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Celeb News: Unapologetic: 61/100 @ Metacritic based on 24 Critics
Member Since: 4/9/2012
Posts: 3,233
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I agree with these 3/5 reviews tbh
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Member Since: 3/30/2009
Posts: 79,408
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ice Cream Skies
Wouldn't 68.5 make the score a 69? I guess it doesn't really matter though since more reviews are coming today.
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The average is 68.42857143 though. 
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Banned
Member Since: 12/5/2011
Posts: 14,156
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I thought Slant would drag her harder! Nice. 
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Member Since: 9/21/2010
Posts: 29,122
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Its still in the high 60s
We need a couple 4/5 reviews to push it over the 70 Mark. Id love for a Rolling Stone 4/5 review.
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Member Since: 9/16/2011
Posts: 6,130
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Hopefully Spin will serve us an 80. I'll even take a 70, though.
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Member Since: 8/16/2011
Posts: 60,893
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Quote:
Originally posted by Deemy
Its still in the high 60s
We need a couple 4/5 reviews to push it over the 70 Mark. Id love for a Rolling Stone 4/5 review. |
lol
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Member Since: 8/16/2011
Posts: 60,893
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UA would've been in the mid 70s if it weren't for track number 10 
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Member Since: 3/5/2011
Posts: 15,413
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Quote:
Originally posted by rihannafan
UA would've been in the mid 70s if it weren't for track number 10 |
! Those UK reviews would be much higher.
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Member Since: 11/23/2011
Posts: 46,048
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At Rih's lowest score still ******** on so many of the other pop girls. 
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Member Since: 5/7/2012
Posts: 8,404
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Quote:
Originally posted by EdgeOfAddiction
At Rih's lowest score still ******** on so many of the other pop girls. |
Right...
But it still deserves a final score of 80, all these bad reviews literally are saying its amazing but makes them feel uncomfortable. Ugh...
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Member Since: 4/1/2010
Posts: 1,412
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Not counted toward metacritic, but still notable publications
Digital Spy: 4/5 Stars
Quote:
"I don't wanna give you the wrong impression/ I need love and affection," Rihanna and guest rapper Future insist on 'Loveeeeeee Song'. It's one of many ballads on her latest album that tap into somewhere deeper than your average slowie because of the circumstances surrounding her and Chris Brown which, whether she likes it or not, are felt throughout Unapologetic.
Another is the set's lead single 'Diamonds', a Sia-penned serenade about beautiful-but-ultimately-doomed love that could easily be attributed to her on-off ex, even if she did dedicate the song to her recently-deceased grandma Dolly. The same goes for 'Stay', the LP's most underproduced track that includes the lyric: "Not really sure how to feel about it/ Something in the way you move makes me feel like I can't live without you" - a line that sounds even more poignant when offset by Mikky Ekko's angelic vocal.
Then there's the duet with the man himself on 'Nobody's Business', an uptempo R&B-funk number which finds Brown doing his best Michael Jackson impression (who shares a co-write here) and, cleverly, serves as one of the album's standouts. Its playfulness is short lived though, if the seven-minute confession 'Love Without Tragedy'/'Mother Mary' - which curiously shares the same producers - is anything to go by.
Elsewhere, there's a sense of last minute record label box-ticking. The Chase & Status helmed wobble on the chorus of 'Jump' and a dancefloor-friendly bounce courtesy of David Guetta on 'Right Now' are somewhat safe options; but there's plenty elsewhere (including closers 'No Love Allowed' and Labrinth-produced 'Lost in Paradise') that prove why, eight years and seven albums in, she is still the biggest popstar on the planet.
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USA Today: 3/4 Stars
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The catchiest song on Rihanna's new album, Unapologetic (* * * out of four), may also be the most disturbing one. On Nobody's Business, an exuberant, strings-laced duet that nods to great pop-soul records of the '70s and early '80s, the singer is joined by fellow star and former steady Chris Brown, his voice limpid and silky smooth. "I want to be your baby," she croons to the man who pled guilty to assaulting her three and a half years ago. "You'll always be my baby. Tell me what you want now."
