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Celeb News: Unapologetic: 61/100 @ Metacritic based on 24 Critics
Banned
Member Since: 12/5/2011
Posts: 14,156
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Quote:
"Your love hit me to the core, I was fine til you knocked me to the floor," she sings over a loping, drumless reggae rhythm on No Love Allowed. "Dial 911 it's a critical emergency." Rihanna might argue with some justification that a lot of other people have made money from her relationship with Brown, so why shouldn't she? Furthermore, perhaps, she's only telling the truth about how she feels. But that doesn't make hearing it any more edifying. Still, the whole thing must come as quite the spirit-bucking tonic for any listening domestic abusers.
Leaving all that aside to concentrate on the music is a big ask. But it's worth noting that, sonically, Unapologetic is a far more interesting album than its predecessor. Rihanna is as responsible as any artist for the homogenisation of the Top 40 into the same weary pop-dance template. It gets used over and over again because it's commercially successful, and it's been more commercially successful for Rihanna than anyone, providing the basis for S&M, The Only Girl in the World, We Found Love and Where Have You Been. And yet, it's largely absent here, the David Guetta-produced Right Now notwithstanding. That sounds less like a song than a bid to break the world record for cramming current pop cliches into three minutes. Elsewhere, however, the various producers seem to have been minded to try something different, or at least to rearrange voguish sounds into less familiar shapes. Fresh Off the Runway piles on distorted synthesisers derived from Joey Beltram's 1990 rave classic Mentasm until it sounds weird and disorientating. What Now attempts to weld a walloping brostep drop to a sensitive acoustic guitar and piano ballad with suitably peculiar results: there's a fantastic moment towards the end where producer Ighile throws in a widdly-woo guitar solo, apparently in the mistaken belief that the track wasn't yet preposterous enough.
During its best moments, you're struck by the suspicion that Unapologetic's producers might be trying to undercut the lyrical content. Numb apparently returns to the subject of Rihanna's personal life – "Can't tell me nothin' … I don't care, get closer to me if you dare" – but the music doesn't sound defiant: it lurches and drags along, an oppressive mass of slowed-down voices and grating electronics. Pour It Up's invitation to splash your cash in a strip club is set to a weird, disjointed, gloopy backdrop: it doesn't sound like much fun there, a sensation compounded by a particularly dead-eyed vocal. You get another one of those on Jump, ostensibly an unmissable invitation to frenetic sexual activity in Rihanna's boudoir, rendered intriguingly weird by her delivery. "Ride my pony, my saddle is waiting," she sings, blankly, as if she finds the prospect of frenetic sexual activity only marginally more attractive than having a verruca frozen off.
So there's stuff here that's worth hearing, if you could untangle the music from the artist's personal life. But you can't, and furthermore, you get the feeling that the artist doesn't want you to. Perhaps it's quite a cold and canny move masquerading as an outpouring of unpalatable emotion, playing on the public's prurient interest in her love life. Perhaps that's too cynical. .
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Guardian
Not a good one.
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Member Since: 4/1/2010
Posts: 1,412
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3 Stars is still good for the reviewer. If you note his other reviews, he doesn't give any pop act above a 3.
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Banned
Member Since: 12/5/2011
Posts: 14,156
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Originally posted by thewaitinggame
3 Stars is still good for the reviewer. If you note his other reviews, he doesn't give any pop act above a 3.
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Yes, I saw that! I needed to scroll down a bit to see 4/5! And that was for Robbie.
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Member Since: 4/1/2010
Posts: 1,412
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Originally posted by iHeartRihanna
Yes, I saw that! I needed to scroll down a bit to see 4/5! And that was for Robbie.
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I don't know if I'd consider Robbie a pop act in the same vein that Rihanna, Cheryl Chole, One Direction, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga are. At least not in a critic's eyes anyways.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/8/2006
Posts: 42,086
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She is gonna get trashed hard. I warned yall. And the guardian is usually not too harsh. But she knew When she decided to put him in the tracklist
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Member Since: 11/20/2010
Posts: 7,042
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So basically it slays but they gave her lower scores and shaded her over having Chris Brown on the album. PITIFUL.
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Member Since: 8/3/2012
Posts: 19,910
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i wonder whether the final score will be above or below this threshold.
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Member Since: 8/16/2011
Posts: 60,893
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Yas, i'm happy as long as it's over 60. 
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Member Since: 6/7/2011
Posts: 10,608
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Member Since: 4/1/2010
Posts: 1,412
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Member Since: 5/8/2012
Posts: 15,801
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Member Since: 4/21/2011
Posts: 19,331
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Quote:
Originally posted by FreeXone
So basically it slays
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Uhm nope, not exactly.
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Member Since: 3/30/2009
Posts: 79,408
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Quote:
Originally posted by thewaitinggame
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Which is why the publications list and the conversion scales were included in the first post.
It will get its page on Metacritic after 4 critics.
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Banned
Member Since: 6/25/2011
Posts: 37,192
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Quote:
Originally posted by FreeXone
So basically it slays but they gave her lower scores and shaded her over having Chris Brown on the album. PITIFUL.
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Naaavvvyyyy 
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Member Since: 5/7/2012
Posts: 8,404
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This better not get counted, it seems unprofessional and biased.
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Member Since: 3/21/2012
Posts: 55,134
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Member Since: 1/7/2012
Posts: 5,043
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Quote:
Originally posted by FreeXone
So basically it slays but they gave her lower scores and shaded her over having Chris Brown on the album. PITIFUL.
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Quote:
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but the music doesn't sound defiant: it lurches and drags along, an oppressive mass of slowed-down voices and grating electronics. Pour It Up's invitation to splash your cash in a strip club is set to a weird, disjointed, gloopy backdrop: it doesn't sound like much fun there, a sensation compounded by a particularly dead-eyed vocal. You get another one of those on Jump, ostensibly an unmissable invitation to frenetic sexual activity in Rihanna's boudoir, rendered intriguingly weird by her delivery. "Ride my pony, my saddle is waiting," she sings, blankly, as if she finds the prospect of frenetic sexual activity only marginally more attractive than having a verruca frozen off.
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Yeah Chris Brown aside it slays 
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Member Since: 1/10/2010
Posts: 14,706
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Member Since: 9/21/2010
Posts: 29,122
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Duca stop jumping the gun.
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Member Since: 3/25/2011
Posts: 10,337
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Quote:
Originally posted by FreeXone
So basically it slays but they gave her lower scores and shaded her over having Chris Brown on the album. PITIFUL.
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The last points of the review provide fair criticism to the album production and lyrical content of Unapologetic.
Though tbh them describing the album as "depressing" made me more excited for it.
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