RIHANNA FULL ALBUM ANTI FREE

The-Dream, Timbaland and the Weeknd are all present the CVs of the other collaborators tend more towards Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar than Katy Perry. Those charged with providing so much substance that people wonвЂ™t understand the depth of her message come from the hipper ranks of R&B and hip-hop producers. вЂњShe may be the queen of hearts, but IвЂ™m gonna be the queen of your body parts,вЂќ she sang on the latter, demonstrating her unfathomable depth. вЂњI sometimes fear that I am misunderstood,вЂќ it opens, before suggesting that вЂњwhat I chose to say is of so much substance that people wonвЂ™t understand the depth of my messageвЂќ, which is certainly one way of interpreting her oeuvre to date, including Cheers (Drink to That), S&M and, indeed, Cockiness (Love It). The sense that Rihanna might have developed a case of the вЂњSerious ArtistsвЂќ is compounded by the artwork, which comes complete with an excruciating little poem, written in braille so that the visually impaired can be mortified by it as well.

The closest it comes to the stuff that Stargate or Sia Furler have sold her in the past is Kiss It Better, which has an ineffaceable chorus, albeit sung over a sparse musical backdrop thatвЂ™s the diametric opposite of the dense EDM-influenced pop that fuelled We Found Love or Diamonds. The kind of immediate, bulletproof pop smash on which RihannaвЂ™s career has rested to date is conspicuous by its absence, as are the kind of writers who provided them. Amid the sagas of romantic woe and the inevitable references to marijuana, there are a lot of lyrics about doing things her own way, being more creative, and a pointed-sounding line about her ability to вЂњcover shit in glitter and turn it goldвЂќ.

On the most basic level, Anti looks like a concerted attempt to steer Rihanna away from the world of manufactured pop. ItвЂ™s tempting to say the confused launch somehow fits with Anti itself, which even the most vociferous Rihanna fan might be forced to concede is quite a confused-sounding album: a Coldplayish acoustic ballad called Never Ending rubs shoulders with wilfully soupy, experimental R&B psychedelia breathes the same air as a wafty interlude that sounds like a luscious two-step soul number deprived of its bubbling rhythm track and a peculiar combination of Auto-Tuned vocals and 80s AOR guitar вЂ“ courtesy of ExtremeвЂ™s Nuno Bettencourt вЂ“ turns up alongside a pastiche of old-fashioned Muscle Shoals soul.

RIHANNA FULL ALBUM ANTI FREE

After months of careful preparation, involving a mobile-only website that transmitted cryptic messages and the unveiling of the artwork in an LA gallery, Anti mistakenly appeared on Tidal on Wednesday afternoon, was promptly bootlegged, then hastily shunted out as a free download. T he launch of RihannaвЂ™s eighth studio album was so obviously, resoundingly botched that you kept imaging her mentor Jay Z running around the offices of his streaming service Tidal shouting, вЂњ DonвЂ™t panic! DonвЂ™t panic!вЂќ like Clive Dunn in DadвЂ™s Army.

Rihanna full album anti