Over the course of her decade long career, Rihanna has dabbled in nearly every musical genre – except for maybe gospel. Towards the end of January 2015, out of no where, Rihanna dropped another genre bending song:
Four Five Seconds. A folky, mid-tempo, groovy guitar tune featuring (Sir) Paul McCartney and Kanye West.
Without meaning to,
Four Five Seconds polarised the music industry to the point where you either loved the song or you hated it. And maybe both if you are a Rihanna fan.However,
Four Five Seconds served as a warning of what is to come when Rihanna finally releases
ANTI this coming December. Just like what
Russian Roulette did for
Rated R,
Five served as a warning that its parent album will be sonically different from Rihanna’s previous albums such as the raunch-filled
Good Girl Gone Bad and its
unofficial follow up, LOUD.
ANTI is unquestionably the most cohesive and musically diverse body of work the singer has ever recorded since 2009’s
Rated R. It is only when you listen to all the songs on
ANTI that the auditory disparate
Bitch Better Have My Money and
American Oxygen make sense.
Five,
Bitch and
Oxygen all fit within the greater theme of the album which is a collection of bold statements from an artist who has something meaningful to say about everything she cares about and anything she doesn’t care about.
All the songs on the album have a magnetising element to them that draws you in while moments in your own life serves as the visual representation to the audible pleasantries that fill your ear, especially love cuts like
Love On The Brain,
Kiss it Better and
Not My Fault.
ANTI also displays Rihanna’s growth as singer. Her lower register finally sounds thick, sultry and smoky. And like
Five,
Higher is another gritty vocal performance from Rihanna. Here, she hits the high notes with such conviction and strength that it removes any doubt that she’s certainly
high on love,
higher than she’s ever been.
The album can feel too experimental at times (
Pretty Nonsense,
Never Ending,
Only For A Night,
One Life To Live). But this is no doubt intentional. Its another bold gambit from Rih which makes it clear that she is not a genre specific artist like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Beyonce. Rihanna has her own sound. It’s called, Rihanna and it sounds like whatever she wants it to sound like.
Now the only thing left for Rihanna to do is enter the most memorable Q4 showdown in the history of music: Justin Bieber, Adele, Coldplay, Drake, Frank Ocean, Beyonce and Kanye West are all dropping albums this year. Yikes!
Source:
Me
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