HUFFPO: Rihanna's 777 Tour
There are other infectious tunes on Unapologetic (out Monday), and others that will make you squirm a bit. It's not always clear if the 24-year-old superstar is being painfully candid or playfully provocative -- or which of those approaches should be more unsettling. The tracks, crafted by a team that includes Stargate, The-Dream and David Guetta, use spacious arrangements filled with bright, sometimes frosty electronic textures that, like the lyrics, alternately convey lust and fear, a need to connect and an impulse to retreat. "Get close to me if you dare," Rihanna teases on the coldly thumping Numb, featuring a cheeky Eminem.
On the frantic, pulsing Right Now, she extols instant gratification: "Tomorrow's too far away … All we get is right now." What Now veers from sweetly spare acoustic verses to a thrashing chorus; on the bridge, Rihanna laments, "I don't know where to go/I don't know what to feel."
Several songs portray the singer as a young woman prone to romanticize danger. On Love Without Tragedy/Mother Mary, propelled by a rhythmic riff that recalls The Police's Message In A Bottle, she recalls a relationship wrecked by an incident in a car -- the scene of her alleged confrontation with Brown -- and admits that it "felt like love struck me in the night." Then the arrangement slows, and over a stark, airy backdrop, she appeals to "Mister Jesus" and "Mother Mary," but resolves, "I'm prepared to die in the moment."
On the last track of the standard version of Unapologetic, the anthemic Lost In Paradise, she confesses, "If I open up my eyes/I can see the storm," but opts to keep them closed: "It may be wrong/But it feels right." Maybe it's nobody's business if she feels that way, but Rihanna still compels our curiosity -- and our concern.
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The Urban Daily
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It’s here. A moment in pop music where the artist set up to look the best, sound the best and actually be the best, lives up to the hyperbole and wins the prize. Rihanna will dominate our digital waves whether we want her to or not, but despite the great opportunity to—and even greater expectation that she would—the biggest star on the planet didn’t just chill under that glass ceiling of expectation.
Kinetic and musically varied, Unapologetic blasts the sounds of global, post-mod youth culture through every track. She creates an emotional soundtrack not of some affected, stupid-rich celeb, but of a 24-year old survivor who rocks and laughs and cries. Three years ago, no one would have paid attention to a beautiful piano-ballad like “Stay,” but now you can’t deny its truth. Not because of the events we all witnessed, but because of how honest and emotionally-connected her vocals are.
“Diamonds” succeeds in its video-driven who-is-this-about mystery, but works better if taken as a self-reflective song of love, affirmation and triumph. “…you’re a shooting star I see.”
“What Now” takes a page from Pink’s yell-as-long-as-you-have-a-great-hook style and raises her one.
“Love Without Tragedy / Mother Mary” takes some Madonna-esque ‘90s synth notes and flips them into a brave confessional. “Mr. Jesus, I would love to be a Queen… / but I’m from the left side of an island” is the chant that will end her stadium tours with a perfect raise-your-smartphone-candle moment. “I’m prepared to die…” she cries. A 21st century big-girl-lost.
Unapologetic is Rihanna’s 7th album in as many years and so I’m transferring my “hottest working in show business” title—held by Diddy for a decade—to the Barbadian workaholic with over 140 MM digital sales worldwide & twelve Hot 100 #1s singles. Most of the hits have been the brash and upbeat kind.
“Fresh Out The Runway” continues the tradition. It’s loud and as curse-filled as it should be to satisfy the album title, reminding all the parents from the album’s first verse that your tween ain’t ready for Rihanna yet. The second David Guetta produced electronic dance track, “Right Now,” is a future #1 that sounds so obvious because…it’s that good.
Adele was our last pop obsession. Her success was a wonderful correction on the landscape, a reminder that every seven years listeners must experience overwhelming talent or else suffer that same-song-over-and-over descent into superficiality. Unapologetic also helps us avoid that fate soaring when it unhooks itself from what’s pop-current and comfortable.
