"Loud"
Rihanna
3 stars
It must be that new red hair, because Rihanna is more gleefully confident than ever. But her latest record "Loud" isn't the 24-hour party one would expect. Instead, it shows how capable a singer Rihanna has become over the course of her career, taking on ballads and up-tempo tunes with revitalized verve. This year's "Love the Way You Lie" with Eminem allowed Rihanna to publicly declare (and achieve) catharsis concerning her most notorious public controversy. She has started to heal from last year's Chris Brown incident and has a new outlook on life, which manifests itself in these tracks.
"Loud" is frontloaded with good times: "S&M", "What's My Name?" featuring Drake, and "Cheers (Drink to That)." Despite the obvious appeal of Rihanna singing a song called "S&M," it is frustratingly superficial and unconvincing; it's highly doubtful that Rihanna is actually into S & M as anything other than a marketing tool. On the laid-back "Cheers," a slacking, dawdling rhythm begins with the sound of a crowded bar and a voice asking, "Taking shots in here, you want one?" It's an invitation for the listener to enter the party, and the triggered sample of Avril Lavigne's hit "I'm With You" elevates the song even higher. Rihanna is sucked in herself, musing, "I'll drink to that." Then everything drops away and a bunch of drunken people sing the chorus. It's a clearly deliberate decision that still manages to sound spontaneous and improvisational.
"Only Girl (In the World)" acts as the album's centerpiece. The danger here is that it's the type of song that can eat an album. The chorus builds exhilaratingly, feverishly tripping over itself, falling to the ground with abandon, pummeling the earth, covering the listener in rays of euphoria and beaming synthesizer. Rihanna sings, "Let me make you rise/Make it last all night," and you know she means it. She's a master at altering her voice's tone, knowing when to act coy, when to dip into the native accent, when to belt.
The album is surprisingly heavy on ballads, though they are still appealing. The emotionally sweet pop rock of "California King Bed" gives us a lonely Rihanna yearning for her own California king, unexpectedly climaxing with the roar of "We're 10,000 miles apart" at the end of the song. The seductive, rolling and dubstep-influenced "Skin" works as a successful slow jam, with Rihanna requesting that her man turn down the television. Her reason is: "Don't want it to clash/With my body screaming now." How pragmatic.
Rihanna returns to the influences of her homeland Barbados with "Man Down," which is lyrically a reggae version of a blues song. "I just shot a man down in Central Station," she sings. Comical at first, Rihanna's performance gradually grows more convincing.
She then collaborates with multiple-personality-possessing rapper Nicki Minaj on the disappointing "Raining Men." The song has sass, bounce and entertaining moments, namely: "They be falling like the rain so we ain't running out." Cute, but you would expect something more original from these two. In the end, "Loud" is just like Rihanna's red hair: It's a bright, bold choice that has been done before, but at least it's new for Rihanna.
