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Celeb News: Pitchfork drags Rihanna and Chris
Member Since: 8/23/2011
Posts: 11,596
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Pitchfork drags Rihanna and Chris
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17369-unapologetic/
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Toward the end of her turgid seventh album, Unapologetic, Rihanna sings a grim rhetorical: "What's love without tragedy?" But the real question that she and her songwriters seem to be posing on Unapologetic is, "Who is Rihanna without Chris Brown?" The album is designed to engage our perception of Rihanna the Pop Star and Rihanna the Victim, and the source of its fascination is the dissonance between the two. Its narrative, about a woman's miserable obsession with a man we know to be her abuser, flouts expectation of the traditional survivor's tale; we want to see a woman learn from that pain and leave it, not rut in it.
It was already difficult to separate Rihanna the pop icon, whom we think we know from her glamorous image and her songs, from the "real" Rihanna, whom we think know from the bruised "Robyn F." of her 2009 LAPD police report. Unapologetic courts this confusion. We see the singer as self-possessed ("Good Girl Gone Bad"), a superstar isolated by her fame ("A Girl Like Me") who is full of sexual brio ("Rude Boy"). This constructed image of power doesn't jibe with her purported rekindling with Chris Brown, who is most notable for Top 40 R&B diarrheatics, a decent MJ impression, and, infamously, beating the living **** out of Rihanna.
Much has been made of the couple's duet, "Nobody's Business", which is, unfortunately, one of Unapologetic's high points. They pledge their eternal fealty, suck face in a Lexus, and let the world know that the love between them ain't nobody's business but theirs. MYOB is a tall order when your boyfriend once had to do an apology tour that included a stop on "Larry King Live" with his mom. The song's upbeat tempo makes it a shoe-in single with cross-platform playlists in its sights; she wants everyone to get the memo. But ultimately, it's a bubbly pop tune that conjures up historical memory of women defending men who have hurt them.
The rest of the album is a synth-pop slog that plays like the companion piece of Nan Goldin's "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency". She's frozen in a relationship with a bad person and tangled in a toxic situation that feels out of her control (SOUNDS FUN, RIRI!)-- themes that are mirrored in Unapologetic's surplus of minor-key treacle. The perfunctory Ibiza thump of "Right Now" reflects badly on both her and producer David Guetta while "Fresh Off the Runway" is capitalist braggadocio (nonsense grade) so static it borders on unmusical. The Auto-Tune on Future's "Loveeeeeee Song" feature calls to a mind a dog vomiting while Rihanna, in turn, sounds like she's been roused from a medicated slumber.
Rihanna's stature has been built on undeniable singles like "We Found Love" and "The Only Girl in the World", but tracks of this caliber are nowhere to be found. Lead single "Diamonds" mixes simile, cliché, and metaphor, serving as a potent reminder that someone thought this was the best the album had to offer. Oú est ma "Umbrella"? On "Power It Up", she sounds alternately robotic and narcotized as she sings about how she's so rich she can pay for a $100 valet service and a night at the strip club and doesn't need friends. Plaintive piano ballad "Stay" is Rihanna inhabiting the post-Florence pop landscape, all chiaroscuro and natural voice. It is pretty.
The album closes with songs that are more potently disturbing than the attention-grabbing "Nobody's Business". With production from The-Dream and Carlos McKinney, Rihanna devotes nearly seven minutes-- a pop aeon-- to "Love Without Tragedy/Mother Mary", where she sings, "Who knew the course of this one drive/ Injured us fatally/ You took the best years of my life/ I took the best years of your life/ Felt like love struck me in the night/ I pray that love don't strike twice," over a riff that copies from the Police's "Message in a Bottle". It then becomes a florid song suite, mixing prayer and star-is-born autobiography. "Let's live in the moment/ As long we got each other…" she sings, pausing before the stunning "I'm prepared to die in the moment." It's a curious choice of words in a song that seems to address her life in the long shadow of her abuse: she told police that Chris Brown said he was going to kill her during the beating. The tracks that follow, "Lost in Paradise" and the awful "Get It Over With", further underscore any concern one might have for the pop star's romantic choices.
