Галагазета | Rihanna Unapologetic Review
Rihanna Unapologetic Review
g189639064, 3 марта 2013 г., 6:11
The sound of a human dragged headfirst into a breakdown, and somehow surviving it

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Unapologetic is Rihannas' seventh album in as many years, and makes for a demanding listen. The "drunk workhorse" character of the Barbadian singer, who frequented previous albums in some capacity, is absent here.

Instead of anything cheeky or fun, this set is laced with the very real presence of someone using the spectacle of pop music to inadvertently condone abuse.

The Chris Brown duet, Nobody's Business, is inevitably the central attraction of this album. It's a wonderfully light throwback to the late-80s piano house although it's lyrics make the listener feel like an intruder. You'll always be the one that I wanna come home to, Rihanna sings, marching on down the aisle, caught up in Brown's cooing response.

It's not new for people to write songs about abusive relationships - recorded by the likes of Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington, the 1922 blues standard Ain't nobody's business explicitly addresses violence against women. But it is perhaps new for songwriters to be commissioned specifically for the task.

Bold production disguises some are in bad taste - but lines like, like a bullet your love hit me to the core / I was flying till you knocked me to the floor, from No Love Allowed, are uncomfortably balanced between true love and awkward acrimony. And the mixture of emotions across Unapologetic just doesn't sit right.

On What Now, Rihanna takes a look in the mirror and tells us that she doesn't know how to cry. On Jump, she preaches that she won't be chasing her ex.

Throughout, the context and rancour can't be shaken - but at least there's clarity between Rihanna's defiance on the club tracks and the heavy sadness in the ballads.

Maybe Unapologetic is proof that we should have more faith in young audiences reasoned understanding. Maybe it's a hammering of the point that pop music shouldn't shy away from real life sadness. But more realistically, Unapologetic seems to position Rihanna as a human being dragged headfirst into a breakdown, and somehow surviving it.

Tracks

1 Phresh Out the Runway
2 Diamonds
3 Numb
4 Pour It Up
5 Loveeeeeee Song
6 Jump
7 Right Now
8 What Now
9 Stay
10 Nobody's Business
11 Love Without Tragedy / Mother Mary
12 Get It Over With
13 No Love Allowed
14 Lost in Paradise

Release Details
Label: Def Jam Recordings
Album Released 19 November 2012.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/bjcg 
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