Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 28,137
|
Quote:
Musical duets are usually ordered by heterosexual difference and its various dramas. As in: She gives, he takes. He pleads, she refuses. They may reconcile, but the performers always observe the classic sex distinction — making the circumstances of the female vocalist a good barometer for the circumstances of female speech in general.
But Rihanna, pop’s great maven of self-gratification, is a known loner, and she flouts that kind of reciprocal identity all the time. So it follows that even on her latest album’s true duet, she would choose a vocal mirror, not a vocal foil. On “Consideration,” the first track on “Anti,” Rihanna and the genre-fluid singer SZA are two branches of the same river, braiding in and out. The women put on their respective versions of a placid attitude — Rihanna sings with cheek, SZA cheerlessly. Each is calm but, you suspect, coursing toward some possible furor. They sing into each other; their vocal registers match so closely that on first listen, you might even miss that Rihanna isn’t singing by herself. The closeness approaches uncanny, suggests an erotics of the self. Rihanna’s voice sinks into SZA’s, which rises back into Rihanna’s, the voices first crossing on these: “Why you ain’t ever let me grow?/When I look outside my window/I can’t get no peace of mind.” If ”Anti” has a thesis, it’s this declaration of insolence.
I almost used the usual expression — a “declaration of independence.” Then I remembered how secretive the two women sound, the complete disinterest the lyrics communicate. The way Rihanna likens herself to our most uncivil cultural child, Peter Pan: “I came fluttering in from Neverland/Time can never stop me.” I hear her indignation; I hear a clear defection from the typical girl-power conceit. “Consideration” could not care less about sounding like a feminist anthem in the proper way, one that telegraphs passive misandry in the service of forcing female communion. It’s an anti-anthem, a song for the individual in a world full of cheap calls to solidarity — a misanthrope’s chorus, built for people who would rather be alone, unseen and isolated from the work of being a girl. (“Would you mind giving my reflection a break/from the pain it’s feeling now?”) Michael Jackson, long reviled for his identification with the boy Peter Pan, might have originated this kind of audacity, refusing to relate to society as much as society wanted to relate to him.
Rihanna often returns to Barbados, the landmass that bore her. Like that island country, “Consideration” connects to nothing outside itself; it’s a salve for those of us seeking mental and political quiet, an adult lullaby castigating the spectacle of public life. The song is haughtily against the “outside”; it invokes the private air of an enclosed room. I’d like to stay inside, too, looking out the window, listening to the echo of my own voice.
|
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...-consideration
|
|
|
|
DWT was a mess at the beginning wasnt it? hopefully her / her team are more prepared this time, especially after delaying the tour!
let us pray that her IG pops severely one again 