Deep in nightclub basements, tracks like the dark, ethereal “Power It Up” or “Jump” sound like radio versions of the electro and dub-step ahead-of-the-curve kids have been raving to for a year. On the album of the biggest pop star in the world, her sounds advance the culture.
Yep, it’s hard to find the beat to dance to on “Numb” but that’s the whole point. When the song’s intoxicating melody gets destroyed by an Eminem guest verse that sounds like it’s been pushed through a digital wood chipper, hope you have the largest Beats headphones.
The same are-you-cool-enough-test happens on “Loveeee Song” feat Future (you fail if you say he sounds like a drunk singing a love song) until the album pulls back with the more straight-ahead “Lost In Paradise” and dancehall-tinged gem “No Love Allowed.”
Rihanna’s critics haven’t needed to comment on her actual music or talent lately, her personal life has given them all the bullets they need to shoot her down one Instagram pic at a time. This album re-ups the chamber not with the rumor of a make-up with the redemptive (?) Chris Brown, but the actual fact of it—at least on wax.
The duet, “Nobody’s Business” is already the album’s most talked-about track, but…guess what? it’s also the album’s best, a perfect blend of R&B soul and pop feel-good with an irresistible sing-in-the-shower falsetto hook. Rih Rih and her ex harmonize over a cool melody that makes you dance to what is essentially a middle-finger-to-the-world hook. When Brown grunts “ain’t nobody’s bidness, but mine and my baby…” he’s impersonating Michael Jackson on purpose and MJ’s “Leave Me Alone” ain’t got nothing on this.
So when the 24/7 mania comes for the song’s forthcoming music video—and I’m as sure that will happen as I am Gov Christie will announce his ’16 Presidential run the week after he covers People mag 100 lbs lighter—Rihanna’s triumph is a super fresh song from a super fresh artist at the very top of her game. Unapologetic is Rihanna’s best.
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Buzzine
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A Complicated Album Of Adult Pop & Bold Confessions
Unapologetic is a bold attempt to recalibrate things for Rihanna. It is not an easy album, it is complicated and at times it’s unsettling. For all of the mixed emotions, and less-than-perfect messages, the tracks are effecting and often quite beautiful. “Stay” featuring Mikky Ekko brings cleanliness to things, a broken down beauty that unlocks the emotional mess. Does it over-simplify things? Yes, but this is pop, and there’s a sense that Rihanna want’s things to return to normal, but better than normal. “I’m not really sure how to feel about it…” is the line that echoes across the entire collection. Seems like Rihanna knows that, artistically at least, the only available resolution sometimes comes from accepting the absence of rights and wrongs.
Read full here: http://www.buzzinemusic.com/reviews/...getic-11192912
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Member Since: 8/10/2010
Posts: 9,489
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Slant really went in on the album but gave it a 3
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Member Since: 9/18/2010
Posts: 12,628
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Says 71 on the Metacritic website.  Please stay in the 70's region! 
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Member Since: 9/16/2011
Posts: 6,130
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CHICAGO TRIBUNE: 75
My copy & paste is strangely not working right now, but whatever, it's on google.
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Member Since: 12/7/2011
Posts: 21,578
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Does Chicago Tribune count towards Metacritic?
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Member Since: 9/16/2011
Posts: 6,130
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Member Since: 5/8/2012
Posts: 15,801
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this is good
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Member Since: 3/30/2009
Posts: 79,408
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Quote:
Originally posted by SLAYANNA NAVY
Does Chicago Tribune count towards Metacritic? |
It does. I'm not adding anything until it's on the official Metacritic page for "Unapologetic" from now on, since it has its own page. They don't always include all publications.
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Member Since: 11/17/2011
Posts: 52,363
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wow...just goes to show that critics judgement are ****
NB isn't even a bad song, yet Chris is the reason her score is low
They can suck on it for all I care
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Member Since: 8/16/2011
Posts: 60,893
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ice Cream Skies
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: 75
My copy & paste is strangely not working right now, but whatever, it's on google. |
Can't find it
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