Rihanna finds her pop genre
Distinctionlessness has become something of a calling card and a weapon for Rihanna, the most consistent pop star of the past five years.
Last month she became the fastest solo artist with 20 Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, slower only than the Beatles. She has pumped out these hits with little regard for style or mood - breezy dance tracks rub up against poignant gothically ruptured rock-soul ballads. Her voice is, for the most part, certifiably blank, which is to say it belongs everywhere.
It hasn't always had a home. "Talk That Talk" (Island Def Jam), her sixth album, is maybe the first to suggest the place that has been hiding in plain sight all along, putting Rihanna at the center of the pop genre best suited for a singer of her fundamental evanescence - dance music, which conveniently is the mode du jour of contemporary R&B and pop.
"We Found Love" almost criminally recalls the swinging Crystal Waters singles, with triumphant percussion somewhere between church and seventh-inning stretch. "Where Have You Been" is even better, with hard, chilly synths, snares from the poppier side of house music, and Rihanna moving in and out of a curled Siouxsie Sioux tone.
"I been everywhere, man/looking for someone/someone who can please me," she sings. "Are you hiding from me yeah/somewhere in the crowd?"
"Talk That Talk" is the blithest Rihanna album, which is saying a lot. It has none of the dark, wounded subtext of her more recent albums, almost no sign of scarring left by her tumultuous and abusive relationship with Chris Brown that seemed to hover over her more recent work.
"Cockiness (Love It)" is a triumph, its beat by producer Shondrae a booming industrial jumble, and Rihanna easing out come-ons as if she were lapping up milk. That's followed by "Birthday Cake," 80 seconds of squelchy bounce and consumption metaphors.
Like Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Watch the Throne," this album has major parts recorded in hotel rooms, a testament to the globalization and rootlessness of pop, to the outlandish prices of conventional studio time, to the desire to create in an environment of luxury, a liminal space with no repercussions.
That can make for an ungrounded overall experience. When Rihanna veers from the fleet stuff, she's less certain. "Watch n' Learn," which has flickers of Beyonce's "Party," has good mouthfeel but no taste. On "Farewell," it's tough to tell if the words have feeling, because Rihanna's voice doesn't.
When she shows emotion, as on "Drunk on Love," she shouts the lyrics ("I wear my heart on my sleeve!/Always let love take the lead!/I may be a little naive!") but staggers around the melody, a victim of trying to feel too hard.
Last month she became the fastest solo artist with 20 Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, slower only than the Beatles. She has pumped out these hits with little regard for style or mood - breezy dance tracks rub up against poignant gothically ruptured rock-soul ballads. Her voice is, for the most part, certifiably blank, which is to say it belongs everywhere.
It hasn't always had a home. "Talk That Talk" (Island Def Jam), her sixth album, is maybe the first to suggest the place that has been hiding in plain sight all along, putting Rihanna at the center of the pop genre best suited for a singer of her fundamental evanescence - dance music, which conveniently is the mode du jour of contemporary R&B and pop.
"We Found Love" almost criminally recalls the swinging Crystal Waters singles, with triumphant percussion somewhere between church and seventh-inning stretch. "Where Have You Been" is even better, with hard, chilly synths, snares from the poppier side of house music, and Rihanna moving in and out of a curled Siouxsie Sioux tone.
"I been everywhere, man/looking for someone/someone who can please me," she sings. "Are you hiding from me yeah/somewhere in the crowd?"
"Talk That Talk" is the blithest Rihanna album, which is saying a lot. It has none of the dark, wounded subtext of her more recent albums, almost no sign of scarring left by her tumultuous and abusive relationship with Chris Brown that seemed to hover over her more recent work.
"Cockiness (Love It)" is a triumph, its beat by producer Shondrae a booming industrial jumble, and Rihanna easing out come-ons as if she were lapping up milk. That's followed by "Birthday Cake," 80 seconds of squelchy bounce and consumption metaphors.
Like Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Watch the Throne," this album has major parts recorded in hotel rooms, a testament to the globalization and rootlessness of pop, to the outlandish prices of conventional studio time, to the desire to create in an environment of luxury, a liminal space with no repercussions.
That can make for an ungrounded overall experience. When Rihanna veers from the fleet stuff, she's less certain. "Watch n' Learn," which has flickers of Beyonce's "Party," has good mouthfeel but no taste. On "Farewell," it's tough to tell if the words have feeling, because Rihanna's voice doesn't.
When she shows emotion, as on "Drunk on Love," she shouts the lyrics ("I wear my heart on my sleeve!/Always let love take the lead!/I may be a little naive!") but staggers around the melody, a victim of trying to feel too hard.
