Rihanna “Anti” Review

Release Date: 28/01/15

Stand-out Tracks: “Woo”, “Love On The Brain”, “Higher”, “Close To You”

Rihanna has changed. It has been more than three years since Rihanna’s last album, 2012’s Unapologetic, and in that time a lot has happened in the singers professional and personal life. She left her long time label home Def Jam (sort of) and signed to Jay Z’s Roc Nation. She sued her accountant for $10million after he gave her some bad advice. She has had her instagram be blocked and unblocked after posting too many risqué pictures. This isn’t the same Rihanna that wrote Umbrella or What’s My Name, this is a more grown up Rihanna and it shows.

ANTI sounds like the album Rihanna wanted to make, instead of what the labels told her would sell. There are no EDM-inspired, earworm-inducing radio songs to be found on ANTI. The majority of the album has a very muted smokey sound that is very reminiscent of Travi$ Scotts’ Rodeo and sounds unlike anything Rihanna has done before. A quick look in the production credits reveals why, as Rihanna worked with the likes of; PARTYNEXTDOOR, Travi$ Scott, The Weeknd, Hit Boy, Drake, James Fauntleroy, Noel Fisher as well as many others to carve out ANTI’s sound.

There are traces of old-school RiRi throughout the album. The lead single “Work” featuring Drake, has a caribbean swing to it that sounds like 2010’s Loud. The DJ Mustard produced “Needed Me” sounds like a club cut from 2012’s Unapologetic. However, these traces end up seeming more like Rihanna making music she enjoys instead of her aspiring to any previous success. That is not to say Rihanna doesn’t sound good, her voice is as powerful and accurate as always. The difference here is, instead of her voice dancing over party drums, it now melts and swoons to the bass lines of the songs. The effect is the lyrics seems to leave her instead of her pushing them out, and this more than anything, lends to the album’s dreamy drunken flow.

And then we reach the last three songs.

“Love On The Brain”, “Higher” and “Close To You” may be Rihanna’s best music to date. Rihanna’s albums have a notoriety to be dragged down by the piano-lead ballads that populate their ends, but on ANTI it is just the contrary. Rihanna flexes her lyricism with some of her most vivid lines to date and she delivers these lines whilst pushing her voice to its limits.

“Love On The Brain”, the more upbeat of the three, is a heart-wrenching analysis of the submissiveness of Rihanna’s past relationships. The most notable line coming straight from the chorus;

That’s got me feeling this way

It beats me black and blue, but it fucks me so good

And I can’t get enough

Must be love on the brain, yeah

And it keeps cursing my name

No matter what I do

I’m no good without you and I can’t get enough

Must be love on the brain.

It’s a scary feeling and one that Rihanna voice and lyrics paints clearly. The heartbreak continues on the slower “Higher”, a short 2 minute song where Rihanna apologizes for drunk calling a past lover.

This whiskey got me feelin’ pretty

So pardon if I’m impolite.

I hope I ain’t calling you too late, too late

You light my fire

Let’s stay up late and smoke a J

I wanna go back to the old way

But I’m drunk instead, with a full ashtray

With a little bit too much to say

This is Rihanna at her most bare and most relatable. The simple strings that make up the track’s body only add to the overall feeling of desperation created by Rihanna’s words. Then before you know it, the song ends and you’re left wishing for more, and maybe that is the point.

The album ends on “Close To You”; Rihanna, a piano and nothing else. The song is about Rihanna lamenting how she wants to preserve the fading connection between her and her lover and is without a doubt a standout track on the album.

(The deluxe edition comes with 3 extra songs but they all play to the album’s earlier sounds instead of its later.)

To compare ANTI to the strengths of Rihanna’s previous work would be unfair. ANTI has to be evaluated as a single entity, and to that ANTI is a great piece of music. People may say this is Rihanna’s weakest album, with no sing-a-long anthems and with “Work” probably not getting the radio play that her previous singles have received. However this isn’t an album for the road trip with friends or for the kitchen pre-drink party or for the high-school karaoke, this album lives in the 4am moment built in nostalgia, melancholy and alcohol where everything moves slower, the world feels empty and dreamlike and past loves hurt the most.

(Originally written and published for Frequency21.com http://frequency21.weebly.com/rihanna-anti-review)