Barbadian
pop princess Rihanna has released her sixth studio album and kicked it off with
the single ‘We Found Love’ which is already an international hit. With this
album Riri continues what has almost become her signature style; upbeat pop
songs with raunchy lyrics and high sexual content.
The
album kicks off with the track ‘You da One’ which has a Caribbean style and reminds
us of Rihanna’s early work. It’s followed
by ‘Where Have You Been’ where house music influences are apparent.
Current hit
single ‘We Found Love’ follows after that and up until there it all seems
pretty innocent and cute as Rihanna gives the impression that she's just a girl
looking for love. ‘Talk That talk’ and ‘Cockiness (Love it)’ kick in
after that. As to be expected, these are not so innocent. The first is a
collaboration with Jay Z where he raps about girls going to the toilet (which
is quite an original subject actually) and requesting to have that ‘talk’
talked to her all night. The song ‘Cockiness (Love It)’ is just plain obscene
with lyrics like ‘I love it when you eat it’ and ‘Suck my cockiness/Lick my
persuasion’.
After this sex overdose, things become a bit cuter again with the
ballads ‘We All Want Love’, ‘Farewell’ and ‘Drunc on Love’. Most of the songs
are about finding true love, loneliness and break up pain. Another song that
has the typical Rihanna sound is ‘Roc me out’. Once again there is lots of sex
in the lyrics but not as raw as on previous songs.
The
album also has dubstep influences like in ‘Red Lipstick’; a style of music we
rarely hear coming from mainstream artists. Rihanna's range of influences come from having worked with a lot of
different writers and producers for this album such as Calvin Harris, Stargate,
the Dream, Rob Swire and Alex da Kid.
This is
absolutely not Rihanna’s best work to date. ‘We Found Love’ is a good single and
easily the highlight of Talk That Talk. The album will of course sell and if you
turn it up at a house party it’ll probably get people on the dance floor. However,
she could have done better. Releasing an album every year is very impressive
but unfortunately in this case her commendable work rate hasn’t don’t the
quality of the music any good. Sex might sell but it gets old after a while.
Just ask Madonna.
