kicks in it kinds of gets rescued, being far preferable to the outright hostility of the previous few songs.

Skin is sex-obsessed r’n'b by numbers. No surprises here: Rihanna is at ease with her sexuality and she really wants us to know about it. At this point I can sense the disappointment setting in. I really want to love Loud - some time has passed since the darkness of Rated R, the clouds have had a chance to clear and she’s doing dance music again, a relief for all concerned since she does it so well. I’m not sure if the angriness of the Rated R period has quite left her yet – at least half of the current album seems gratuitously dark to me, without the sincerity that Rated R at least had going for it.

Love The Way You Lie pt.2 seems to me to be the epitome of what has become of Rihanna:  angry, painful, bold and definitely loud. The remix of one of 2010′s biggest hits is practically faultless. The added verses simply add another layer to the sinister original. We learn more about the destructive but indestructible relationship that Eminem obviously wanted to capture in song. Rihanna owns up to being a potential masochist, and you can’t avoid thinking back to the whole Chris Brown affair, what might have been going on there. When Eminem begins screaming a newly-penned rap in the second half of the song it doesn’t put one off like it normally would.

So I’m struggling to decide what I think about Loud. I definitely like the return to dance: here is an obvious acknowledgement that songs like Don’t Stop The Music and Disturbia made her career. However I’m worried by the tone and imagery of some of the lyrics. It’s an age old question: is a woman singing about sex a real sign of liberation, or simply a cynical ploy to sell records, because we still live in a world where women have to be sexy to get attention? I don’t know, when people like Madonna and Lady Gaga take their clothes off you get the sense that they are doing it for a reason. It’s like the nude scene in a film: sometimes it adds to the story, sometimes it doesn’t.

On Loud Rihanna has really stated her intentions – that she wants to be seen as a powerful woman in control of her body – in places I think she ends up being little more than a singing porn star, like so many other female artists of the past twenty years who didn’t have the talent and the integrity to be anything more. It disappoints me because Rihanna has had a career with many high points, so many songs that weren’t just meaningless porn soundtracks. Loud, however, begins to tip the other way, and for that reason I can’t give it a score. I don’t know if Rihanna has really recovered from last year yet. I don’t know if she has really figured out who she is yet. I have hope for the next album!