Pros: Pop music in 2007 has rarely, if ever, been this good.
Cons: Nothing substantial from an artistic standpoint, but who cares??
The Bottom Line: Exuberant, fun and sexy-like I would imagine most 19 year olds would like to be, Rihanna's third album is the perfect musical accompaniment to summer.
speeddemon531's Full Review: Good Girl Gone Bad by Rihanna
Although it's nothing more than catchy pop music, someone's gotta provide the soundtrack for those beach parties, right?
That was how I concluded my review of Rihanna's last album, 2006's "A Girl Like Me". I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the album (especially considering the foul taste I had in my mouth after exposure to Rihanna's debut catastrophe, "Pon De Replay"). While Rihanna won't win any vocal competitions, the songcraft was of high quality throughout. The album was the perfect carefree soundtrack to Summer 2006.
A year later, the teenage Barbadian beauty is back with "Good Girl Gone Bad", which could very well be the soundtrack to Summer 2007! Before we go any further, it should be understood: this is pop music, plain and simple. Rihanna doesn't appear to have aspirations to be an artiste, like former teen-poppers Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera. It's fair to call her a puppet-her songwriting contributions are minimal, and these songs succeed more on the strength of the songwriting and production than they do on the vocals (which, to be fair, are much less annoyingly nasal than they were on her first two albums). However, there's a lot to be said for great songwriting and production-whether the artist is handling or it not. As far as recent pop albums go, "Good Girl" beats the pants off of Fergie and Gwen's albums, and comes very close to the quality of solid but overrated albums by the likes of Beyonce and Justin. The album, as a whole, is a bit more attitude-laden and sensual (without being crass) than her previous work, but the thin layer of sleaze that permeates this album actually improves the overall quality.
I'm a huge fan of Eighties pop, considering it to be better crafted (and much more catchy) than any pop music made before or after. I guess part of the reason I like this album as much as I do is because so many of the songs on it remind me of classic hits from that decade. This can be taken quite literally: in the wake of Rihanna's hit single "S.O.S." (which bit liberally from Soft Cell's new wave classic "Tainted Love"), several songs on this new album sample heavily from older classics. The trashy "Shut Up & Drive" features buzzing, video-game synths lifted from New Order's "Blue Monday", while the keyboard line from Lionel Richie's "Running With The Night" adds flavor to the sensual "Push Up On Me". Continuing in this vein, "Don't Stop The Music" is a fast-paced club jam designed to set dance floors the world over on fire. Rihanna's echo-filled vocal is perfectly placed against a throbbing rhythm and a very familiar sample of the "ma ma se ma ma sa ma ma coo sa" chant that ends Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'". It's one of the best pure dance tracks I've heard in a long, long time.
One thing that sets this album apart from Rihanna's previous two is that the songs are just as good when the tempo slows. "Hate That I Love You" boasts a breezy, acoustic arrangement, sumptuous vocal harmonies, and a very well-matched duet with labelmate Ne-Yo. And if the haunting ballad "Rehab" (if I'm Amy Winehouse, am I P.O.'ed because my song title got jacked so quickly?) sounds similar to Justin Timberlake's smashes "Cry Me A River" and "What Goes Around", check the credits: Timberlake and his boy Timbaland are behind the boards for this track. The sleazy synthesizers of "Question Existing" almost create another winner-until a stilted spoken recitation from Rihanna almost completely derails the track.
Let's not forget "Umbrella"! Currently the #1 song in both the U.S. and the U.K., the bottom-heavy track may be a fairly innocent pledge of eternal friendship (using a "rain/umbrella" metaphor to comfort a friend in need). Warm sentiment aside, this song positively oozes S-E-X. From the sludgy synthesizer sound to Rihanna's stuttering in the chorus ("You can stand under my um-buh-rell-uh-elluh-elluh-eh-eh-eh-eh"), it's sensual and catchy simultaneously. Rihanna sounds like a sex robot with an electrical short. Additionally, it's one of the few songs featuring a Jay-Z rap cameo on which Hov's appearance is completely irrelevant to the song.
This album downplays Rihanna's island heritage-which isn't such a bad thing in retrospect. Some of her worst tracks are the ones that are the most reggae-ish (weird, considering those should be the tracks she'd be most comfortable with, no?). The album's worst track-the tepid ballad "Say It"-finds Rihanna crooning blandly over a wholesale jack of Mad Cobra's reggae smash "Flex (Time To Have Sex)", while "Lemme Get That" finds Rihanna rapping over a weird mix of reggae riddims and "Dirty South"-style hip-hop chants. It walks the very fine line between catchy and annoying that songs like "Hollaback Girl" and "Fergalicious" walk, and right now, I'd have to say it falls more on the "annoying" side.
Let's face facts: if you're not a fan of pure, mindless pop, you're not gonna dig this album one bit. Then again, if you're not a fan of pure, mindless pop, you're not gonna go looking for this album in the first place. As Rihanna's popularity has increased, the songwriting and production of her records has also increased accordingly. While "Good Girl Gone Bad" doesn't announce the arrival of Rihanna Fenty, artist, it's catchy as all hell and will sound damn good blasting out of your stereo during that barbecue or beach trip!
"Good Girl Gone Bad" by Rihanna
Released 2007 on Def Jam Records
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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