YES TBH, if you deny this then you're lying to yourself. I just watched it again

Well, it was in some way.

Applause was v risky too: weird verses, unrelatable lyrics + theme

I say Work Bitch takes the trophy due to Unemployment Filing being at it's highest point in the last 2 years and lack of jobs in the states of Arizona, California and New Jersey. Lots of industries have shut down due to bankruptcy leaving thousands of Americans unemployed as well so for people in that situation hearing Britney name things they would have been able to purchase but can't due to the current job crisis then her telling them to WORK BITCH just makes them hopeless and perhaps puts them in depression mode.

If that's not the riskiest first single from a female pop star I don't know what is.

Have any of you even listened to Erotica or American Life? Justify My Love?

You need to look things as they were back then, not now.
When I heard We Found Love for the first time I was like wtf was that noise ... Wasn't it the first hit with EDM Breakdown ? And it took quiet sometime until the song got to number 1 ..

Sounding like any EDM track making it suitable for radio which guarantees a spot in the top 10? Yes risky.

RR was not the riskiest for the simple reason that it followed the paths that her current life was facing at the time.. Having a lead single dance smash would have been an utter nonsense after all.
Well Bad Romance is not risky at the slightest.
Well,BTW is the reason for what many consider as Gaga's downfall.The message it is too controversial for a lot of age brackets and audiences.
Britney' s WB was an utter nonsense with the idea that the album would be her most personal to date.
And RTW is risky also.Not catchy enough,repetitive.And the feminine theme clearly made a lot of men from staying away from purchasing it.Here you have it.Indeed.

What?
Gaga had slayed the previous year with hits like just dance, poker face and Rihanna, Madonna, Nelly Furtado, Justin T, Kylie had already done dancepop
Rah rah also came after ella ella eeh eeh and dum dum di dum dum di dum so

Again I repeat from this century please read the O.P.

Oops

I think Bad Romance is sonically and lyrically more risky because of how left field it was at the time. Trance music has never been very popular outside of Europe.

If Rihanna had never went through "the incident" I think it would have been a lot riskier, but it seems to use that incident as almost a backstory to the video, I don't see it really as a risk, considering everyone wanted to know more about it at that point.

Yes but it's repetitive and catchy, RR was none of that. Wfl was an EDM track and LMFAO and usher both had edm hits so it really wasn't that risky.

.Simple as that.Well rounded opinion.

Unusual, but not risky.

What defines risky? just some type of sound?
The lyrics, the meaning, the concept and the video all contribute to how "risky" something is, and Applause certainly was risky in all these ways.

How did RR tell her story about the incident? I don't believe anyone could have thought that this pop girl who had released umbrella, S.O.S and pon de replay as previous lead singles would attempt something like Russian Roulette, saying it was expected is just

Applause is generic EDM. Nothing was risky about it. Russian Roulette, on the other hand, was a dark ballad inspired by traumatic events in Rihanna's personal life and was so polarizing and jarring that people either loved it or hated it.

One of.

Born This Way was a bigger risk but RR is on the same level as Bad Romance when it comes to risk