This is how it's done: No booming dubstep breakdown. No backup from some random legacy artist. No ill-advised performance of that duet with her ex. It was just Rihanna, standing there by the piano in a simple black dress, ripping out her heart and her lungs and probably one or two of those red-lacquered nails she kept chewing on. Her already emotional rendition of ''Stay'' was made even more dramatic by the fact that the words — ''Funny you're the broken one / But I'm the only one who needed saving'' — may or may not have been aimed at her former (and possibly current?) boyfriend Chris Brown, who was sitting in the audience, looking about as broken as it gets. Mikky Echo showed up to play the part of the bad boyfriend,
but the whole performance belonged to Rihanna. It was the best reminder of why she's famous in the first place: not because of those headlines from the 2009 Grammys, but because the woman can really sing. A-
http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,2033....html#21279231