It's difficult to understand why Rihanna expects her fans to hang in this dark space with her (and Chris Brown). The album is unapologetic but it's also airless, nearly hookless, and exudes a deep melancholy. Given these qualities, it's hard not to wonder where else the album might have gone. Would it fare better if the topics were the same, but set to songs as combustible as "Don't Stop the Music"? If her pain and shame and can't-quit-you-babe motif was delivered with some humor? If she kept her personal drama to herself and sang about rolling fat joints on her bodyguard's head and did more duetting with the dude from Coldplay?
On one hand, it's tempting to give Rihanna props for broadcasting her all-too-real shortcomings. She's quite a distance from the tidy narrative we'd like, the one where she's learned from her pain and is back to doing diva triumph club stomp in the shadow of Beyoncé. Unapologetic rubs our faces in the inconvenient, messy truth of Rihanna's life which, even if it were done well, would be hard to celebrate as a success. But the measurable failure is the album's music. On a track-by-track basis, the songs make for dull labor, not worth our time and not befitting Rihanna's talent.
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Member Since: 9/21/2010
Posts: 29,122
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Dead I was waiting for their review 
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Member Since: 1/15/2011
Posts: 12,295
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Amazing review! 
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"Who is Rihanna without Chris Brown?"
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Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 33,611
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Well at least they complimented her talent... that was unexpected 
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Member Since: 4/29/2012
Posts: 15,977
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Um Loveeeeeee song is one of the best songs on the album and Future sounds amazing much better rthan Rihanna on that one 
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Member Since: 11/7/2011
Posts: 14,651
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Who is Rihanna without Chris Brown?
Oh my. 
in the shadow of Beyoncé. Unapologetic rubs our faces in the inconvenient, messy truth of Rihanna's life which, even if it were done well, would be hard to celebrate as a success
Omg, syg review.
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Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 4,779
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Quote:
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The Auto-Tune on Future's "Loveeeeeee Song" feature calls to a mind a dog vomiting while Rihanna, in turn, sounds like she's been roused from a medicated slumber.
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that was mean
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Banned
Member Since: 2/6/2012
Posts: 18,398
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Quote:
Originally posted by monsterx
Amazing review!
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I agree.
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Member Since: 10/29/2011
Posts: 1,706
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/8/2008
Posts: 21,933
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I'm surprised the indie people think she has talent. lol
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Member Since: 4/15/2011
Posts: 13,926
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Massacre.
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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This constructed image of power doesn't jibe with her purported rekindling with Chris Brown, who is most notable for Top 40 R&B diarrheatics, a decent MJ impression, and, infamously, beating the living **** out of Rihanna.
Well then. 
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Member Since: 6/7/2005
Posts: 20,766
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Quote:
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Toward the end of her turgid seventh album, Unapologetic, Rihanna sings a grim rhetorical: "What's love without tragedy?" But the real question that she and her songwriters seem to be posing on Unapologetic is, "Who is Rihanna without Chris Brown?"
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DAMN. This has to be one of the best drags I've read this year.
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Banned
Member Since: 2/6/2012
Posts: 18,398
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Quote:
Originally posted by CloseMyEyes
I'm surprised the indie people think she has talent. lol
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They do?
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Member Since: 9/21/2010
Posts: 29,122
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Quote:
Originally posted by CloseMyEyes
I'm surprised the indie people think she has talent. lol
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I mean They DID give Loud and Good Girl Gone Bad great reviews Pop- wise.
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Member Since: 6/20/2012
Posts: 6,046
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I find it entertaining how 90% of the review encompasses Rihanna's personal life. Reviewers trying to rival the tabloids when it comes to articles.
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Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 33,611
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Quote:
Originally posted by CloseMyEyes
I'm surprised the indie people think she has talent. lol
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They've always been kind to Rihanna, they gave GGGB and Loud good scores and put tons of her songs on end of the year lists.
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Member Since: 8/26/2011
Posts: 15,572
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Oop.
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Member Since: 8/23/2011
Posts: 11,596
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ties
I find it entertaining how 90% of the review encompasses Rihanna's personal life. Reviewers trying to rival the tabloids when it comes to articles.
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But isn't Unapologetic all about her life?
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Member Since: 11/15/2009
Posts: 16,903
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Dead at "Power It Up". They listened to the pirated download.
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