I sort of feel the same way about Kelly Clarkson.

My December was so deep, so personal. She co-wrote all 13 tracks. On her new album she co-wrote 5, her least since Thankful. I think a lot of it has to do with record label pressure.

Oh my God. The Whats My Name performances, the LTWYL Part 2 performances, the California King Bed performances. The best vocally, performance wise and dance wise she's EVER done!

Music video's =/= tour performances.

Nawt too much now on BadBitch, sis.

Ok, I completely understand that you feel that way. But until someone can provide me with the video footage or documentary then I think it is unfairly presumptuous that you can easily write her off creatively in her music. She obviously doesn't have primary control, but I never claimed that. The only fact that we have is that she wrote for half the songs on Rated R, no matter how big or small those additions were.

Lets be honest, Rihanna has less influence in her own career than Katy Perry. She hasn't grown a lot and is chart / sex obssessed

How is that too much? It's a simple observation. If you don't like Rihanna anymore, move on. No one is forcing them to stan for her.

Exactly. SO why did we get LOUD, an album with a crowd of producers on every credit of every song? I took notice to the credits of Rated R and compared them to LOUD. It's obvious there were less people rihanna worked with, and she was more hands on in the production. For LOUD, we got a bunch of names on all the credits. It just made it seem like songs were handed over to her, and she picked the songs she liked and plopped her vocals on the tracks for this album. That's not being creative and rihanna can do better than that.

That's on one album, though. Did she have any songwriting credits on the other four albums that she has released? Rihanna fans can't sit up here and say that Rihanna has creative force in her music when she has only been given songwriting credits on ONE album out of her catalog, and most of her songwriting credits consisted of 3-4 other songwriters. That is not a representation of her being a songwriter or a creative force for that matter.

I guess it's in a sense of wanting the best for and from your fav. If you KNOW your fav can do better wouldn't you want that for them?

Just because she doesn't co-write doesn't mean she isn't involved. We need to take a step back from all this songwriting obsession and realize that she contributes a lot in many other ways.

Ok. You gurls bring up songwriting everytime. Rihanna will write if she wants to. We got over the fact that she isnt a major songwriter like Gaga a long time ago. But she does do a lot of hands on work. It may not be the most she can do - but she does choose what songs to record - chooses the style she wants, the sound of the album, the direction of the music videos, etc.

Plus, I cant even argue about her improvement as an artist. She has improved SO much and you are blind if you cant see that. No one understands unless they've seen her three concerts LIVE. I saw GGGB Tour live, then LGOE tour live then the Loud tour live. Her videos or live performances do not match her concert performances. Her vocals are ALWAYS on point. My friends who dont like her - who I brought along (they only came to drink and party and got the chepeast tickets) LOVED it and were blown away. They went in there expecting trash. For the GGGB Tour, we were lucky if she moved her hips. For the LGOE tour, we were lucky if she moved her arms and hips at the same time. This tour - she danced SO much more. Her stage presence was immense. All her ballads were ON POINT.

She is clearly improving.

Oh that one has plenty of influence over her own career. She personally ruined it.

The song with the most writers on it that Rihanna gave additions too had eight writers on it including herself, and the song with the least had three writers on it including herself. Where do you girls get your receipts?

*lists every rihanna album*

Explain to me the other ways she contributed to LOUD.

To be honest, it's not about being deep or dark or making sad ballads or being super involved in the creation process. It's about being authentic. GGGB was just as Top 40-catering pop as LOUD is & Rihanna had like 0 credit on it iirc, but it was different and authentic to Rihanna. Hell, all music between 2006-2007 was authentic to the artist imo. Beyoncé was giving her own sound, Rihanna was giving her own sound, Fergie, Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake etc. Everyone back then tried to make a hit but they did it with their own style.
Now almost everyone sounds alike, like a bunch of derivatives of each other that's meant to be meshed into a 50 hr dance track @ the club.

Deciding "Oh, I like this the picture the best!' and 'This is my favorite producer, let's pick him' are not really merit for great control over one's artistry....Rihanna may not sit around without offering her two cents, but any child can pick out the wallpaper for their room