Let's have a thread for Rihanna's LOUD

oh, hi there!

Haven't heard it yet but am I right in thinking this is the Circus to Rated R's Blackout?

In commercial/record company logic terms, anyway.

Pretty much - tho circus seemed very tight/regimented/controlled - to its detriment - whereas loud is (surprisingly) v ropey and slapped together

Circus was totally incoherent and cobbled together!

It seemed like quite a conscious attempt to recreate blackout to me, except w/o any of the panache or excitement? Whereas loud is "throw a bit of this and a bit of that at it, whatever"

Yeah but it also had things like Mmm Papi and whatever those awful ballads were called. It felt like sub-Blackout with a few other things thrown in that broke up all the coherence.

"What's My Name" rockets from 60-1 to nab the Billboard Hot 100 top spot. "Only Girl" is still at #4.

LOUD should be renamed BLAH.

Only Girl is a Beyonce song that Beyonce passed on. I don't like Rihanna on it, even tho I kinda like the song.

Around the time of Good Girl Gone Bad I tended to assume every Rihanna song had originally been written for someone else and rejected.

Only Girl is a Beyonce song that Beyonce passed on.

what?

beyonce has nevvvvver been on a song that... european

unless that is actual fact, that beyonce passed on that song, but that would still make tons of sense, because it would be absurd for her to be on that song

don't really know why the concept of beyeuro is making you clutch the pearls but vocally speaking it's always sounded absolutely like the song was originally meant for her.

beyonce has nevvvvver been on a song that... european

"radio", "sweet dreams", "telephone"? not to mention the sundry freemasons remixes which gained enough traction on their own to count, i think.

"What's My Name" rockets from 60-1 to nab the Billboard Hot 100 top spot. "Only Girl" is still at #4.

pleeeeeeeeease can we not turn this into the popjustice board where songs "rocketing" up the charts is considered an adequate defence of them

i don't think that was an argument for it? just stating a fact?

Yes.. I'll be sure to use a different verb the next time. However, Stargate certainly wouldn't have been given three singles if Rude Boy hadn't "rocketed" up earlier this year, so why not mention sales?

is it just me or do u.s. #1 singles "feel" less and less like #1 singles lately, whatever that means

it's like, i don't look at "what's my name" and think MOST POPULAR SONG IN AMERICA RIGHT NOW. i mean, sure, it had good first-week sales and has pretty decent airplay already, but neither is that outstanding. 235k is really not that tremendous a sum at this point, so it seems strange to me that a song could sell just that much and be just 16th in airplay and still be the #1 single. anyways this is less about rihanna than it is about billboard so i guess i'll stop.

omg what's my name is at no 1? imma throw a holiday

this album sounds very strong, and i enjoy many songs on it more than i have enjoyed songs in a while. i'm not in love with s and m, but that's about it.

surm, do you have any thoughts as to why your opinion of this album differs so markedly from seemingly everyone else's here?

I'm with surm, "California King Bed" excepted.

I don't have any deep thoughts about the album, other than I think it's a tightly wound collection of some good and some great songs (and one very, very dire musical disaster).

i do not have thoughts on that at the moment, r|t|c, but i will think about it. i haven't actually read the thread, but i didn't realize the response was that bad. it does pique my interest though -- because i find the piece as a whole more convincing than anything else upon first listen.

I need to fire up Soundforge and take a knife to this Drake verse, cause there's no way in hell I'm listening to it as much as I'm going to be listening to "What's My Name".

there are drake-less mp3s floating around if you google

Yeah, and it's so much better.

http://defpenradio.com/rihanna-whats-my-name-single-version/

single of the year, perhaps

Between that and Rude Boy? Rude Boy wins.

I'm not even sure about that. I do find it interesting that her two highest-charting hits this year are her most carribean-inflected since her debut, and not just that, but completely out of step with what else is popular this year (with the on-trend "Only Girl in the World" stalling at #3). I suspect there is a vacuum of demand for the sort of mid-00s style lite-carribean pop that Rihanna rode in on in the first place that only she has figured out needs filling.

solo hits, I should say

I'm not really sure they're pimping the Drake-less version. When I hear it on the radio the Drake verse is there.

I suspect there is a vacuum of demand for the sort of mid-00s style lite-carribean pop that Rihanna rode in on in the first place that only she has figured out needs filling.

this rings true - i remember how the dancehall-lite summer jam used to be a summer staple, even when it wasn't the years when sean paul was everywhere, and they were rarely from "name" acts - but the past 5 years really saw a drop-off there (i guess gyptian's "hold yuh" brought it back this year).

as well ive always loved the rihanna version of this style over pretty much any other artist of the 00s

(i guess gyptian's "hold yuh" brought it back this year)

which i'd never heard before this moment, so not sure how well it really did that. (this song is great tho)

yeah i thought that was just gonna be an underground hit but it appeared in the uk top 20 this week

(if you like it, check out lady chann's "feel calm" on the same riddim too!)

not that much of a fan of recent pop but cheers is definitely the best thing on this.

yeah, i'm pretty sure the comedy "don't let de bastuhds get u dunnn" number isn't the best anything on anything. think some of you need to double check what her old stuff actually sounded like before you congratulate her for hamming it up in 2010.

anecdotes anecdotes etc etc but that gyptian joint was one of the biggest radio joints in miami last year cross all contemporary stations -- swear i heard it like 3 or 4 times a day + DJs would drop other dudes going over the riddim during mix shows all the time

v good song

you may have noticed miami is much closer to the carribean than seattle is.

I KNOW -- i was just giving an anecdote -- i wasn't all "OH MY STARS HOW COULD THE REV HAVE MISSED THIS GYPTIAN JOINT"

just sayin

k i havent actually heard this so bear that in mind but still. I think we rarely acknowledge on these threads the extent to which we are just vibing off a partic aesthetic. Like I think that surm was kindof primed to like this from the promo shots of her w/ the bright red hair. Ive had similar experiences, and i feel like that partic. *aesthetic* context of how shes pushing her visuals for eg. right now is framing the singles that is making me really responsive to them (xcept for girl in the world which come on is srsly blech)

basically i am telling you that i saw some pretty photos of rihanna and decided that i like that song w/ drake as long as u ignore drake.

srsly he just sounds like someone talking

The SNL performance of "What's My Name" was not a good introduction to that song; the recorded version is way way way WAY better and now I understand better why people are digging it.

I love love LOVE the "What's My Name" video - so cute!

thats really the extent of my criticism here

xp I actually really like Rihanna's image this go around as well (though I guess the Rated R era's dark/industrial/monochromatic theme was more my preferred aesthetic for her), it kind of gives me mid 90s club kid of vibes

well i think it kindof emphasises the increasing lushness of the synths (which thankfully havent gone all whooshy as a consequence)